Robertson Grant: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeRobertson Grant: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8116. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central): I wish I was.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Well premature.GRANT ROBERTSON: I want to actually talk about both clauses 1 and 2 in some calls in this particular part of the debate. The first of those is to talk about clause 1 the title which will be the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act. It is quite clear that in terms of this title the “Information” bit is the focus of the bill. So we have had a number of contributions from members as we worked our way through Parts 1 and 2 about the way in which information is provided. We have had amendments proposed to try to ensure that the New Zealand public can feel secure that all the information that the New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections need is being provided. The jury is out on that. We have certainly seen up to now some considerable difficulties about the provision of information. I even heard the Minister of Justice on the radio this morning unable to tell New Zealanders where the first load of people coming from Australia on an aeroplane would land—did not know she said.Hon Ruth Dyson: At an airport.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes well that is a good guess Ruth Dyson that it will be at an airport. That narrows it down a little bit does it not? So it is still clear that there are difficulties and issues with the amount of information that is flowing to the Government.We also had the Minister of Justice tell us that she did not find out about this until February. Well that is hopeless. Clearly her sources of information are very poor. The New Zealand media was reporting it in January; the legislation was passed in Australia in December. So the flow of information to the New Zealand Government has not been good. The Minister this morning on the radio blamed the fact that this piece of legislation is now being rushed through under urgency on the fact that she did not get the information about the prisoners that was required to draft this legislation until September. That is just ridiculous. And if that is actually accurate—that the Australian Government has been withholding that information from the Minister of Justice—well it speaks volumes about the poor state of the relationship between New Zealand and Australia under this Government that the Minister of Justice did not even get access to the information required to draft this legislation until September. I actually do not believe that by the way. I think that that is just a case of the Minister finding an excuse for having dragged her feet on this issue from December last year.So the bill’s title that this will be the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act—yes it is about information there is absolutely no doubt about that but the failure of this Government to get on top of the flow of information on this issue I believe has been writ large by the Minister over the last couple of weeks. But the main part of the title that I want to focus on in this call is around the question of “Management”. So the title is the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill and in the Chamber last night the Minister of Justice told us that we should not go looking in this piece of legislation for the way in which the offenders who are returning to New Zealand will be managed in terms of their reintegration. She told us last night that this was a justice bill. She said: “This is not a bill about reintegration.” Well just pause on that thought for a moment. Is that not what it is all about when somebody actually goes into prison or in this case returns to New Zealand as a person who has been imprisoned and ends up in an effective parole-like arrangement? Is not the management of them all about reintegration and rehabilitation? That is what this bill should have been about.To the credit of the officials that is what they thought this bill should be about. They wrote in the regulatory impact statement and in the advice that we have now seen in this Committee all about the importance of reintegration. They gave paragraphs of material to it. They put it in the objectives which should have been what this legislation ended up being about. And then the Minister of Justice stands up in this Chamber last night and says: “Don’t come looking in this legislation for information about what’s going to happen in terms of accommodation in terms of employment or in terms of health outcomes.”Every member of this Committee who represents an electorate in a large town or city has dealt with a prisoner who exits the prison system and falls through the gaps.Peeni Henare: That’s right. Come to Tāmaki Makaurau.GRANT ROBERTSON: That is right Mr Henare. In my office in Wellington Central I have prisoners who come in. They have spent their $300 from the steps to freedom grant within the first 24 hours and they do not have anywhere to live. We have to work with them because the Government decided not to fund the former Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society now known as People at Risk Solutions properly any more. We have to work with them to find their way forward. Imagine being somebody who comes to New Zealand under these arrangements who has no backstop and has not lived here for 45 years. They have got nothing and the Minister of Justice says: “Well don’t come looking in this legislation for anything that’s actually going to really help with”—to quote the title of the bill—“ ‘Management’ of returning offenders.” The Minister says: “Don’t go looking in this bill to see if we’re actually going to sort out their accommodation.”Kelvin Davis raised this in the Chamber last night. What happens when those people come in? I heard the Minister say this morning: “Oh they will be met at the airport and they will be asked ‘Have you got somewhere to live?’ ‘Oh I don’t know. Maybe I do. I’ll go and stay with my cousin who I used to play with when we were 4 years old which is the last time I saw them.’ ” We know that information that is provided in those moments is often wrong or misleading. Answers are given by people to get out of the way. They do not want to deal with any of these officials any more. “Yes I’ve got somewhere to live.” Yes that is a satisfactory answer. Box ticked; away we go.What about the health outcomes and the health issues? There will be significant mental health issues involved not only I might say potentially for those who are the returning prisoners and offenders but also for others in the community who might know them or have some experience of dealing with them in some way—them or their families.Peeni Henare: Family in Australia.GRANT ROBERTSON: Yes. Mental health issues are one of the biggest issues in terms of reintegration: the support that is required to be able to become part of a community. Again the needs are greater here than they would be for released prisoners in New Zealand because the lack of whānau support the lack of family around actually will make those mental health issues even bigger. Where is that in this bill? Where is that in the bill that is about the management of returning offenders—that is what the title of the bills says: the “Management” of returning offenders. And the Minister says: “Don’t come looking in this bill for how we will actually manage them in terms of their mental health in terms of their accommodation needs in terms of how they will actually reintegrate into the community.” This is a perfunctory response a rushed response because the Government mucked around and failed to heed the warning signs coming out of the Australian lawmaking process and as a result that is not here in this bill.I actually think it was David Clendon from the Greens last night who got up and spoke about how as you followed through the advice of the officials the objectives that they put up and then you found your way to the purpose of the legislation it lost its focus. It suddenly became this very functional piece of legislation about information and its relationship with the Parole Act. So the title of this bill to my mind is actually a misnomer. This is not about the management of these returning offenders; it is in fact about the mismanagement of these returning offenders and the failure of this Government to have in place the kind of reintegration and rehabilitation regime that is now needed. These released prisoners and released offenders should not be coming back to New Zealand; they should be going to Australia where their family is. The Government has failed in its advocacy in that regard. Now it is doubling up on the failure by failing to put in place a proper reintegration programme.I just want to briefly in the remaining time left to me speak about clause 2 the commencement date and the fact that this comes into force on the day on which it receives its Royal assent. That will probably be today or tomorrow at the very latest. That is too late. That is a failure by this Government: the fact that here we are on 17 November 2015 when this will come into force. It was December 2014 when the Australian Parliament passed this legislation. I guarantee you if we look into the cables that emerge out of the New Zealand High Commission in Canberra there would have been one in December that said that a big change had just happened under Australian law about what happens to people who have served time in prison or who are regarded as being of bad character. I guarantee the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade officials were up to the task of doing that. Perhaps the Minister had gone off for her Christmas break; perhaps she was not focused on it. Come January there were articles in the newspaper. They would have been reported to the Minister but the Minister failed to recognise those.Tony Abbott came over here for the 1-day cricket game between New Zealand and Australia which New Zealand won—Kane Williamson hitting a six with New Zealand nine down. I was there. I saw John Key and Tony Abbott meeting. Apparently that was when they finally got around to first discussing this—in February. John Key perhaps in the euphoria of the Cricket World Cup forgot when he got back to Wellington to say: “You know what Amy Adams? We should actually be drafting up some legislation now so we are ready on this.” Did not bother to do that—did not bother to do that. Sat around and waited for information to come from Australia and then finally gets around to introducing a bill about 9 months later. That is hopeless; it is a failure.