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:8037. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Tēnā koe Mr Deputy Speaker. The previous speaker the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga was correct. We are debating this because of a law that the Australian Government enacted. That law was enacted in order to capture terrorists. What it has in fact done is cast such a wide net that it is now also capturing criminals including low-level lawbreakers. What the Australians have done is subscribe to the politics of fear. They have created an enemy and that enemy is now low-level crims. They have created the enemy and they are using that enemy to justify all manner of human rights abuses.My objection to their law is in fact the human rights abuses. Minister Adams was correct. The Australian Government has a sovereign right to make the laws as it sees fit but the objection I have to the law it has created is that it lacks any proportionality where these low-level lawbreakers are now being subjected to the most heinous of conditions in detention centres. I believe that New Zealand has an obligation as a member of the international community to stand up and expose just how bad those conditions are. It is easy for us as a nation to condemn terrorist organisations and Third World countries for their human rights abuses. It is a lot harder for us to stand up and address the abuses of our closest friend and our ally but that does not mean to say we are wrong to do it. I believe that we need to speak out wherever there is tyranny and abuse.There is no justification really for the detention centres—first of all because the prisoners could have their visa situation assessed before their prison sentence ends. If they go through that process and it is determined that their visa is going to be totally revoked before the end of their prison sentence and they get deported I am au fait with that; I am OK with that. Better still if the prisoners are let out into their communities and they spend time at home with their families working paying tax to the Australian Government while that process is going through that to me is an even better and more humane system. But if the Australians determine that they must detain these people then all I think our New Zealand Government needs to ask is that they be detained in a humane fashion.Everyone knows that I have been over there and I have met detainees. I have listened to their stories. We have heard how they have been abused and they have been antagonised by guards and how they have been beaten. The Australian Government is denying all this. There is a simple reason why. The bigger the lie the easier it is to hide. The Australian Government is hiding these human rights abuses.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Can I just draw the member’s attention to the bill. Can he sit down while I am on my feet; thank you. The member has spent about 3½ minutes outlining the current situation in Australia which has been well debated not only in the House but also across the media. He now needs to bring himself to the provisions of the bill and to debate those please.KELVIN DAVIS: The situation in Australia leads to these detainees being brought back. In a couple of days’ time we are going to have a planeload of New Zealand detainees arriving on our shores. My colleague Jacinda Ardern rightly raised the question as to why it has taken so long and why this legislation has to be drawn up in such a hurry.My first understanding of this problem was back in January of this year. Jacinda Ardern has said that this situation arose maybe in April of last year when we first became aware of it with other legislation. My understanding was that in January of this year a woman who committed murder in Australia was sent back to New Zealand and is living in Kaikohe up in Te Tai Tokerau. She arrived with no conditions whatsoever imposed upon her. If she had been released into the Australian community she would have had all manner of parole conditions but because she was deported directly to New Zealand she did not have any conditions imposed on her. At the time I said that it was really important that this situation be addressed. That woman I do not believe really holds much of a threat to the community. But let us change the situation. If she was a child molester and she arrived back in New Zealand back in Kaikohe and happened to live next to an early childhood centre or a school or a playground or a park that is the reason why this legislation is necessary and the reason why I do support it going through. But I do not think that that should stop me criticising the process it has gone through and the hurried aspect of it.Let us just also understand that these detainees do not want be here. They would prefer to be back in Australia with their families and their support networks. One of my main criticisms of this legislation is that although they are arriving here and they are going to have these monitoring conditions which I agree with my greater concern is that there is no social support in the legislation to really look after their needs. I understand that they are going to arrive in New Zealand and I think they will be given a couple of hundred dollars and 5 days’ accommodation in a motel somewhere. The concern is that they will be arriving basically with no food no clothes no job—nothing. That is why about 5 or 6 weeks ago I suggested that an appropriate response—a welcoming party—would be for the Government to open up and pay a marae to look after them for the first 3 4 or 5 weeks of their time here in New Zealand. That way they would have somewhere to go to. That way they would be fed. That way they could have a whole heap of support services descend on that marae to specifically address the needs that would help them to get back on their feet.The other day the Prime Minister said that he is the only one standing up for victims. Well my real concern is that if we do not have the support networks in place for these people when they arrive here they are going to be set up to fail. If they do not have support networks and they do not get on their feet quickly then they may have to resort to crime to get by which is going to create new victims right here in New Zealand.Another concern of mine is that when they arrive here and if we do not have the wraparound support services for these people then they are going to be easy fodder for gangs. They will be looking for someone somewhere to support them and help them get by and to protect them. The gangs will be sitting around right now going “Heck we’re going to have 20 or 30 maybe a couple of hundred ex-prisoners from Australia arriving here with very little support.” and they can fill the void of the support agencies. I know Minister Lotu-Iiga said that the Department of Corrections is going to be working with various agencies but it is not explicit here in the bill as to what that support is going to be. I think that the Government needs to act swiftly to make sure that these people are not set up to fail once they get here; that they are supported.I do have concerns about the Department of Corrections being able to monitor the situation when these people get here. We know that the department struggles to monitor people on electronic bail and in all sorts of other situations. We know it is struggling in prisons. I would like to think that the Department of Corrections does receive more in its budget to enable it to employ people who will look after these deportees.Just to wrap up—and again we are going through this whole process over the course of the evening. I just want to wrap up by saying—and it does go back to the situation in Australia. At some stage in the future there will be an inquiry into the human rights abuses in the detention centres in Australia. I believe that when that inquiry does happen guards will be called to the witness stand. They will be asked to testify and they will be asked the question—Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member cannot go there. The member was given some latitude earlier in his contribution. This does not relate to the bill. The member should confine himself to the bill.KELVIN DAVIS: I do have just one sentence.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am sorry but the member cannot get into that situation. In effect the Speaker has ruled that you cannot go there and you should not go there.Jacinda Ardern: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. My colleague is speaking to the origin of a significant number of these offenders who are being deported directly from this place. In fact the bill itself references the fact that many of them will be held in detention before being deported here. It is explicitly mentioned in the bill and I would have thought it would be in scope.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: The provisions of the bill relate to the monitoring of those people when they are returned to New Zealand. Those are what the provisions are. It is fairly straightforward. The member has already been given 4 minutes of a 10-minute speech to cover that when he was asked now to confine himself to the bill. Once the Speaker has intervened and said “Don’t go there.” it is not in order for the member to say “Well I’ve just got a little bit more to say.” I am sorry but those are the rules and I do not make them.KELVIN DAVIS: The detention centres are wrong and they need to be closed.