Ardern Jacinda: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8103. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):I want to return to the element of debate that my colleague the Hon David Parker raised during the debate on Part 2 of this bill. On this side of the Chamber this element of Part 2 demonstrates to us why we should be undertaking a dual process with this piece of legislation because this appears from our perspective to be a drafting flaw in Part 2 of the bill.As has been discussed previously this bill derives a lot of its meaning through the cross-referencing of other Acts primarily the Parole Act but also under clause 10 of the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill the Policing Act 2008. That part of the bill makes particular reference in clause 10 to the ability of police to detain returning offenders—returning offenders being the entire cohort not just returning prisoners—for the purpose of taking identifying particulars. It will seem obvious on first blush why we would want a provision like this in the bill. The ability for the police to detain is set out in clause 10(2) “for a period that is no longer than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances for a constable to take the identifying particulars of the offender”. That is similar language to what is used in the Policing Act. In a sense what we are doing here is allowing the police once a returning offender comes back into our borders to take relevant information for police files. When I say “relevant information” we have codified that in this legislation by cross-referencing the Policing Act.And it is not just identifying particulars that we are seeking; for the purposes of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act we are also seeking DNA samples where that prisoner qualifies under the bodily samples Act. But the bit that I want to dwell on again—itwas raised by David Parker and the Hon Amy Adams undertook to take the issue away but when the Committee rose last night it seemed particularly clear to us that there would be no movement on this issue and this is the problem. Under the Policing Act 2008 Part 3“Powers operations and offences” section 32(5) states: “‘identifying particulars’ means in relation to a person any or all of the following: (a) the person’s biographical details (for example the person’s name address and date of birth):”—we have already highlighted that this will obviously be incomplete information given many of the people returning to New Zealand will not have a specific address—“(b) the person’s photograph or visual image: (c) impressions of the person’s fingerprints palm-prints or footprints”. Obviously here we are not talking about DNA because that is covered by the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Act.Nowhere in these requirements under “identifying particulars” in the Policing Act which is the direct reference for this bill is there anything about taking information about the nature of the deportee’s offence or offences. There is an obvious reason for that according to the Policing Act and that is because within domestic legislation—of course if they are in a police station having their particulars taken it is because the police have charged them with an offence and they of course know by default what offence has been committed. It makes sense.For this legislation we have got a completely different set of circumstances. For the legislation that we are debating here the person will have been charged and convicted in another country. We do not necessarily have that complete information so when we take those identifying particulars it would make sense that in Part 2 of this bill we be very specific about allowing the police to require that information to be shared. One might argue—the Minister could argue; the officials might try to argue—that we might have that information from an overseas jurisdiction from which the person has been deported.We know that that may not necessarily be the case.How do we know that? Because in our discussions with the Minister in the lead-up to this bill being developed new section 27(1A) from memory was added quite late in the piece because the Minister discovered that the 20 individuals who are being deported to New Zealand this week did not have complete information. New section 27(1A) in Part 2 has been added quite late by the Ministry of Justice for good reason—to allow those with serious offences for instance sexual assault murder rape; what we would consider to be serious offences—to have the courts required to issue interim orders unless there is any reason not to. We know that we may not have complete information about some of those offenders in order to make a complete application in that early stage when they first arrive. So the fact that new section 27(1A) exists demonstrates to us the incomplete information that is coming back with some of these deported individuals and acts as further evidence of why there should be under clause 11 of Part 2 under the provision about police taking identifying particulars an additional set of particulars and that is the nature of offending—the nature of the offences—and it could be that you could define it as “for which the individual was deported from an overseas jurisdiction”. As it stands the Policing Act 2008 is incomplete for the purposes of this bill.If the Minister refuses to add this we are creating a rod for our own back and we will have a farcical situation where a tourist coming into New Zealand for the purposes of visiting casually will be required to give more information on an immigration declaration at the border than we will require a person who is being deported back to New Zealand because of their offending and that is because we will not be requiring that same level of disclosure and we should be. It would be farcical to simply rely on being able to access information via Interpol in order to complete information we could simply require to be shared by an offender. For goodness’ sake! We are taking their DNA samples. That is the most invasive gathering of information that is possible under New Zealand law and yet we will not require them to disclose their offences.From Labour’s perspective this particular drafting oversight demonstrates to us why—and I highlight this again—we would have liked within this part or perhaps attached to the title and commencement clauses a sunset clause which would mean that this bill would expire within a year and at the same time we would be passing a duplicate bill at first reading that would then progress through the House through all stages to allow us to pick up these kinds of errors and to allow us to give the public time to have their say. It would also allow the legal fraternity to have their say on this piece of legislation and we would make sure at that point that such errors did not occur. We do not believe that simply having a review after 2 years is sufficient. It means that errors like this would remain longer than is necessary and this Parliament does not operate on the basis of trial—that we put out a law and just see how it goes without having a proper process up front and that is essentially what we are doing here.I would really appreciate the Minister giving us a final word on whether she will be undertaking to make that drafting change. Otherwise we think it is farcical that it is not included and again it proves our point on the rushed nature of this legislation.I want to speak very briefly in the 1 minute I have remaining to a similar issue around the default provisions in the Parole Act which this part references and it is the standard release conditions. Again we have this bizarre reference in this bill in clause 4(2) that says: “In this Act unless the context otherwise requires a term that is used but not defined but that is defined in the Parole Act has the same meaning as in that Act.”So basically it is a catch-all that says: “If we haven’t defined something and you’re a bit confused and you don’t find it here you should find it in the Parole Act we hope.” It is a catch-all phrase because of the obviously rushed drafting. The Parole Act 2002 standard release conditions on reading are not designed for someone who is deported from overseas are heavily reliant on existing information being available are heavily reliant on their being released to a known residence and are heavily reliant on that person not being transient. These standard release conditions which we are cross-referencing here are not necessarily fit for purpose for people who are being deported. Again it shows the rushed nature of this bill.