Dalziel Lianne: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDalziel Lianne: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10762. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East): I want to remind this House why the legislation that we are debating today the Prisoners’ and Victims’Claims (Continuation and Reform) Amendment Bill has not actually lived up to the expectation that was had for it and for this present Government when the legislation was originally debated and passed through this House in 2005 as my colleague Andrew Little has described. He quite rightly highlighted the fact that “Successive Governments”—both Labour and National—“have made the political decision that paying out significant compensation to prisoners for their treatment while in prison is unacceptable to a significant proportion of the public and could affect confidence in the justice system.” That was the basis for the legislative change that Labour brought into effect in 2005. We introduced the original legislation to “further reduce the likelihood that prisoners would be awarded compensation for rights breaches during their incarceration.”But the sunset clauses were put in there for very good reason. They were included to limit the application to claims arising from the behaviour management regime which have been described and which nobody in this House would describe as being on the side of criminals. Actually it is being on the side of the proper treatment of incarcerated prisoners and as has been quite rightly pointed out that is not something that anyone—any member of this House—could possibly stand up and say that they would find unacceptable. I want to talk about the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and also the Crimes of Torture Act which we have passed in this Parliament as well and our commitment to that.Sunset clauses were included really to look at that behaviour management regime situation to make sure that any applications that were being dealt with under that could actually be dealt with and to also allow time for an independent prison complaints body to be established. The view of the Ministry of Justice at the time was that the legislation and its sunset clauses together—and it was together—“represented the best compromise between ensuring compensation is only paid to prisoners once they have redressed the harm caused to victims”—in terms of the financial obligations that arose out of that—“and upholding New Zealand’s domestic and international human rights obligations.” That actually remained the ministry’s view. I should say to the House that the document that I am quoting from is the regulatory impact statement that led to the introduction of the legislation that reaches its conclusion in the very near future on 1 July.So the sunset clauses in the 2005 legislation were originally due to come into effect on 1 July 2007. However the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Amendment Act 2007 extended the sunset clauses to 1 July 2010 and the reason for that was again twofold. It was because work on the independent prison complaints body was still ongoing and the behaviour management regime claims were not completed. But neither of those things was an indication to an incoming Government an incoming National Government that this would result in the kinds of changes that it has now introduced nor that it would be made permanent.In 2005 the Ministry of Justice began its work on an inter-agency working party to examine existing prison complaints and monitoring processes within the Department of Corrections and to scope the role of an independent prison complaints body. Under that enhanced role that came down to the Office of the Ombudsmen it was given responsibility for monitoring investigations into deaths in custody and serious incidents that could potentially affect the safe fair and humane treatment of offenders.What I should point out to the House is that we did actually receive a submission from the Office of the Ombudsmen. Of course with the office’s important role in terms of being formally designated as the national preventive mechanism for prisons and compliance with the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment its statement to our Justice and Electoral Committee I believe was very very important. What it stated was: “We areconcerned that the victims’ claims scheme which the Bill makes permanent provides neither a suitable way to compensate victims of crime nor a suitable way to prevent abuse or mistreatment of prisoners in accordance with New Zealand’s international obligations.” I believe that that is an incredibly serious statement because the Government is claiming not only that this bill somehow will enhance the rights of victims but that it is in accordance with our international obligations. The Office of the Ombudsmen which has this very important role in terms of oversight of our prison service says the exact opposite.I want to remind this House again as I did in the second reading of a document that was drawn to our attention by the Sensible Sentencing Trust. I believe that the trust has raised an exceptionally sensible point that every member of this House should be aware of and that is that it discovered that there was a report:Victims of Crime in the Adult Criminal Justice System: A Stocktake of the Literature. Where did it find this stocktake of the literature and what did it find? Well the trust found it on the Ministry of Justice website because the Ministry of Justice has been doing this work on the victims of crime. And what did the trust find to be the guiding principles for providing effective service and support to the victims of crime? They were: “Respectful and confidential treatment: available research shows that while outcomes are important to victims (eg reparation convictions) consistent with the concept of procedural justice the manner in which victims are treated is more important.”That is what the literature said. “Individualised response/ flexible services: there is strong evidence that people are affected differently by crime. Services allocated purely by crime type or victim type are likely to miss other victims with significant needs. Assessment must ensure individual needs are identified and services need to be sufficiently flexible to provide individualised response. A range of service options should be offered so that individual preferences can be catered for.” It goes on about services being accessible; the provision of right information at the right time in the right format; delivered by experienced knowledgable well-trained empathetic staff; consistent high-quality services and support; integrated service provision; end-to-end individualised support; and accountable services.The Sensible Sentencing Trust said this is what victims are asking for. That is what they want and unfortunately this bill does not resolve these problems because what it says is that money will be allocated to victim support but only if the human rights of the person who has perpetrated the offence are somehow offended against in a way that earns them compensation while they are in prison for a crime—you know the crime in fact may or may not be one that affected the individual concerned.There are many people for example in our prisons who are in there because they have been caught with possession of a drug they have been caught several times drink-driving they have problems that they need to have addressed but they are serving time in prison. In many respects they are the victimless crimes where nobody else has actually been harmed in the process of them committing what is an offence. But they too are caught by this and if their human rights are challenged by the service that is supposedly providing them with humane prison treatment then somehow that means that that money is available and that is the only way that it is directly available apart from the offenders levy.It seems to me that this is getting the wrong point. If we are going to hold people accountable for meeting those financial obligations then surely it means that we should be looking at more productive ways and more I believe important ways of holding people to account for their actions. If we are to ensure that people take responsibility for their actions then surely it is not only if they have been in this situation but if they have a windfall like a Lotto win or something like that—all of these things were supposed tobe looked at when we actually allowed for the sunset provision to take place. So I think the Government has really done a great disservice both to the victims of crime and to our international standing.