Sepuloni Carmel: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Sepuloni Carmel: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20859. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 Talofa lava malo e lelei kia orana. The tone of this debate has been quite good so far and I refer to what Shane Ardern said earlier about the fact that mistakes are made by Ministers. I think within what was achieved though we do need to remember that what Annette King did during her time as Minister of Police in terms of a complete overhaul of the policing legislation was a huge achievement. Unfortunately this is one mistake that has been pointed out but the usage of urgency to correct it is the right usage of urgency so we are now discussing this legislation. 
The tone of speeches until the beginning of Melissa Lee’s contribution has been good but I have to point out that her comments about my friend and colleague Chris Hipkins being scruffy and dirty are unfair. He is not scruffy and dirty at all. We do wonder what happened to the Melissa Lee who wanted to build motorways to get rid of all crime and stop South Aucklanders going to the rest of Auckland to commit crime. What happened to that big plan and strategy? We are wondering where that has gone. But that is beside the point. 
I turn to the bill. A mistake was made in the Policing Act 2008 and it is good that we are seeing urgency being used for the right purpose today so that that mistake can be corrected. We have before us the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill. This bill amends the Policing Act 2008 to restore the legal position under the Police Act 1958 in relation to the storage of youth indentifying particulars fingerprints and photographs. As Annette Shane Ardern and other members who have spoken on this piece of legislation have said it was an inadvertent mistake that is now being corrected. 
Under the 2008 Act the police can store youth identifying particulars only following a conviction. This means that if the identifying particulars of a youth are obtained and the outcome of the case is that an order is not made under section 283(o) of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act—relating to the youth being brought before the District Court for sentence or decision—then the identifying particulars cannot be stored. This legal position was not intended to be altered by the 2008 Act. There was no intention to alter that at all and as my colleague Chris Hipkins said basically this bill returns us to the status quo. There was no intention to change it.  
There needs to be greater scrutiny of complex legislation to minimise loopholes and greater scrutiny of the use of urgency to ensure that valuable parliamentary time is managed effectively. So there does need to be a greater level of scrutiny of complex legislation. We do need to keep in mind that that was very complex legislation so in some ways I think the House understands that we do need to be a little bit forgiving because of the complex nature of the legislation we are talking about and the fact that a mistake has been made—but it could have easily been made. However as we go into the future a higher level of scrutiny needs to occur to try to avoid that happening. 
When the Policing Act 2008 came into force a number of changes were made including to the way in which constables’ oaths were administered. However even after the changes oaths were still being administered in the same way as under the 1958 Act. This required an amendment to the Act to validate the oaths that continued from October 2009. So since this very complex legislation was brought in in 2008 I think this amendment bill will be only the second correction that has been made and hopefully this is the only other anomaly we find in the Policing Act. 
In October of last year Parliament had to rectify legislation because an amendment to the Summary Proceedings Act that came into force in June 2008 had excluded some minor property offences in the Crimes Act from schedule 1 of the Summary Proceedings Act. From  
Hansard 
 with regard to legislative mistakes Charles Chauvel said: “we need to look at why it happened and how we can do our best I think through the safeguards we have in the form of the officials and the select committee procedure and through our decisions as parties to vote in particular ways on particular legislation to safeguard against this sort of mistake being repeated too often”. The reality is that we are not perfect here and mistakes will occur. The point that Charles was trying to make—and I think we would all agree with—is that the fewer mistakes that can be made the better. So whatever levels of scrutiny we need to put in place to ensure they do not occur the better. 
According to the explanatory note of the bill 1200 youths have an outcome under section 283 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 and the related identifying particulars cannot be stored due to the unintended mistake in the 2008 Act. The storage of youth identifying particulars is vital for the detection of youth offenders who go on to reoffend and it is important that we have the correct mechanisms to prevent young offenders from progressing to become adult criminals. That is the point of taking this bill through under urgency at the moment. What we do not want is for young people who have been convicted to get off charges because their information was stored in a way that could be deemed illegal because of the anomaly that exists within the legislation currently and that is what this legislation is seeking to rectify. 
This necessary rectification will be vital to solving crimes. Hence we on this side of the House are supporting the Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill which has been put forward under urgency. We were slightly surprised that it was so secretive in terms of urgency and in terms of us not being aware until—how long was it until we found out that this bill was being brought in? [ 
Interruption 
] Oh OK. So it was at the last minute that we got this bill put before us but that is OK; we support it. Basically this bill amends the Policing Act 2008 to restore the legal position under the Police Act 1958 in relation to the storage of youth identifying particulars. We do need to make sure that if our young people are convicted they do not get off on some sort of technicality and this bill seeks to ensure that that does not happen. 
I want to again thank Annette King in her role as Minister of Police in the previous Labour Government. Great work was done with the legislation. We know that there is other legislation in this country that could do with an overhaul as well. There is legislation that has been added to time and time again— 
Hon Annette King 
: The Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: Yes the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act and other pieces of legislation have constantly been added to and the overall legislation is not very coherent. That was what Annette as the Minister of Police sought to address when the Labour Government dealt with this. What we need to do is look at other legislation that may need similar treatment and we know full well that even if that is done there is still the possibility that mistakes are made as the bill before us today points out. 
We have been concerned about the overuse of urgency with regard to some of the things the Government has been trying to push through but we think that this particular case is a good use of urgency. 
Before I finish I must tell members that one of my local principals pointed out that he found it really interesting that the Government would use urgency for national standards when there was no evidence to support them and they were contested hotly by those in the education sector but that it would say that child abuse in this country requires urgent attention yet it has not pushed through any legislation under urgency to address that issue. One bill that I constantly bring up that needs to be addressed urgently but has not been—it should be one of the measures that goes through under urgency—is the Domestic Violence Reform Bill which continues to languish at the bottom of the Order Paper. The next time—and I am sure there will be a next time—the National Government decides to put the House into urgency I plead with it to consider bringing the Domestic Violence Reform Bill through the urgency process. It was consulted on widely across the sector. It continues to be pushed down the Order Paper.