Goff PhilHon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): I am still waiting for the Minister of Justice to take the call on the inadequacy of the bracelets because we need to know before we legislate for the extension of their use that they are fit for purpose and not readily removed. We have the Committee of the whole House so that the Minister can hear the genuine concerns of the Opposition and respond to them. So I really do hope that the Minister will take the call because otherwise we are going through the motions and the Government is just bulldozing the bill through. This bill is going through with our support. We are seeking reassurance that the intent of the bill will be carried through in practice because the things in it will work. I have another series of questions for the Minister in the chair and it is appropriate that she is the Minister of Justice because what we have found when we are making these changes is that her colleague the Attorney-General has issued a report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That report—and I want to quote from that report—applies to each of the clauses in this bill that we are working through. The Attorney-General Mr Chris Finlayson has said that he has concluded that the Bill appears to limit the freedom of movement and the rights against unreasonable search and seizure and double jeopardy affirmed in…the Bill of Rights Act." He says that this cannot be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society. Normally I would be deeply concerned about a report under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that said that we were in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but frankly I think the Attorney-General's report is a nonsense in these circumstances. I want to be reassured by the Minister about why a member of Cabinet would issue a report like this that actually effectively says we should not pass this bill that is before the Committee today. That so exactly what it does.Chris Bishop: It's not in his role as a member of Cabinet. It's Attorney-General—it's not in that role.Hon PHIL GOFF: No no. The Attorney-General is wrong in the judgment that he is giving or the law is an ass. I want to go through this with the Minister of Justice. She is well-qualified to answer my concerns here. The vetting says that the bill breaches the freedom of movement—well exactly. Why do you put an electronic bracelet on a person who has been guilty of domestic violence if not to stop that person having freedom of movement to go to where the victim is and revictimise that person? So why is it that we are so deeply offended that the bill does what it is intended to do which is to restrict the freedom of movement?There is another category of offenders. These are offenders who offend under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Clearly a condition of their release may be that they do not use or go to places where they can get alcohol and drugs. So of course Minister would you not want to restrain freedom of movement so that you can enforce a prohibition on that person going back to the substances that led them to offend in the first place? There is another category of offender that my colleague Su'a William Sio talked about and these are child sex offenders. One of the conditions that you place on such a person is that they do not go to a children's playground or a school but the Attorney-General is telling us that this breaches freedom of movement. Well that is exactly why we are passing this legislation today. We do not believe that a child sex offender should have the freedom to go to a place where that person is tempted to reoffend and revictimise. So I am asking the Minister of Justice why it is that we are told by a member of the Government that this breaches the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act on freedom of movement? If it does is it not time Minister that we changed the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to accommodate what is demonstrably justified in these circumstances? Then there is the question of search and seizure. If you go through the clauses of this bill you will see that one of the purposes of each of these clauses is so that we can get evidence on an offender on parole on home detention or in some other form of restricted movement about the offences that they have committed. But then the Attorney-General tells us: "No it breaches rights around search and seizure because we are using the evidence that that person has offended." Mr Bishop does that not sound to you like a nonsense as well? Then there is a third thing. It says that if we pass this we are breaching double jeopardy because we are punishing the offender again. I want to put it to the Minister that this is not at all a breach of double jeopardy. Double jeopardy is when you are punishing a person twice. I passed the original extended supervision order legislation. It was not to punish people twice. It was because the people whom the court was ordering that there should be extended supervision over the court was saying were at risk of reoffending. So this is a preventive measure—a preventive measure—designed to stop people from reoffending. We know that the actual criterion set out under the extended supervision order is that it will be imposed on those who are at risk of reoffending. So the three grounds that the Attorney-General has given us on advice from his ministry do not stack up and do not hold water. This is not the first time this has happened in regard to extended supervision orders. Why are we going through the farce of having laid on the Table of this House a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that patently cannot be right in terms of saying that what we are doing tonight is demonstrably unjustified?Chris Bishop: That's up to us. It's a parliamentary bill of rights.Hon PHIL GOFF: OK. What I want Mr Bishop from the Minister is an explanation why we are yet again going through the farce of having a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that says we should not be doing what we are doing when I believe that it is demonstrably justified that we do this to protect the safety of the community. So is it too much to ask the Minister to take a call and give the Committee an explanation of why we have this report laid on the Table of the House by the Attorney-General that says effectively we should not be doing this as a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when there are demonstrable reasons why we should and we are not ignoring the rights of the offender as much as we are enforcing the rights of innocent people not to be victimised in a situation of genuine risk. How many times will we go through this process again where we go through the motions when we are passing legislation and the Attorney-General says "This is all bad; it is not justified it restricts people in an unfair way." but we do not believe that that is the case? So I have got two sets of questions—just so the Minister has not forgotten them—(1) if we pass this legislation do we not need the legislation to work? Do we not need the public to have assurances that somebody does not just snip off the bracelet and walk away? You know I heard Todd Barclay saying "This happened only 40 times."—happened only 40 times—15000 times the electronic monitoring rules have been breached: some of them minor some of them serious. There have been 26 to 40 people out in the community creating some risk to New Zealanders. We have them under electronic supervision so that we know where they are and what they are doing. They have taken them off we do not know where they are we do not what they are doing and sometimes they do appalling things while they are in that situation. So there is that set of questions. We want this legislation to work and work properly to enhance the safety of New Zealanders and to stop New Zealanders from being victimised and we want an answer on why we lay a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet on the Table that the Government—apparently because it is continuing with this legislation—intends to ignore and dismisses as being irrelevant. Well if it is irrelevant we should not just ignore it. We should change the provisions in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act so that they make sense so that when we restrict the rights of offenders in order to protect the rights of other New Zealanders that can be regarded as a justifiable act. They are genuine questions Minister. I would very much like that you take a call and explain the Government's position to the Committee."