Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDrug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2044. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation BillFirst ReadingDebate resumed from 26 February.MAHESH BINDRA (NZ First): It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First and speak to the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. I continue on from where I left off last time. This bill seeks to amend the previous legislation put in place where bailees and parolees including those offenders who are based in the community were at times liable to abstain from using drugs and alcohol. However there was no mechanism in place to make sure that they complied with those orders with the result that the legislation itself was rendered slightly powerless. But we support this bill because it seeks to strengthen the previous legislation which is the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and amendments to the Parole Act.This bill ensures that those offenders who have been ordered to stay away from drugs and alcohol actually do so and there are repercussions if they do not. This bill will make sure that offenders not only those inside the wire who are being randomly drug tested but also those in the community will be liable for random testing with regard to their use of drugs and alcohol. That will make our communities safer and that is the reason we support this bill. Also there will be parity between the offenders who are actually inside the prison with those who are entrusted to behave better outside the wire—those in the community.These are the reasons that we in New Zealand First believe this bill should be supported.JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill here in its first reading. I would say that this is a bill that New Zealanders would say is needed and is common sense. It seeks to strengthen and support the good work that the Department of Corrections is doing in our communities.There has been much debate over the years regarding the activities and behaviours of people on bail and the fact that they can while on bail continue to perpetrate crime. Certainly the same could be said of community-based offenders. This bill seeks to enable the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police to require community-based offenders and bailees who are subject to conditions prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol to undergo drug and alcohol testing. That is common sense you would think. In many respects having a condition to bring these activities to the attention of those bailees and those community-based offenders—saying that you should not do it—but having no testing regime to support that means that that condition really cannot be enforced very effectively and in many respects it makes some of those conditions not effective.The reason some offenders and bailees will have conditions placed upon them is that drugs and/or alcohol were significant in contributing to their lawbreaking in the first instance. Therefore if we are serious about reducing recidivism—that is repeat offending—we have to address one of the significant causes for such reoffending and that is alcohol and drug use.Drug and alcohol use is a major driver of crime. The Department of Corrections reports to us that two-thirds of New Zealand prisoners have substance abuse problems and more than 50 percent of crime is committed by people under the influence of drugs and alcohol. What happens when somebody gets under the influence of drugs or alcohol is that their self-discipline starts to break down. Their judgment becomes impaired. Issues that might be below the surface come to the surface. Frustration anger bad decisions thoughtlessness and selfishness—all of these start to surface and become drivers in a person’s personality and actions. Fifty percent of people who commit crime do so while under the influence of drugs or alcohol. This is a significant problem that we face here in New Zealand. By tackling this issue we can contribute to people leading an offence-free life once they leave prison or complete their community sentence.As a party our goals are clear and direct. We want to introduce alcohol and drug testing where being drug and alcohol - free is a condition of bail home detention or other community sentences to help ensure that conditions are being met. It is important in a society based on the rule of law to ensure that our laws can be properly administered monitored and obeyed. All of these people end up with community-based sentences or in prison and come out on bail because they have broken the law of this land. We need to not only help them to not do that while they are under the supervision of corrections but we want to assist them in a life change.Having alcohol and drug testing for those people who have that alcohol or drug - free status as part of their condition of bail seems to be a very logical and a very sensible thing to do. Where offenders are back in our communities we want to support them to stay away from the driver of crime that they have faced in the past and we also want to keep our communities safe. It seems nonsensical that we would insist on this while they are under the supervision of the Department of Corrections yet when they leave that supervision they have no support in our communities. I know there are great organisations out there that do support these people.This bill also supports National’s Better Public Services goal which is to see a 25 percent reduction in reoffending by 2017. Those are very noble and aspirational goals some may say yet we are nearly halfway there to achieving this simply because the Department of Corrections is applying great effort and intelligence to the issues that cause people to offend. Much of this of course is around addiction and the fact that people who have alcoholism or drug addiction have their lives impaired in all sorts of different ways with the outcome as I said before that they are perpetuating crime. If we see this 25 percent reduction in reoffending by 2017 it will mean 4600 fewer offenders returning to prison and 18500 fewer victims. What a fantastic result it will be when we see that.It takes measures like this to ensure that we can achieve those goals. We cannot just sit on our chuffs and hope. We cannot just cross our fingers and hope that we will get to this goal and that society will improve. We have to put measures in place and that requires legislation that will change things and bring greater accountability but will also give greater support to those people who struggle with these addictions to alcohol and drugs.At the moment the police and corrections staff are trying to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with drug and alcohol conditions but they are limited in what they can do. Current legislation does not give them clear authority to test offenders or bailees so what this bill does is it clarifies that and gives them that authority. This bill is a legislative mandate for alcohol and drug testing of eligible offenders and bailees.I want to read a quote from the Guardian newspaper in the UK on the topic of treatment of prisoners’ alcoholism. It says this: “But tackling prisoners’ drink problems would have a hugely beneficial impact on recidivism reducing crime rates and easing the burden on our overcrowded prisons. In evidence to the commission the chief constable of Northamptonshire police Adrian Lee said the impact of alcohol crime on police is ‘huge’ and described the possibility of inmates leaving prison dry as a great window of opportunity ‘to catch them sober and offer the help and support they need’.”Imagine if this were to happen in New Zealand and we were to see a former prison population that could deal with their alcoholism and substance abuse and if those who are on community-based sentences who had alcohol and drug problems could become free of that. How much would we save in our corrections facilities? How much would it take the pressure off our police force? How many families would be better off? How many kids would not suffer the effect of domestic violence? All of these things are important if we want to see a better and healthier society and if we want to see the taxpayers’ investments made for positive change to build and uplift our society. I am very happy to commend this bill to the House.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: David Clendon—a 5-minute call.DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am also pleased to speak to this Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. We are supporting this legislation and are doing so with some considerable goodwill. We think it is essentially good legislation. But our support is limited to the select committee at the moment because there are one or two aspects of the bill where we do have some concerns and some qualifications. Nevertheless we will be seeking to remedy those at the select committee. I do not think there is anything that should prevent us from supporting this bill through assuming we can get some of those changes made at the select committee.Mr Young has just outlined some of the reasons why we support this legislation. It is clear that a lot of the reasons why people end up in the justice system are to do with drug and alcohol abuse. The numbers vary but it is absolutely one of the primary drivers of offending not least of all of violent offending.We know that despite this unfortunately we continue to under-invest in drug and alcohol treatment programmes particularly community-based programmes and it seems perverse that we do not adequately invest. I doubt whether there is a community-based treatment programme in the country that does not have a waiting list currently and that is strange. Even when courts are referring people to these programmes in order to try to prevent further offending often those courses may not be available for a week or a month. In the meantime the likelihood of offending goes on and I think that is something we need to address and do so as a matter of urgency.What this bill does in a sense is it aligns the situation for non-custodial sentences or indeed people on bail a little bit with what happens for people serving custodial sentences. It provides some mechanisms some operational tools to enable routine and random monitoring and testing for drugs and alcohol which will demonstrate compliance or not with conditions that are imposed by the courts by the Department of Corrections by the Parole Board or whomever it might be and that just seems an entirely sensible thing to do. It is frustrating we know to see conditions applied if there is no mechanism or means to ensure that those conditions are complied with.I think it will be a good thing for offenders frankly. People who are in the community serving community sentences do come under considerable pressure and often peer pressure to breach their conditions—“Have a beer have a toke ingest something or other”. I think knowing that they can be subject to random testing in this way will enable them to resist that pressure to just run around the margins to indulge in alcohol or drug taking or whatever it might be. I think that is a very positive thing.I also think that it is a means where perhaps the courts can take a little more comfort in putting out non-custodial sentences. We know there is a constant barrage of opinion—misinformed opinion—that would have it that only custodial sentences will do. The courts are often under pressure to imprison people in the misguided belief that prison is always a better option than non-custodial sentences or other forms of treatment such as specialist courts and the like. We know that is untrue but nevertheless the judiciary are under pressure to do that. Again the implementation of this legislation—knowing that drug and alcohol conditions will be imposed and can be monitored and tested for—will I think give the judiciary a degree of comfort from that.Just as an aside to that—albeit a related comment I would make—I recommend to anyone who has an interest in these matters a booklet that has just been published a small publication from the Rethinking Crime and Punishment website of the Robson Hanan Trust: “If Prisons are a Cause of Crime Why Not Reduce the Numbers?”. It gives us some very clear local evidence that putting people in jail is not actually the most productive thing to do. Despite a drop in offending—despite a drop in the crime rate—we are nevertheless putting more people in jail. That is perverse and it is wrong and any measure we can find to enable more use of non-custodial sentences is a good thing.There is one minor provision in the bill that I am puzzled by. The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police are both able to make rules about monitoring about measuring and about setting limits. There seems to be nothing in the bill that obliges them or even encourages them to actually talk to one another while they are making those rules. To me that is a recipe for inconsistency for having a mix and a muddle. If they set different limits for example it would seem odd that there is nothing in there to allow for some collaboration between the two. These are matters I will take to the select committee and we look forward to a good process there.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: A 5-minute call—Jenny Salesa.JENNY SALESA (Labour—Manukau East): It is with pleasure that I stand to take a short call on this bill the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. This is an important piece of legislation and one that Labour supports to its next stage. We know that the misuse of drugs and alcohol is a major driver of crime and criminal activity.I would like to share a story that is relevant to this bill and it highlights why it is important to have a bill like this. A lady who works in crime prevention was working with an offender who had a very long history of offending. His record indicated that most of his offending involved drugs or alcohol. He had already clocked up a very long history of criminal activity. This young man was on parole and one night he and two friends decided to go driving. He had never been tested for drugs or alcohol while he was on parole. In the course of this night as they were driving he unfortunately went across the middle line and went head on into another vehicle that was coming on the other side. The young man who was on parole was the driver and he was heavily under the influence of alcohol. This accident unfortunately resulted in his best friend who was a passenger passing away and his other friend who was also in the car is now confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life.When the cost of incidents like this in human terms in misery in lives lost in health and disability support services and in dollars is considered the potential benefits of the preventive measures that a bill like this proposes seem to me to be well worth our serious consideration in this House.Research from the United States indicates that where high-risk drink-drivers are aware that the chances of their detection are very very high recidivism can be reduced by as much as 36 percent. The Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill will enable the Department of Corrections and the New Zealand Police to require community-based offenders and bailees—the individuals who are subject to the conditions prohibiting the use of drugs or alcohol—to undergo drug and alcohol testing in order to ensure that they are complying with the condition of abstinence in their sentencing.Each year around 5000 offenders are on community sentences and orders and approximately 15000 bailees have an abstinence condition imposed. However it is only in very very rare cases that abstinence conditions actually require testing. Testing for the presence of alcohol and other drugs to improve compliance with abstinence conditions is already widely used overseas in the United States and in the United Kingdom as well as in Australia. The evidence shows that it actually works. In Australia where they have been testing offenders for quite some time they have concluded that as a result of their experience targeted testing especially of those at the highest risk of reoffending is the most effective way of improving public safety around these offenders.Here in Aotearoa we have a group of offenders and bailees whose offending is at times directly related to their consumption of alcohol or taking drugs. The issue that this bill solves is that the current legislation does not provide clear authority that allows offenders or bailees to be tested in order to find out whether they are continuing to abstain from alcohol or drugs.Labour would like the committee to explore the threshold for reasonableness regarding the frequency of testing and in the context of the privacy and dignity afforded to those subjected to testing. We would also like to hear evidence about the use of alcohol monitoring technology and its effectiveness. We believe that the imposition and enforcement of a drug or alcohol condition play an important role in preventing reoffending and ensuring that our public are kept safe. We support this bill. Thank you.IAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It is a pleasure to rise to speak to the Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill. It is also a pleasure to rise to speak to a bill that seems to have comparative support around the House—and may that continue as it progresses through the select committee stage and on to becoming law.I guess I take a slightly different view from that of some of our previous speakers on one or two of the issues that are behind this and I will outline them as I go along but I just want to go into the background of drug and alcohol testing. Of course for some time now we have been drug and alcohol testing in the workplace. It has had a significant impact on quite a large number of people in our community. It has also tidied up our workplace safety and I think on the whole workplaces as a result of that drug and alcohol testing are much better places. In the sports field in the sports arena—and I think of the racing industry in particular—there has also been significant need to test for both drugs and alcohol both animals and humans actually. Again it has cleaned up those sports. It has got them working to a much better extent although you would have to wonder in one or two cases whether we have got the balance right in respect of how we test and where we test. Again we get on to our schools. There has been some talk of testing in schools and there is certainly some need to test in some instances in our schools. Finally I want to get on to our roads where we test for just about everything on a constant basis.So having tested all of those parts of our community and our life you would wonder how it has taken us so long to get on to testing people whom we let into our community who have offended in some way and whom we are trying to reform. So it is really I think a great way to get these people behaving in a different manner than they behaved before but before we can do that we have got to go back to the basis of the problem.I think that in the case of many of the people who end up in prison or offending for whatever reason sure they have been affected by drug and alcohol at the time they offend but I think we need to investigate the reasons why they take drugs and alcohol or why they tend to use them and as a result of that offend. I will never defend the use of drugs. I think that it is something that is on the whole beyond our control as people and certainly beyond our control once we start using them. However I do want to defend the use of alcohol in moderation.To bring in laws that impose penalties on us and impose on the 99 percent of people—perhaps 95 percent of people would be more accurate—who have no problem with alcohol I think it is necessary that we have some moderation around how we impose legislation on those people because it certainly impacts on the average person’s life. I for one do not believe that passing laws to rectify the wrongs of 2 to 3 percent of our community should necessarily affect the other 97 percent. So I think that we need to go back into those problems that have caused this. It is often a learning disability or difficulties personality issues health issues and other personal issues that lead to the use of drugs and alcohol and consequently lead on to crime.The reason for the crime of course is that both of these habits are expensive and often lead to crime in order to procure these things. So the people who end up in our prisons and are then either released on parole or released into community service need first of all to have some very comprehensive programmes put in place to rehabilitate them and give them the opportunity to shake the bad habits that they have acquired around drugs and alcohol. I think our prisons are starting to do that very well and I guess I take issue with a couple of things that David Clendon said although I realise that he supported the bill on the whole.First of all I do not think we are putting more people in prison as a result of crime. We are getting a lot more of them based in our community and the use of GPS and those sorts of tools is making it much easier for us to put people back in our community and to make sure that we know where they are and what they are up to. The tools for drug and alcohol testing will also enhance that and enable our law and order community to ensure that those people are adhering to the conditions set down for them. So as has been said by a number of our speakers the process for drug and alcohol testing of these people will be carefully controlled. It will be not exactly random but it will be supervised at all times. I think that the process that we go through will be very good and will make a big difference to how these people rehabilitate once they are put out into our community.This Government is putting a lot of effort into remodelling our social housing stock throughout our communities and when you think about a lot of people who end up offending in New Zealand before they offend during the time of their offending and after offending they rely on community and social housing for that rehabilitation. They often come from that background and it is most important as we go through this rehabilitation and the use of drug testing to help with that rehabilitation that we also pay significant attention to the social housing requirements of these people and the fact that we need to house them in an environment where they are not enticed to go back and reoffend in the manner that they have in the past. I think that is part of the Government’s efforts around social housing and it is certainly part of the communities that I come from. The Manawatū district for example had a number of—208 in fact—community houses. A large piece of the work they did on those community houses was to ensure that there were social systems in place to support the people who lived in those houses.We have lived in an environment in New Zealand for many years—for almost hundreds of years—where we have not had I guess the social service environment around our social housing that enables us to protect people who have been put there to live or have been let out of prison or have gone through the rehabilitation process from their criminal time and then been put back into the community. So there are a number of things that I think are particularly important and I think that one of them is to try to understand the reason why people who end up in prison start offending under the influence of drugs and alcohol. I think it can often be traced to their background the fact that they are challenged by the education system and have not got through that education system as well as they might have.Certainly the current Minister of Education is putting a great effort into ensuring that kids leave school with a decent start and that they have had a much better education than perhaps we have been accustomed to in this country. Last week I visited Rangitīkei College with her which 3 years ago had a level 1 National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) pass rate of 35 percent. Of course when you have got that many people leaving school with no qualifications at all it is highly likely that they are going to offend get into trouble with drugs and alcohol and end up in the judicial system. That position has reversed in 3 years from 35 percent level 1 NCEA to now being at the level of 80 percent after 3 years’ work. That will in my view make a big difference to the reoffending rate in the Rangitīkei community and certainly in Marton where that school is based.I look forward to this bill getting to the select committee stage. I also look forward to the cooperation of all the parties on the Law and Order Committee. I have been fortunate to have been on that select committee for the last 3 years and I am there again this term. It is an interesting select committee to work with because we seem to cooperate a lot in these types of bills. I was really pleased to hear today about the amount of support that this bill has from around the House. Our committee is led by that very auspicious man Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi and we look forward to working with him as we progress this bill. So it is a difficult task for the select committee and a challenge for our community to get these people back in the community and in one piece.I commend this bill to the House and look forward to the next few months of working on it. Thank you.Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): As prior speakers on behalf of the Labour Party have already indicated the Labour Party will be supporting this bill going to the Law and Order Committee. The regulatory impact statement that accompanies this bill and that has been presented to the House says in its second paragraph: “In its pre-election policy statement on law and order the National Party signalled its intention to introduce ‘random drug and alcohol testing where being drug free is a condition of bail home detention or other community sentences’ ”.Then it goes on and I think this is the thing that I want the select committee to answer for me by the time the bill comes back to the House. It says: “It would not be appropriate to rely on existing provisions in the Sentencing Act 2002 the Parole Act 2002 and the Bail Act 2000 to introduce an alcohol and/or other drug testing regime.” So the first question I have is whether this legislation is necessary because it seems to me that we have got a hint in the second paragraph there that it is already permissible as a condition of bail as a condition of a supervision order sentence by the courts or as a condition of parole to insert conditions as to abstinence from alcohol and to make an offender or someone who is on bail pending a charge subject to a testing regime. If that is the case then I would rather that the Government had been open about that than pretend that a great advance in the law is being made through this legislation if it is already permitted by the existing legislation. That said there is nothing wrong in the legislation or that is apparent on its face and for that reason we will be supporting it to the select committee.We have regulatory impact statements so that this Parliament makes rational decisions and so that we look at the costs and benefits. In this regulatory impact statement we have an assessment of what the costs and benefits are what the costs are of a testing regime and what the likely benefits are to be and therefore we have a reasoned position put forward by the Government in support of this legislative intervention. You would have to contrast that with the absolutely disreputable conduct that we have seen in the last day in respect of the Northland by-election where without any cost-benefit analysis the Government as an election bribe and that is all it is has said that it is going to upgrade—[Interruption] No with respect Mr Deputy Speaker I am quite entitled to raise in this House the importance of regulatory impact statements that we have here and to contrast that with conduct this very day that shows the importance of regulatory impact statements. In respect of those Northland bridges not one of them was—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member has made a point around regulatory impact statements. Now I would like him to get back to the bill that is under discussion and debate at the moment.Hon DAVID PARKER: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. Are you saying that because it is embarrassing for the Government for me to make reference—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! No and I take offence at that comment from that member and I am surprised that it comes from him. Please continue your contribution in respect of the bill.Hon DAVID PARKER: This regulatory impact statement talks about the status quo which the Government says is inadequate unlike in the Northland situation where there has been no reference as to why the status quo is inadequate compared with the cost of change. It then talks about what the other options are in respect of non-regulatory use of community support for testing which would be an alternative to the testing regime that is put in place and contrasts the costs or priorities of other interventions unlike what is happening in Northland where the regional land transport plan is being ignored and the National Land Transport Fund is being plundered to pursue an election bribe. This is an example of good legislation and good parliamentary practice. The example in Northland is a disgrace and members on the other side of the House should be ashamed of themselves for what is in my opinion a corrupt electoral practice.The Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill as has been said by others applies to three classes of people. It applies to people who are on bail. They are not yet convicted they may be convicted or they may be found not guilty but on occasions it can be appropriate to impose a condition that restricts access to drugs and alcohol as a condition of bail and where that happens it is appropriate that we take advantage of new technologies to ensure that that condition of bail is adhered to. It is important that we do not go too far and do not intrude more than is necessary in the sorts of tests that are imposed because these people have not yet been convicted of an offence and may indeed be innocent. That is an issue that no doubt the select committee will look at in order to get the balance right.In respect of people who have been convicted of an offence and who are given a non-custodial sentence—and it might be continuing supervision—then again the need to enforce a condition that is imposed as to maintaining freedom from drug and alcohol abuse is appropriate and a testing regime to back that up as has become common in other jurisdictions seems sensible. Indeed as one of my colleagues mentioned in an earlier contribution I think the findings in respect of similar provisions in Australia are that these testing regimes can make the community safer by enforcing these conditions but can also assist the offender to maintain their non-abuse of drugs and alcohol to the benefit of the offender as well as the community.The third category of people that these drug and alcohol testing regimes can apply to is people who have been in a custodial sentence but have been released on parole. A condition as to remaining drug and alcohol free can already be imposed but the provisions in this bill make it even clearer that that is the case and set out the drug and alcohol testing basis that can be imposed. Interestingly the bill says that the imposition of the requirement to undergo testing actually does not come from the Parole Board but can apply to someone who is on parole in respect of a drug or alcohol conviction or has been released under section 17 of the Parole Act 2002 with a drug or alcohol condition—so that might say that you have got to stay off the drugs or the booze—or is subject to an extended supervision order with a drug or alcohol condition. If those preconditions are met—i.e. any one of those categories of person who is on parole or release is met—then the authorised person under the Act can say to the offender: “You must comply with these conditions and you must submit yourself to the testing regime.”There has been some interesting technological developments—which I am sure the select committee will be referred to—using increasingly sophisticated technology to on a real-time basis ascertain whether someone is or is not free of alcohol and/or drug abuse. I suspect it is easier in respect of alcohol than it is other drugs and that will be one of the issues that the select committee looks at. Real-time notification of that screening—presumably through to the authorities—will enable the better policing of these conditions. The Labour Party supports this to select committee but notes the contrast in respect of some other poor conduct today and yesterday.SCOTT SIMPSON (National—Coromandel): It is a pleasure to rise in the House this afternoon in support of this Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill in its first reading. In doing so I want to just spend a moment or two drawing to the attention of the House some of the matters that we who are fortunate enough to be constituent MPs and who are involved closely with our communities will often find is the case. When we are dealing with matters of reoffending and criminal offending in our communities where so often so frequently and so prevalent the incidence of the abuse of drugs and alcohol is part of the very foundation of that offending it comes as no surprise at all to find that in fact statistics show that nearly half of all criminal offending has as its root as its base a drug or alcohol component. So we find when we are doing our constituency work that in fact this is a repetitive feature which occurs again and again and again.In the previous Parliament—the 50th Parliament—I had the pleasure and honour of chairing the Justice and Electoral Committee. In that select committee it became very clear to me during my time as chair that much of the offending that was being done in New Zealand had as its root core a drug or an alcohol component. Notwithstanding that we found that prison populations were in decline that criminal activity was in decline and that offending is reducing. But there is still plenty of work yet to do.And so we come to this tricky area of what the role of the State should be in terms of trying to help assist offenders—particularly those who are serving community sentences or who are on parole—and helping them to protect themselves from temptation of the sort that occurs when they are in an environment where drugs and alcohol are prevalent. What we find is that the State does have a role in assisting those who are sometimes vulnerable and have a propensity to be influenced by drugs and alcohol particularly where that involves their criminal offending. So the question for this House is really: at what point should we be involved in intervening and trying to assist and make sure that the opportunity for offending is reduced?It probably comes as a surprise to many people listening to this debate to find that notwithstanding the Parole Board courts and other departments—for instance the Department of Corrections—which have the ability to impose conditions around parole and community sentences that involve those offenders in not being exposed to drug or alcohol in fact there is little or no ability to enforce that situation. The numbers are quite daunting. The Minister in his first reading speech on this bill indicated that each year around 4000 offenders on community sentences and orders and around 15000 people on bail have abstinence as a condition of their release. It is all very well and good to have abstinence as a condition of their release but then not to be able to record or monitor that abstinence is in my way of thinking a complete farce and a bit of a conundrum. This piece of legislation will in fact remedy that situation in a neat and sensible way. At the moment of course police and corrections staff are trying to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with their drug and alcohol abstention orders but they really have no capacity or no ability to come good on that request or that provision to abstain. So this bill creates a legal mandate for alcohol and drug testing of eligible offenders and bailees and not before time in my opinion.There are a number of questions that the select committee in its deliberations will need to address not the least of which is how intrusive this testing and this monitoring should be. How often for instance should it occur? And in what particular circumstances should it occur? Should this be a matter that is completely private or should it be in some sort of community facility or should it be in some kind of situation where the offender is required to present themselves to a regulatory authority office or personnel and make the appropriate testing available? Then there are questions about what happens if the testing is not done. What happens if the person who has abstinence as part of their parole or bail conditions makes themselves not available? What sanctions will be imposed by the State in order to ensure compliance with this new legislation? Then of course there is a question about actually where non-compliance sits. How do you define non-compliance? These are matters that the select committee will have to address.But in the bill itself there are some answers to those questions. The bill does in fact establish a number of operational principles around the drug and alcohol testing regime. For instance the bill says that testing should be no more intrusive than is reasonably necessary to ensure compliance with the drug or alcohol condition that has been imposed. That test of reasonableness is a well-known one in our legal system and I think that the committee will find it relatively easy to find a pathway to a sensible conclusion around what is or is not intrusive in terms of testing. But then there will be questions about what is reasonable in terms of compliance with the policy. How often should testing occur? Should it be random? Should it be on a regular basis? Should it be at the same time each week? And then there are questions about what form that testing should take.As my colleague Ian McKelvie pointed out in his speech only a few minutes ago drug and alcohol testing these days is not new it is not unusual it is not weird and it is not unknown in a wide range of other aspects of our day-to-day life. In fact drug and alcohol testing is now very common very prevalent in the workplace. I have had constituents come to me and say: “Well if it is good enough for me as an employee of a company to be tested for abstinence from drugs and alcohol then surely it is also good enough for those who are subject to community service orders or who are out on parole or who have been somehow involved in our criminal justice system. Surely it is also good enough for those people who on the face of it have a greater propensity to be subject to drug and alcohol abuse. Surely it makes sense for those people to be tested as well.”Then of course we have the same situation—and technology has been able to guide us greatly—through testing of drugs and alcohol in the sporting arena and in sporting environments. Some of that new technology that information those systems that have been gained in the workplace and the sporting environment and indeed in terms of testing drivers for alcohol—that kind of technology will be available and of assistance in policing and monitoring compliance with this new piece of legislation.So the question I think is a good one about why those who are subject to our criminal justice system—out on parole out on bail who are subject to community service orders—are not tested. This piece of legislation provides the answer to that. I found it of great concern when I read again the Minister’s first reading speech on this bill when he highlighted that 48 percent—almost half—of all offenders report that at the time they were arrested they were either under the influence of at least one or another drug and/or alcohol all at the same time and often there were multiple incidents of drugs and alcohol as being part of their system which they were involved with at the time of their arrest. That is an incredibly high percentage and one that I think that this House surely would want to take cognisance of and make sure that we have the absolutely regulatory and legislative tools in place to ensure that a testing regime that can be compliant and that can be providing good certainty and assurances to the wider community for their total safety is in place.So I think this is a very good bill. I know that my colleague Kanwaljit Bakshi as chair of the Law and Order Committee will ensure that this bill receives very adequate and full attention of the committee. I know that some of the questions that I have raised will be given very good consideration by the committee as it deliberates. I will watch the progress of this bill through the House with great interest. I commend it to the House for its endorsement.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Law and Order Committee.