Genter Julie Anne: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Genter Julie Anne: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3513. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JULIE ANNE GENTER (Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. It would be disingenuous to say that I am happy to rise and speak to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. As we have made clear the Green Party does not support this bill. We have covered the reasons why pretty comprehensively. In brief firstly we do not think that the Government’s inability to manage its Order Paper efficiently is a good enough reason to pass laws. Although we appreciate and support the Minister of Justice’s stated intention of a full debate on the forthcoming redirection bill that does not mitigate the poor organisation that has led to a shortage of time to accomplish this. 
We also do not accept that this bill is either necessary or desirable. It is not necessary because we do not find the assertion that prisoners would strategically lodge claims in the gap very well substantiated; nor after the Supreme Court decision in the  
Taunoa 
 case where the damages were significantly reduced would it likely create the fiscal burden that the Government is concerned about. Admittedly we think people being compensated for wrongs done to them is actually not as bad a result as the Government and indeed Labour members seem to think. But even if one were to believe that it is far from clear that the amounts would be crippling.  
 That brings me broadly to our belief that it is as undesirable as it is unnecessary. As my colleague David Clendon and I have repeatedly argued this bill creates perverse incentives for prisoners not to bring abuse to the attention of the judiciary as they would be unable to receive compensation for the wrongs done to them. So that protects the Crown really from having to compensate prisoners for gross breaches of rights and that means that there is not as much of an incentive as there should be for the Crown to look after the human rights of those who are in prison. 
I explained earlier this week during the Committee stage that the Hon Phil Goff has brought up the idea that there should be a sort of comprehensive approach to getting money for a victims fund so that no matter where the money is coming from if the prisoners are receiving money—whether it is through their employment after leaving prison from an inheritance or from winning the lottery—victims should have some ability to make a claim on that money. That is a completely different sort of approach to what has been taken in the primary legislation that this bill amends. The approach that was taken in the primary legislation was that there was one breach of rights over here—the prisoner is serving a sentence for a breach of the rights of their victim—and then there was a second breach of rights which was a very gross breach of rights in the  
Taunoa 
 case on the part of the Crown of the prisoner serving a sentence. Those two things are conceptually very different and it does not make sense I do not think to legislate specifically for those cases in which prisoners have had a breach of rights and you take away their compensation and their incentive to seek compensation by saying that in fact they cannot actually touch it and that you are going to take it away from them and use it to remedy this other breach of rights over here. 
It is strange to think that prisoners should not have recourse to compensation when their rights have been abused as they are serving their sentences which is the price that society has determined they will pay for their crimes. They are serving their sentence; they are in prison—that was the price that we decided they should pay. If victims believe that they need further financial compensation they have the ability to take the course of action of taking a law suit. Of course the Green Party wants to put victims at the heart of our justice system and we support restorative justice for that reason. It is in the very first lines of our justice policy that it is important to put victims at the heart of our justice system. But it is very strange that Labour members consider that receiving compensation for a gross breach of human rights is a windfall. I do not think they would describe it as a windfall if they had been condemned to years of solitary confinement with no right to go outside and take exercise fresh air and sunlight as was the case with  
Taunoa 
. 
It is in this last bit of the call that I would like to take the time to respond to the theme coming from Government members during their calls on this bill. For example Alfred Ngaro—for whom I have considerable respect—suggested that it was disappointing but unsurprising that the Greens do not support the bill and that he did not hear concern about victims from us. We have the deepest concern for victims whether they be in prison or not and in this case the prisoners were victims. We are getting pretty used to the Government building straw men to tear down in regard to our policies and beliefs. The Green Party fully supports the rights of victims. Our disagreement lies in the fact that this bill plays a zero-sum game of trading off people’s rights. That in our view is not justice. 
I think the fact that only five claims have been made under this legislation and $45000 paid out in the last 8 or 9 years demonstrates that this does very little to support victims when there are many other courses of action we could take that do not involve trampling on the rights of others. This bill which extends the sunset clause for the primary legislation does nothing really to compensate or protect victims or to put them at the heart of the justice system and it also does nothing to reduce abuse in prisons. It protects the Crown and limits the liability of the Crown. I just do not think that is justice. We do not win justice by subjecting our fellow human beings no matter what wrongs they have done to the potential for abuse or by denying them the right to have that abuse compensated—victimising them doubly. Nobody wins; newly victimised people lose. That is not justice and it is not good policy and that is why we do not support the extension of the sunset clause. Thank you.