King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:513] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 The second reading of the Bail Amendment Bill has been a very robust debate which is how we like it on this side of the House. I am sure many members on the other side of the House have enjoyed the debate as well and that is healthy for democracy. 
I congratulate Melissa Lee on her election to this Parliament but I say to her that one of the mistakes one can make in this place is to assume that other people have not had the same experience that we have had. People from all walks of life are in this Parliament whether they are in the National Party the Labour Party or any other party and we have all had different experiences. She should never assume that because we are in the Labour Party and therefore the member’s natural opponents people on this side of the House have never experienced sorrow despair or tragedy because that is not true. We have all had such experiences; let us respect that. When someone says “You won’t know what it is like to be a victim” that is not true. Everybody in this House at some time has probably been a victim of something so when someone says that it brings out the worst in people. That would be my advice to the member. 
The member also said the change to bail that we are making today will mean we will never again see a tragedy like the murder of a dairy owner in South Auckland. Well after this bill is passed today the Royal assent is given on Monday and it becomes the law when somebody is then murdered tragically in a dairy or on the street what will the member say to her constituency? National will pass the legislation and in 6 months’ time a tragedy may happen again but National will have passed the legislation. In a year’s time it may happen again after the legislation is passed. You see passing this legislation will not stop mindless senseless violence by people one cannot control. One has to have good law; I agree with that. But to think that the law itself will stop that kind of mindless violence is not correct. I think the member will grow to regret that comment because what is said in this House unfortunately becomes the record of this House and then is used over and over again—and we have all been victims of that. That comment will come back to haunt Ms Lee and the National Party because the Minister knows that when this legislation is passed it does not mean the end of mindless violence in New Zealand. I wish it did but it does not. 
Then we had Chester Borrows speak. He said National was supporting this bill because it wanted to be seen to be doing something. Well actually I tell him we are supporting it because it does not make any difference to what is happening now in terms of people going into prison. 
I tell Nikki Kaye that when I was the Minister of Justice I got the briefing papers as well. Our change in 2007 to the Bail Act was never about putting fewer or more people into prison. It was about clarifying the law. So it was not about suddenly seeing a whole lot of people going into prison or not going there. The 2007 amendment was designed to clarify the law because it was not clear and judges had made it clear to us that the law was not clear. In fact the estimate was that by 2009 there would be 10 extra people on remand in jail because of the change and they would not necessarily be 10 murderers or suspected murderers. They could be people charged with any crime for which they could be remanded on bail. The advice I got was that by 2011 there could be as many as 40 people affected by that amendment. So the issue was never about putting more people in jail or fewer people in jail; it was always about clarifying the Act. 
Pansy Wong said it took us 9 long years and we did nothing. Well for the information of this House I say the bail laws of New Zealand were toughened in 2000 by the Hon Phil Goff as Minister of Justice. That is quite clear and I listened to Rahui Katene’s speech where she pointed out what had happened since the bail laws were toughened up. She does not agree with what happened actually and that is fair enough. She thinks the bail laws became too tough. That toughening-up happened in 2000. The National Party members voted against the toughening-up of the Bail Act then. They did not agree with that. They said we were being too tough on people who would require bail. That was done in 2000. Then we looked at the need to clarify the law when the 2007 amendment was brought in. 
I now turn to David Garrett. He honestly said he had researched his “three strikes and you’re out policy”. He said he did the homework went to the United States at his own expense and that of the Sensible Sentencing Trust came back and did the work and then just before the election found he had got it wrong— 
David Garrett 
: Just after. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Just after the election. I do not know when the work finished then. So in the middle of the campaign the policy had been announced the billboards were already up and the member had made it clear that that was the policy—and just after the election he found out that he had got it wrong. It is good that the member did the work; that is very good indeed. I am pleased about that. But that is not the issue. 
The issue is that before the election the people of New Zealand were not told about the impact or the lack of impact of the very policy they went and ticked. They were not told that. So when my colleague says that this bill is an electoral fraud one has to admit that when the public is not told about the impact of a policy until after an election—just like the National Party has not told the public of the impact of the changes to KiwiSaver or the impact of its taxation changes—then one has to say that if it is not electoral fraud people were hoodwinked into believing that something was going to happen when something totally different from that is to happen. In fact we are on a go-slow on the policy that ACT campaigned on. 
David Garrett 
: It is going to the select committee. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I presume by that comment that when the member gets to the select committee he will change the measure and make it become retrospective because that is the only way he will be able to bring it in to do what he wants right now. 
Then we heard about how Parliament does not follow judges. The member is right; Parliament does not follow judges. Judges interpret the laws that Parliament makes. The reason why the amendment was brought in in 2007 related to the way judges were interpreting or thought they should interpret the principal Act. It was difficult to interpret and Phil Goff read out the comments that the judges made. So the aim of the change was to make the law clearer. That is our job: to make the law clearer so the judges can make the judgments that we require of them. 
As Minister of Justice I faced on a daily basis a barrage of questions on justice from the very effective then Opposition member Simon Power. I really look forward to being told what he is going to do with the justice portfolio. Of course there was the Ombudsman’s report into the criminal justice system. Of course that report is now with the Government and he is in the Government. I am going to be very very interested in that matter. In fact I have a whole series of questions to ask the Minister about what he is going to do with the Ombudsman’s report. I know that the Minister thought a lot of that report. He believed in that report and thought it was an extremely good report. Is that correct Minister? 
Hon Simon Power 
: Yes. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: Is it a wee while since the member read it? 
Hon Simon Power 
: No. 
Hon ANNETTE KING 
: I think maybe it is because the Ombudsman said about the bail change of 2007: “I express doubt whether this amendment will have a major impact in reducing the number of custodial remands.” 
That is what the Ombudsman said of our change and the reason why we will not vote against this bill is that it returns the situation to what it was before that change. It was only ever going to have a marginal impact in terms of the number of people in custody. It was about clarifying the law so it makes very little difference at all. If the House wants to make the law less clear that is fine. It does not make much difference in terms of the beds in prisons. That however is the argument that the National Party went to New Zealand on: that the change we made had made it easier for criminals to be in society and that we did it in order to save prison beds. That is not true on the basis of the evidence given to the member as the Minister. It is not true according to the comments made by those who understand the 2007 amendment including officials judges and people in the Law Society. That is not the reason why the amendment to the principal Act was done. 
This bill is a piece of puffery and flimflam.