Franks Stephen: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
Franks Stephen: Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) — First Reading 
[Volume:607;Page:4646] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 On behalf of the ACT party I also commend this bill to the select committee. The use of an omnibus bill like this to collect up minor and non-controversial amendments is a handy way of getting rid of anomalies and fixing drafting defects—as Mr Worth from the National Party has just said. It is way also of encouraging people to take an active interest in the quality of the law and to feel that things can be improved without having to wait for a specific bill on a particular matter. 
I think that the concerns some have about omnibus bills have been proved over time not to be justified. There are attempts from time to time to put into them things that should not be put in. In this particular bill I am very pleased to see that there are several things that it does not have. In Part 14 which deals with the Flags Emblems and Names Protection Act there is an amendment that does not have the provisions that the Government tried to push through in December relating to the silver fern and the All Black emblem. I had of course looked very quickly to see whether there was anything there and it is an assurance of the integrity of the statutes amendment process that because ACT raised an objection the Government is not now trying to deal with the matter by way of a statutes amendment bill. In other words the statutes amendment process relies on acquiescence or agreement by all members for it to proceed which is why it is a handy process. 
I am a bit surprised that the bill does not include some of the business law amendments that business has been waiting for for so long. I am not sure whether there is a reason for that—perhaps the Minister in charge of the bill will be able to explain when it gets to the select committee. I know that there is a business law omnibus bill that has stalled. I think it is a shame that the same rules that have proved so useful with this Statutes Amendment Bill should not apply there but I wonder why the things that have stalled were not then brought into the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3). Maybe there is a different criterion and I should catch up with that. 
The amendment to the Bail Act draws attention to the fact that a bill passed just 2 years ago to deal with something as fundamental to the administration of justice as bail has now had to be amended. It draws attention also to the relatively narrow set of amendments here. The Hon Phil Goff had started the bail reform process as a member in Opposition. He put a reasonable amount of energy into making sure that it proceeded and the Bail Act was passed in 2000. That contrasts very unflatteringly with the lack of progress in other equal—or more important—areas of the administration of justice. There was a lot of data on breaches of bail and on the offences that were being committed on bail. The Bail Act was calibrated to deliver about the number of remand prisoners that the Minister felt he could get the resources to cope with. What this amendment is now proposing probably does not change that but it enables a variation of bail conditions to be made without necessarily getting the consent of sureties. I hope that the select committee look very closely at that because I have a concern that the obligations of sureties are not actually taken as seriously as they should be. I am concerned that we are not using sureties in the way that they are used for example in some states of the United States where bail bondsmen do most of the work that has to be done by the police here to make sure that people turn up for their trials. 
As I understand it the bail bondsmen system in most states that use it is far more efficient and effective in ensuring that people turn up than using the police. The police naturally can see that as a low-priority function especially if they think that the court is just going to slap the offender with a non-custodial sentence or in some other way frustrate them so that they end up seeing the offender simply rotating again through the justice system because the penalty is not effective. I am sorry that this bill deals with sureties in a way that goes in the wrong direction. I am satisfied that it is suitable for this amendment to be in the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 3) and that it goes to the select committee for consideration but I believe that this bill would have done a better service if as far as section 57 of the Bail Act—which deals with the conditions of bail and requires the consent of a surety to a change in the conditions—is concerned the Government had instead put that amount of attention or more into giving bail bondsmen a better role. 
It could also have looked at clause 9 which amends section 59 and allows the police to treat drug defendants who are picked up while on bail and deal with them without a warrant in the same way that most others can be dealt with without a warrant. It raises the question as to why parole offenders are not treated similarly and why there is much more rigmarole for recommitting people who breach parole. I am sure that the select committee will not be able to get into that but it is a great shame that this whole area is dealt with under the Bail Act which is reasonably firm. The initiative for it came from by Mr Goff before he became the Minister of Justice and now that he has been the Minister of Justice for nearly 4 years the Parole Act and the Bail Act are out of step. The bail system is simpler and more rigorous than the parole system. 
There is a matter of some curiosity to which there is probably a simple answer but Part 9 which amends the Coroners Act seems to give the Privacy Act more weight than it has had in the past. If a request about a coroner’s data is made by the individual to whom the information relates then it must be dealt with in terms of the Privacy Act. That obviously cannot be intended to apply very often because plainly for the coroner to have reported much or all of the information will presumably relate to the person who is dead and that person will not be asking for the information in terms of the Privacy Act. Presumably there is a ready answer and the select committee will get to explain why that provision is significant. 
In Part 12 which amends the Domestic Violence Act there is a proposed amendment to allow regulations that would facilitate the screening of programme providers. Again I am sorry that that amendment is so limited. I have had correspondence with a number of people around the country over the last several years that suggests to put it at its most polite that the providers of restorative justice programmes around the country are variable to say the least. I have had uncontradicted information from one court that a programme provided in its area had given incorrect statements to the court and on being challenged on those statements the judge was given a false reassurance. On writing to the Minister about it there seemed to be nothing—and no one was accepting responsibility—for vetting programme providers for restorative justice purposes. The particular case I mention involved a trust that said it would offer a work programme under the supervision of a particular person. The court was prepared to make a sentencing decision that reflected the availability of that trust. 
What actually happened was that the person they had nominated was dead and had been dead for a year. It seems that the programme provider might simply have been running the photocopier or the word processor and not really paying attention to the obligations he or she was accepting from the Court. So it seems to me that Part 12 should apply not just to programme providers for domestic violence programmes but also to programme providers for any of the justice processes where there is a need to vet deregister or disqualify some of the providers. 
I see the Speaker moving as if to tell me my time is up so I will not start on the Injury Prevention Rehabilitation and Compensation Act.