Locke Keith: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Procedure New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Compliance First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
Locke Keith: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Procedure New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Compliance First Reading Second Reading Third Reading 
[Volume:653;Page:2379] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party agreed to give leave to discuss the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill this afternoon in a rather rapid fashion through all its stages on the understanding that it was a technical amendment of unintended consequences in the original legislation. The Minister has pointed out one of them about offenders giving permission for a supervision order which clearly was not intended when the House discussed the legislation back in 2004. 
The other technical amendment that we were told about was that it was conceived in the original bill that electronic monitoring would be allowed beyond 12 months yet the legislation prevented that. On that understanding—that this bill is largely technical—we gave leave. Now we are in somewhat of a dilemma because just before this debate started the Attorney-General announced that he had given a Bill of Rights report on this bill and in this report he argues very strongly against the House’s approving this legislation. This report puts us in a considerable quandary because we were going to support this bill on the basis of what we understood the technicalities to be. I am in the process of reading this Bill of Rights audit because it has only just been deposited in the House. 
One of the problems when I look at the legislation in the light of the Attorney-General’s report is that it says that for up to 12 months—and this is in the original bill—one can have effectively a home detention situation and restrictions on residency in that sense. If this amendment goes through after 12 months one will be able to have residential restrictions short of 24 hours a day but there is nothing that says how much short of 24 hours a day. That is quite relevant because one of the things quoted by the Attorney-General is that home detention of 14 or more hours per day based solely on risk to the public is arbitrary and in breach of article 5 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The essence of the Attorney-General’s paper is that this is turning into a penal issue—that is the extended supervision order regime is now moving from a civil restriction to a penal restriction. The problem there is that the people affected have not been convicted of any crime; their treatment is based on the risk that they might commit a crime. There is a problem with that and the Attorney-General quotes the European Court of Human Rights on this. The argument that detention for the prevention of future offending is not arbitrary in nature in terms of article 5 of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms was described by the European Court of Human Rights as leading to conclusions “repugnant to the fundamental principles of the Convention”. 
So we have a bit of a problem. The Minister has said that there are now 130 people with an extended supervision order. I have also received some other statistics that show that of the 164 people on extended supervision orders in the period since 2004 only six have reoffended. If we fit that together with the Attorney-General’s comments there could be a situation whereby more people are being subjected to these orders than should be the case. Now under this amendment serious child sex offenders could effectively be the subject of a home detention for up to 10 years except that it is not quite home detention because it is not for a period of 24 hours. It is not allowed to be for 24 hours beyond the first year; it could be a little less than that for the following 9 years. 
We are getting into a rather difficult position. We have to look at the conclusion of the Attorney-General—that is the fact that this bill’s goals could be achieved without contravening the right against double detention or double jeopardy does not provide justification for the inconsistencies in the bill. The State should not detain citizens solely on the basis of preventing future offending; nor should it punish offenders twice for the same offence. That is the double jeopardy argument. 
I think we have to look at the large number on extended supervision orders in the light of the law and order debate that has taken place in this country over the last few years. We saw evidence of it today in one of the questions asked in Parliament. There was reference to the Auckland youth who killed another Auckland youth while out on bail for another violent offence. It may or may not have been right in that case to give that person bail. I am not getting into the technicalities of that case. I am just saying that in the context of this debate we have the police putting pressure on the judges when making their case by saying: “Look we can’t risk it. If someone commits an offence while out on bail or a former sex offender commits an offence and we haven’t got them”—as in the case that was brought up earlier during question time—“in custody on remand or in the case of sex offenders we do not have an extended supervision order on them then we are falling short of our duty and the public will get us.” 
There is a tendency to put more people under these restrictions than is necessary which does not help rehabilitation. There are certainly no apologies from the Green Party to anyone who is engaged in sex offending but the statistics provided to us today show that sex offenders have the lowest rate of reoffending of any criminals. They are the statistics. Originally the law was designed—and I was part of that original debate in 2004—to cover a group of sex offenders who were seriously in danger of reoffending. The extended supervision orders were designed for them and that is what we were told they were designed for. The other point is that the whole extended supervision order business has been extended beyond sex offenders to apply to parolees in general for any offence. The Department of Corrections has to give reports on that so to some extent we can study whether that order is being used excessively now. 
As there were only two speakers before I started speaking I have not even finished reading properly the Attorney-General’s assessment of the bill in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think the Green Party will have to cast an abstention because we have not been given the full information to be able to consider on behalf of the New Zealand public exactly which course we should take. Thank you.