Goff Phil: Parole Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Parole Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1532. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill):I just want to pick up on a couple of points to concur in some respects with my friend and colleague David Clendon but also to disagree in other respects. First of all the critical thing about parole is that it is absolutely necessary in terms of reducing the risk of reoffending by those released from prison. We have had the phenomenon of people being returned from Australia who are not subject to parole conditions and about whom we do not have sufficient information. That is a real concern. That is something else that I hope the Minister can pick up. Good luck with that. I struggled with the state and federal level of the Australian Government to try to get that information—they said nice things but did very little—but it is something that we absolutely need to address.I am saying that to highlight the fact that although some people say: “Truth in sentencing—if you’re sentenced to 6 years you should serve right up to the last day.” all of the evidence that is available to us as David Clendon also pointed out is that where people are released at the end of their sentence without provisions for parole and the conditions associated with parole the level of reoffending by those individuals is much higher. The two huge advantages of parole are one that there are a lot of people in our prisons who when they have served a large part of their sentence and done the rehab courses are not going to reoffend. At that point keeping them in prison serves very little purpose at a very high cost. If we abolish parole tomorrow as sometimes the ACT Party and sometimes the right wing of the National Party recommended that would come to hundreds of millions of dollars. Perhaps the reason the National Party is a little bit more reform-minded is that the Minister of Finance is conscious of how much the prison system costs to run.The much more important thing is that when a person is released on parole they are released on conditions. They must report weekly for example to their local parole office. They talk to their probation officer. They are under the oversight of the probation officer. They may be subject to conditions as to where they live as to where they work and to whom they can associate with. So the point about parole is that it actually enhances the safety of the community. And if you did not have parole and there was the so-called truth in sentencing actually our reoffending rates would be higher people would be less safe and the system would be a whole lot more expensive.Where I still have trouble coming to terms with the Green Party minority view is that I am not quite sure specifically what it is that the Green Party is objecting to in this legislation. As I pointed out before the Parole Board and the people on the Parole Board whom we would respect very much supported this legislation and made the point for any law and order warrior that if you extend the period of time between parole hearings this was not likely to result in longer periods in prison and indeed may well result Justice Gendall said in less time in prison.I want to note too that the Parole Board does have the ability and the inmate has the ability to bring forward their parole hearing within the flexibility that this system provides. Where a person has met the objective set for their rehabilitation either the manager of the prison or the offender can apply to have an earlier parole hearing and that makes sense as well. So flexibility works both ways but the important thing about it is that with that flexibility there is one of the new requirements on the Parole Board as set out in this bill which is that the Parole Board must set the date for when the next hearing will be heard by and must also identify the activities that the offender needs to address. When they do that they provide that information to not only the offender and the prison manager but also the police and the victim. So the victim is kept better informed about where the offender has got to and what they still need to achieve before they can be considered for release. I think that that is very positive.I think that the other things that are set out in the bill are largely not designed to disadvantage the offender; they are designed to make the system more effective. So attendance at hearings can be by phone or video conference and that applies more and more in the justice system and that is a good thing.