Newman Muriel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Newman Muriel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9472] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise in this third reading to say that the ACT party is supporting the bill because at least it is a step in the right direction. But it is a pretty pathetic response by this Government to introduce a bill on 28 May 2002 and almost 1½ years later have a 25-page Supplementary Order Paper which had to be tabled during the Committee stage and then admit during the debate that the bill does not go as far as it maybe should because it does not do all the things that it could have done. 
For example the bill deals only with the DNA sampling for people who have a conviction that could result in 7 years in prison. Yet most New Zealanders would say: “Hang on somebody who has committed an offence and ends up in jail should have his or her DNA put on a national DNA database.” That makes sense. So a person would know that if he or she ended up doing something bad and ended up in jail his or her DNA would be taken in the same way as fingerprints are taken. Why is that provision not in this bill? The only reason it is not there is that the Government did not get its act together. Firstly it did not get the bill drafted so that it could do that. Most other countries that have a DNA database do have all prisoners on it. In fact in many countries now everybody who has been arrested for a crime is put on the database. This Government obviously could not get its act together to do that. 
Secondly it said that if it did the Institute of Environmental Science and Research which does the database DNA technology testing could not cope. Well what a pathetic response that is. If a Government department that is meant to test DNA samples is not coping the Government either boosts it up gives it more funding and more staff or contracts it out. In many countries they have found that their Government-run agency could not cope. They have private-public partnerships to do the forensic testing and in some cases they have let it out to the private sector. Now instead of having a 6 month 9 month or 2-year waiting list for crime samples to be tested which we have in this country they have a 2-week turn-round. If police officers listening to this debate knew that other countries have a 2-week turn-round of the DNA samples from criminals so they can get their evidence together to go to court to either get a conviction or have the conviction thrown out or whatever—it all happens within a 2-week window of opportunity—they would think that it was absolutely wonderful. The Government members sitting over there on those benches can do this. It is within their power to actually do this sort of thing and once again they have failed. 
Pita Paraone 
: Why won’t they? 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Yes why will they not do it? Perhaps Mr Benson-Pope could take a call and tell us why his Government is not doing it. It is up to you— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is bringing the Speaker into the debate again. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I was calling Mr Benson-Pope. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member should refer to them as the member the Minister or whoever it might be. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: My apologies Mr Chairperson. I did not want to bring you into the debate. The point is that if a Government is concerned about law and order it has to put that concern higher up on its priority list. At the moment this Government has law and order down the bottom of the list. That is why the police are under-resourced under-staffed over-stressed and find it so hard to do their job. That is why violent crime is on the rise and why resolution rates of crime are worse than they used to be in spite of what the Minister has said. All the signs are that crime is getting worse in New Zealand under a Labour Government. 
The sentencing laws are pathetic now. Even the public knows that. They ask why on earth the judges are dishing out such weak-kneed sentences and the answer is because of the laws this Labour - Progressive - United Future - Green Party Government have passed. A law is to be passed that will take a step in the right direction. As we know DNA has replaced fingerprinting as the modern method of forensic crime detection. That means that every single person who should have his or her fingerprints taken should have a DNA sample taken as well. 
I know that during this debate there has been the whole issue about whether a person is innocent and all the rest of it and the civil liberties debate but the point is that if a person is innocent and his or her DNA is taken it will prove that that person is innocent. The best way for a person to get out from suspicion of involvement in a crime is to give a DNA sample so that that person can be proven innocent. That is why it is such a good method of testing. It proves that people who are guilty are guilty and that those who are innocent are innocent. 
Members should cast their minds back to the situation where DNA testing found that Jules Mikus raped and murdered Teresa Cormack in 1987 in Napier. It was DNA testing that pointed to him as the guilty party. He is now safely behind bars. A crime has been solved and the parents of that little girl can now put the whole situation to rest. Every New Zealander thought that that was a great resolution for a terrible crime that had haunted each and every one of us. It was DNA testing that did that. 
If one goes further at the moment a person is awaiting trial for the murder of Maureen McKinnell in 1987 in Arrowtown. That person has been at large for 15 years and is suspected of her murder through DNA testing. Members can just imagine that if the DNA of every single person who was ever involved in a violent crime or was in jail at the present time was on a national database and was tested against all unsolved crimes we would find that hundreds and hundreds of crimes would be solved. The only thing standing in our way to do that is that a Government has to make that its priority and make a commitment to it. At the moment DNA analysis is not given the high priority it deserves. Under this Government there is a backlog in the DNA testing laboratory. Crime samples have been waiting for over a year to be tested. Thousands of them are waiting to be tested. Then there is methamphetamine crime. 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh dear. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: It is all very well for Jill Pettis to say “Oh dear.” but her Government is responsible for that. Methamphetamine crime samples are waiting 2 years to be tested and that is simply not good enough. Britain has prioritised DNA technology. It ring-fenced DNA or funding for setting up a DNA database and that seems a very sensible thing to do. Here the responsibility will be put on the police to set up a national database and that means that police funding will be squeezed even more. 
While I am talking about police funding I put on record that when Labour came into power 2.03 percent of all Government spending went into policing. Now it is 1.94 percent so the Labour Government has squeezed funding since it has been in power and that is one reason the police are under stress. Britain has privatised DNA testing services. It now takes 2 months for the turn-round to happen. Earlier in the debate we heard the Minister say that the Government was going to fix that and it would take only until June 2004. For goodness’ sake that is 8 months away. The Minister is saying that anybody who is suspected of a crime has to wait 8 months to be proven innocent anybody who is guilty will have to wait 8 months to be sentenced and that is simply not good enough. 
In Britain where there is a real emphasis on DNA technology if there is evidence of a crime sample where a DNA test can be done 80 percent of those crimes are now solved. If there is evidence of a person at a crime scene 40 percent of those crimes are solved because of DNA analysis. This Government has gone a step in the right direction but it is certainly not far enough.