Davis Kelvin: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8071. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): I would just like to follow on obviously from Jacinda Ardern who has raised some very good points about the purpose of this bill—that is the purpose being “to obtain information from returning offenders and establish release conditions for offenders …” There is nothing there about rehabilitation and the reduction of reoffending. These people who are going to arrive on our doorstep within the coming days have no support conditions around them to help them get back on their feet having been deported from their support systems—their family and friends—which as Jacinda Ardern says is one of the key elements of reducing reoffending and helping people to rehabilitate.But I just want to touch on the release conditions and release conditions in the interpretation clause mean “a standard release condition or a special condition”. I have pulled out the Department of Corrections information from its website there. It says:“Standard conditions apply to all offenders and can include: reporting regularly to community probation.” That sounds well and good for somebody who has been released from a New Zealand prison out into their community near their family and friends but what happens to these men and women who have turned up in New Zealand who have no connection to New Zealand and who might arrive in Auckland for example but find that the best place for them somewhere where they can try to find work or maybe establish themselves with a family member is somewhere else around the country?I take the example of Raymond—and I forget his last name again sorry—who left New Zealand as a young child and lived all his life in Australia. He is 50-something now but he originally came from somewhere near Dunedin. On his return to New Zealand he has been put up by a compassionate couple up in Whangarei. For now Whangarei is where he is living and he may have to report to a community probation officer in Whangarei but the reality is that he does not have a job in Whangarei and he is looking for work elsewhere. So he is going to be moving around the country to various places while he is looking for work and it is going to be difficult for him to find where those community probation offices are in the various towns that he may have to move to in order to earn a living.So there are restrictions on living and working arrangements. Well the biggest restriction for them is the fact that they do not have anywhere to live. They arrive in New Zealand I am told that they will get a couple of hundred dollars in their back pocket and then 5 nights in a motel or hotel somewhere and then they are on their own. How on earth are their living arrangements going to be restricted when they have nowhere to live? Will they be banned from living in shop doorways on Lambton Quay or under bridges in Auckland?There are restrictions on associating with certain people. Look these guys are going to turn up in New Zealand with no support networks around them no family no friends and nobody to turn to. I have already said in the second reading that my concern is that they are going to be just fodder for gang members who are going to see these guys who they know have possibly been in prison and in detention centres. They will be ripe pickings for the Killer Beez the Mongrel Mob and the Headhunters without the support networks around them which are really necessary. Remember this bill addresses just the monitoring of release conditions; it does not address anything around supporting them in their social environment.Another standard condition is the limitations on the offender’s ability to move to a new residential address. Well it goes without saying that they are going to have difficulty moving to a new residential address. In fact they are going to have difficulty moving to any address let alone to a new residential address. We understand that these conditions are there so that if they are a sex offender they do not actually end up living next to a school or a park or a playground or an early childhood centre or somewhere where there are vulnerable people. We understand that. But it is one thing to have these standard release conditions for prisoners released from New Zealand prisons; it is another thing to have them for people who are coming back from Australia from detention centres or having been released from prison in Australia.I would also just like to touch on the interpretation clause—and again I spoke about this in the second reading—and the definition of a “returning offender” and a “returning prisoner”. “A ‘returning offender’—(a) is a person who has been convicted in an overseas jurisdiction of an offence for conduct that constitutes an imprisonable offence in New Zealand and being liable for deportation or removal as a result of that conviction has returned to New Zealand; and (b) includes a returning prisoner.” The other one is the criterion for a person returning as a prisoner I think it is meant to say—the wording in the heading in clause 17 is a bit weird. “The Commissioner must determine that a person is a returning prisoner if the Commissioner is satisfied that the person—(a) has been convicted in an overseas jurisdiction of an offence for conduct that constitutes an imprisonable offence in New Zealand; and (b) has in respect of that conviction been sentenced to—(i) a term of imprisonment of more than 1 year; or (ii) 2 or more terms of imprisonment that are cumulative”.The reason I raise this is if you look at Kō Rūtene a guy who has not been charged let alone imprisoned let alone detained—do conditions like this apply to a man like Kō Rūtene who is detained in a detention centre or a prison in Australia without charges and may in time be sent back to New Zealand? Does this—Hon Amy Adams: No.KELVIN DAVIS: The Minister is shaking her head. So Kō Rūtene will come back to New Zealand if he is deported and he will just fit back into society? That is good to hear—that is good to hear. The question is why on earth he is locked up in Australia in the first place and our Government is doing nothing to address that. Maybe it has information that we do not know but it just seems really strange on face value that this is a guy who was there to protect the Prime Minister in Afghanistan and would have laid down his life if he had to and yet the Prime Minister will not get off his feet in order to assist that gentleman.As we go through this bill no doubt there is going to be a number of issues that we raise. Again the whole speed of this process has meant that there are I believe drafting errors. I will just return to the heading of clause 7 which says “Who is returning offender”. That does not quite make sense to me. The heading for clause 17 “Criteria for determination that person is returning prisoner”—again the old schoolteacher in me is slightly offended by the grammar. Maybe I am just missing something in my naivety but as we go through I am sure that more errors will emerge. It is just an example of why it is necessary to take our time in drafting legislation and not rushing it through as this has been in 12 days I believe—because we have known that this situation has been on the cards for the last 12 months. Kia ora.