Ryall Tony: Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill — Second Reading 
Ryall Tony: Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20559] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 The National Party in Opposition is opposed to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill. We believe that payments to prisoners should be blocked stopped and wiped out. We do not believe that New Zealand should be constrained by the figment of what the United Nations may or may not state in various conventions. We believe that the people of New Zealand have a right to express their view and the view of the people of New Zealand is that there should be no payments whatsoever. The Justice and Electoral Committee reports at some length about the victims who appeared before it and expressed their views on the priorities that there should be. The select committee clearly stated that the overwhelming majority of victims who appeared before it wanted to deprive the criminals of the money rather than to enrich themselves as victims. The victims did not want the money and did not want the crooks to get it either. We think that the Government has failed completely to address any of the concerns of victims and of the wider community. 
Let me make it absolutely clear what this bill does. Even though Mr Goff may stand up and say he is stopping prisoners keeping the cash this bill allows inmates to keep some or all of the cash. It does nothing to stop them getting the loot. It does nothing to stop them receiving taxpayers’ money for all the range of imagined harms that they may have experienced while they were behind bars serving their punishment for offending against the community. 
How can it be that this bill allows inmates to keep some if not all of the cash that may be awarded to them in a compensation claim? National’s view in its minority report on the bill written by Dr Richard Worth makes quite clear the number of areas where prisoners can keep the money. The first area is when the victims are deceased—if the victims are deceased the prisoner can keep the money. What happens if the victims are not readily identifiable? The National Party has used the example of many of the most vile inmates in our country’s prisons: the drug dealers. Those people have sold drugs whether it be through a middleman or directly themselves. But how can we identify their victims and who are eligible to make a claim? We cannot. So if a drug dealer gets a $300000 or $400000 payout from the Labour Government there are no readily identifiable victims to make a claim and the criminal gets to keep the cash. We think that is a failure of this bill and a failure of the Government’s policy. 
The National Party makes the following point in its commentary on the bill and I agree with it completely: what sort of bill pits one victim against another? What sort of Government pits one victim against another? This bill if for some horrible reason it is passed into law will require victims to plead their cases of relative harm in order to receive any compensation payment. We will expect some authority to measure the different levels of harm anguish and continuing suffering that various victims feel. That is all too heartless. This bill will allow prisoners to keep some if not all of the cash and that is not what New Zealanders want. 
One of the arguments that the Government has used—and the issue seems to have tied the United Future and Labour members of the select committee in knots—is the undertakings that New Zealand has apparently given with regard to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. Members will recall that when this bill was introduced the Minister of Justice appeared on television and said that the United Nations convention requires that we pay the money and that we do this and that. But as the National Party has pointed out it is quite clear that New Zealand has a specific reservation in respect of the right to award compensation to such criminals under article 14 of the convention and it is that compensation is payable only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. New Zealand has made it quite clear to all the international agencies that we will not follow their rules as we have our own rules and that any payment will be made only at the discretion of the Attorney-General. So it would be very easy for the Government to pass a law or indeed to adopt a policy that it will not pay money to criminals for any alleged harm or otherwise that they may have suffered while in prison. 
New Zealanders were outraged that the Labour Government wrote a cheque for the hurt feelings of a vile individual who raped and killed a young woman as he stuffed pebbles down her throat. He received a cheque from the Government because of his hurt feelings. A man who raped and murdered a woman while shoving pebbles down her throat had a payout from the Government for hurt feelings. The Department of Corrections decided that it would just pay the money out and not even appeal the decision on a matter of principle. I say that no New Zealander would have criticised any authority that said it was so repugnant that such an individual should get a payout that it had to be stopped. It would have been and it is very easy to change the law to stop inmates receiving payouts. Let us be absolutely clear that this bill does not stop the payouts. It does not stop the worst criminals in New Zealand receiving a cheque from the taxpayers. It allows inmates to keep some if not all of any payment the Labour Government may choose to make. That is not what people want to occur. 
I say to the House that it is not against the United Nations convention or against any other law for New Zealand to say “no payouts”. 
Ron Mark 
: Yes it is. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: It is not. We have expressly stated that we have our right to make a decision. It is expressly the view of the National Party that we should not allow any payments to prisoners whatsoever. If prison staff violate beat mistreat or offend against prisoners and the law we should charge them. 
Ron Mark 
: Charge them; convict them. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: Absolutely—just as for example if the Prime Minister committed art fraud we should charge her. 
Ron Mark 
: If she is speeding going to a rugby match. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: If she is speeding we should charge her. Sorry who is the police commissioner? If prison officers commit a crime we should charge them. But we should not expect victims to pay taxes so that Phil Goff can write out a cheque in compensation for offenders’ hurt feelings. 
This bill will not work. The Government will be humiliated if when it pays out money to a criminal there are no victims and no claims so the criminal keeps the cash. It should take our advice and change this bill—withdraw it. It is much simpler to block stop and wipe out the ability for the worst people in our community to receive payouts for what are claims based on figments of their imagination.