Adams Amy: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8111. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice): I want to take a call to talk on a typescript amendment I have tabled this morning picking up concerns and discussions that I have had with other parties over the course of the evening. I said last night in my contribution that I was happy to continue to talk to parties and if we found areas of common ground to support them where they made sense. This morning I have spoken with the Green Party the Māori Party and the Labour Party—I am sorry Mr O’Rourke I have not had a chance to reach out to you—around the clause on the length of the review. There was some concern expressed to me that there was a preference of this Committee that the review period be shortened from 24 months or 2 years to 18 months. The Government will support that and so I have tabled an amendment doing that which will be coming to members. It also just picks up some advice I have had from the Clerk which I do not think will be of any great concern to the Committee.Just so that you are all aware the bill as introduced talked about referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee. This amendment is just providing more flexibility so that the Clerk can nominate the appropriate committee because as we know various parliaments constitute committees in various different ways. So because it has just been tabled I will read it to you: “Replace clause 37 … with: 37 Review by select committee. A select committee to be determined by the Clerk of the House of Representatives must 18 months after the commencement of this Act review the operation of this Act and prepare a report on that review.” So in other respects it is the same but with a shortened time period and just making sure that there is no issue around the select committees at any point in time being reconstituted as the Clerk would have the ability obviously to determine the appropriate one which I do not imagine members will have any great concern with.I did just want to also come back to Mr Parker. We discussed last night that I would consider his typescript amendment around whether we need to add the requirement for a legal compulsion on returning offenders to give us their criminal histories. My view at that time was that it was a circular argument and that we would need to have their criminal histories to know that they were returning offenders to then collect the information but I undertook to confirm that. That is certainly the advice that I have had through from officials. Without their criminal history records we cannot classify them as returning offenders. The only way that we could make sure that was comprehensive would be potentially to require every returning New Zealander to disclose all criminal convictions and that is not a step I am prepared to take as an intrusion on New Zealanders returning to their home country.So firstly I am convinced that to do it in the manner proposed where it is only returning offenders is circular because we already know their criminal histories at that point but the other point I checked in discussion with Mr Parker was whether police were confident that they had the ability to get criminal history information from any jurisdiction. They assured me that they are. They assured me that they are and that they do not see that as necessary so on that basis we will not be supporting it.The other point I would make is that once a person is identified as a returning offender we of course have the ability to take their biometrics take their details and then of course continue to follow up. So we will have enough information to determine them as returning offenders and then in the future obviously with biometrics we can continue to build on that. But the police’s advice to me is that it is unnecessary the legal advice to me from my department is that it is circular as I had first thought and so on that basis we will not be supporting that amendment.