Dean Jacqui: Bail Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Bail Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2013. Volume:691;Page:11522. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):I want to acknowledge in this second reading of the Bail Amendment Bill the work of the Law and Order Committee and the willingness of committee members from across the House to have a decent look at the issues surrounding the Bail Amendment Bill matters that were brought before us. I also want to acknowledge with thanks those families and family members who came to our committee to make their submissions and to tell their harrowing stories of the loss of partners children and family members at the hands of people who were out on bail at the time that their family members were then murdered or grievously harmed.I want in particular to acknowledge Tracey Marceau for her petition and the 58000 people who supported and signed that petition. The committee thought very carefully about how we would best consider the Bail Amendment Bill and the Christie’s Law petition matters that were brought before us. The committee agreed that in order to do justice to both those matters we would separate the two matters—deal with the Bail Amendment Bill which this House is doing now and the committee would then consider the matters raised in the Christie’s Law petition. The committee is doing that. The committee is working carefully and thoroughly on the issues raised that were out of scope of the Bail Amendment Bill consideration. That work is ongoing and in due course the Law and Order Committee will be reporting back to the House on that very important bill and the issues it raises.The Bail Amendment Bill amends the Bail Act. It also amends the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act the Sentencing Act the District Courts Act and the Summary Proceedings Act and that is done to improve public safety. I do not agree that the changes proposed in this bill are around the margins. I believe that the changes promoted in this bill will make a real impact on public safety which is the primary reason for bringing this bill to the House.When National took office we promised to review aspects of the bail system. What we did do was we reversed Labour’s 2007 amendments that made it in fact easier for defendants to get bail. Labour made amendments that restricted the test for remand in custody and in fact made it easier for defendants to get bail. We reversed that and then in 2011 we did wide consultation with the public on their views about what else needed to change; hence this bill has come to the House.The main provisions of the bill are in reversing the burden of proof in bail decisions for those charged with serious class A drug offences such as manufacturing or dealing in P which in 2011 when this Government came in was at epidemic proportions. It is known that more than a third of defendants arrested for serious class A drug offences do go on to offend while on bail. We are also moving to reverse the burden of proof in bail decisions for defendants charged with the most serious crimes such as murder.The current list of specified offences has not been reviewed since the Bail Act was enacted and it now does not reflect the risk posed by defendants charged with other serious offences—violent and sexual offences—who do have a history of serious offending. So the bill expands the list of violent and sexual offences that result in a defendant being subject to a reverse burden of proof. If they have prior history of such offending they need to convince the judge through their counsel that they should be allowed out on bail.The bill will strengthen bail conditions around young defendants. It will make defendants aged 17 to 19 years old subject to the standard adult test for bail if they have previously served a prison sentence. What this does is remove the strong presumption infavour of bail that currently applies to them. The bill allows the court to detain defendants under 17 years of age who significantly or repeatedly breach their bail conditions. The bill enables the police to uplift young defendants found in breach of court-imposed curfews and return them to their homes and to approved places of safety—not only so that they cannot reoffend and to keep society safe but also in an endeavour to keep them from further harm and further reoffending. Police bail is granted by the police before the defendant appears in court for the first time and so the penalties for failure to answer police bail are increased under this bill to be an offence that carries up to 3 months’ imprisonment in addition to the current maximum $1000 fine.The electronically monitored bail regime will be put into law under this bill to ensure that it is administered consistently and effectively. Courts have been able to impose electronic monitoring as a condition of bail since 2006. The Government has reviewed electronic monitoring of bail and it is turning out to be an effective and safe way of managing defendants in the community.Finally before National came into office in 2008 crime was increasing gangs were growing stronger in number and in influence prisons faced a critical shortage of beds the drug P was at epidemic levels and was seriously damaging communities violent repeat offenders were being freed on parole and the courts were truly congested. National is turning that round. This bill is part of that and I commend it to the House.