O'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8140. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): New Zealand First still supports this bill warts and all but buying into it is a bit like buying a new car especially if the old one has died and a new one is needed immediately. What one gets one will be stuck with for a significant period in the future whether it is fit for one’s purposes or not. It would be good to have tested it properly before buying it and probably one should have studied it for a few months to see whether it would be fit for purpose but that luxury has long gone—and so it is with this bill. Clearly it should have been introduced months ago. The Minister of Justice said the process started in February—and for her yes I am sure it did but not for the rest of us. The rest of us have had just a few days to look at this bill to study it to see its ramifications and to debate it and that really is not good enough. That is not the usual process which we have a right to expect in this Parliament for this kind of important legislation.New Zealand First deeply regrets that it is necessary at this stage to pass such a bill under urgency. When you think about it it has been almost a year since the Australians passed their legislation and it has been 9 months since the process began in New Zealand to respond to that legislation. So in the end we get this rushed process to pass a bill under urgency when in fact much better could have been done and that rushed process shows in many of the errors and the inadequacies in the drafting of this bill.We in New Zealand First are quite happy to acknowledge that the fundamentals of the bill are perfectly OK. We are quite happy to ensure that offenders are identified on arrival in New Zealand and we are happy to ensure that prisoners returning to New Zealand comply with Parole Act conditions and any special conditions that may imposed by the courts. We have no difficulty with that but it is the detail of the bill that has caused concern. Those matters as we know are usually sorted out in the select committee process and that process is missing from this bill. The most important aspect of that is that the public has no opportunity whatsoever for any input into this bill and that is a very significant matter. I would have looked forward to hearing from organisations such as the Law Society and many others that have special expertise and could have contributed to a much better piece of legislation. We are not going to get that either and that really is a shame.The only saving grace is clause 37 which requires a review and report by the Justice and Electoral Committee after 2 years. The Minister’s amendment says now that it should be in an appropriate select committee after 18 months but not even that is long enough in the circumstances. There were always two better options.Firstly I think Labour’s parallel process option is the one that ought to have been adopted. That would require effectively two bills—one passed now and the other to go through the select committee process in the normal way with full public consultation and so on. That would have been the best of both worlds. We could have had legislation that comes into force this week—as this bill will—and yet have a select committee process to sort out all of the issues that there are with it. I think that the only reason the Government is not willing to do that is that to do so would mean that it would be admitting it had acted too late. That is the reason why this Government is not willing to adopt that very sensible dual process which the Labour Party proposed.The other option was a closer date for review than 18 months. When you think about it 18 months means May 2017 at the earliest. That is the time at which election issues are really starting to warm up leading up to the election campaign for later that year. Effectively it really means that the review would actually be in 2018. That is far too late. The opportunity to learn from experience after this bill is passed is in the first year. That really requires the review to start no later than 12 months from when this bill is passed this week. That is not being adopted and that also is a shame because to wait until 2018 for a complete review will mean that a lot of issues that will arise will go unfixed for far too long.This could have been done a lot better and New Zealand First deeply regrets that the Government has not taken on board those concerns expressed by many of the Opposition parties in Parliament. We already know of some of the areas needing review which could be—but will not be—amended right now. Indeed Minister Adams herself produced amendments within hours of the first reading of the bill so she herself knew that she was bringing to Parliament a bill that actually needed amendment from the very beginning. Opposition parties have offered amendments in good faith to try to help improve the bill. A few have been accepted but most have not been seriously considered and that also is a shame.There was not the opportunity for a select committee process which would have provided for much better amendments and review of the bill. Actually when you consider it this bill really could have been introduced by the Government at least say 6 weeks ago because it has had at least 9 months if not more to bring the bill to Parliament. If it had done so 6 weeks ago we could have had a shortened but worthwhile select committee process with public submissions and especially submissions by expert organisations and the result right now this week would be much better legislation.I want to acknowledge David Parker and Trevor Mallard in particular who raised drafting issues and issues of substance and placed them on the record. Those issues have not been dealt with and they ought to be. It should not be necessary to wait until 2018 effectively for those matters to be looked at again. David Parker in particular offered an amendment which I thought was well worthwhile to add words to clause 9 to add a requirement for offenders—as they are so called in the bill—to provide information about convictions and penalties. That information is obviously necessary. Why has it been left out? It would have been so simple to add those few words—completely harmless words completely worthwhile words—which would have added some important information. But the Government has refused to do it with some pretty weak excuses made by the Minister—excuses I would have to say that did not really make any sense. So the bill will now be passed without those words added and it will be the poorer for it.I raised a number of issues regarding clause 7 especially around the term “liable for deportation”. Those also have not been addressed. I raised issues about clause 10(2) concerning the period of detention. The Minister said case law could be relied on to define what a reasonable period is but why not specify a maximum reasonable period in the bill? That would have been better so the Minister’s response I think was completely inadequate on that. I and others have raised a whole raft of other issues—issues of substance issues of drafting—and all of those will now have to wait effectively until 2018 before anything can be done about them. Really that is not good enough for a process for legislation of this importance.Finally let me say this: New Zealand First has always supported the objects of this bill—the object of making sure that we are ready to accept a greatly increased load of offenders and returning prisoners especially those from Australia but also from other countries. We have always accepted the need for that. It is probably legislation that should have been done years ago so we have been happy to see this legislation come forward. We support it. What we do regret very deeply and protest about very strongly is that it has been so slow and that the opportunity for Opposition parties and indeed the public to have genuine and substantive input into this bill has been completely inadequate.