Moroney Sue: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Moroney Sue: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to rise to speak to the second reading of the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill. Labour is supporting this bill but it is not wholehearted support because we think the bill will make a real difference. We support it because it is not really worth our while opposing. Members have already heard from my colleagues that if we felt this bill would make a real difference there would be full wholehearted support from members on this side of the House. But clearly there is not a lot in this bill that will support victims unlike what Labour did when it was in Government and I will come back to that point. In fact I will spend much of my 10 minutes talking about the number and range of very real things that Labour did when in Government to support in a very practical sense victims and their rights. 
Before I spend most of my speech reminding people about Labour’s very fine record I say again that this bill is all for show but has no useful effect. It is like the car-crusher legislation that Parliament is also considering at the moment. That legislation will affect 10 cars a year. The offender levy of $50 will in many instances cost more than $50 to gather. I think that Simon Bridges is right unfortunately that we should not raise unrealistic expectations about the impact of this bill. He is quite right: his Government has put a bill before this House that will not have a huge impact on victims and their involvement with the justice system but it does have a feel-good factor about it. That is what the National Government is all about after all. 
The Government will be judged on this issue. In about 2 years’ time National will be judged on whether it has fulfilled its commitment and the impression that it gave the electorate before the last election that it would fix crime. I sincerely hope that this makes a difference to the victims of crime because National certainly gave the impression that it would do that while in Government. National will be judged in 2 years’ time on whether it has made things better for the victims of crime and the electorate will be quite right to judge it on that factor. 
The bill is all for show and will have no useful effect but it is not worth opposing so we will support it. I am sure that victims of crime would rather— 
Hon Simon Power 
: Ha ha! 
SUE MORONEY 
: —Simon Power might agree with this— 
Hon Simon Power 
: It’s not worth opposing so you’ll support it. 
SUE MORONEY 
: Well there is nothing in the bill. Nothing will happen as a result of it but it is really not worth our while opposing it. 
I am sure that the victims of crime would prefer to have a better response time to the crimes that they are facing while the crimes are occurring. We have heard just this week that those statistics are getting worse under this Government. Victims of crime are not having their serious crimes responded to on the same priority basis as they were responded to when Labour was in Government. Those are the factors that victims of crime will judge this Government on and so they should. Crimes are being carried out but the response time has gone down already under this Government. [ 
Interruption 
] Phil Heatley may think that is something to be excited about but if one is a victim of a crime and the offender is still on the premises the victim wants a very urgent response from the police. In fact what has been happening I say to Mr Heatley is that that response time has been increasing under the National Government. Mr Heatley will be judged in Whangarei on those sorts of statistics come the next election and so he should be. 
Mr Heatley and his colleagues made a promise to the electorate at the last election that they would fix this. They promised to get better at this but they are getting worse. Those are the sorts of things that victims of crime want fixed up. They do not want this charade of a $50 levy that is to be collected or not and will cost perhaps more to be collected from people who have been successfully prosecuted and then may or may not end up alleviating the situation for victims of crime. Those are not the charades that people were asking for. What they wanted was better response times. 
People wanted the police to be well resourced. At the moment the police are being completely distracted by having to find cost-cutting measures that they can offer to the Minister of Police just so that the National Government can pay for the tax cuts that it gave to the top 3 percent of wage earners in this country. That is what our police are distracted by. I am sure that is one of the reasons why the response times to serious crimes are increasing. The police are completely distracted by looking for these cost savings. 
Before I go too much further on as I promised at the beginning of my speech I will remind the people who are listening of what it looks like when very serious attempts are being made to address victims’ rights. These are some of the things Labour did when in Government. Labour introduced and passed the Sentencing Act in 2002 which introduced a presumption in favour of reparation and resulted in that sentence being used more frequently. I say to Mr Bridges that that is a practical result for victims. It is not the idea that victims might somehow get the results of a $50 levy which may or may not be collected and may or may not end up being something that is a useful resource for victims but sentencing in favour of reparations being made. That Act was passed in 2002 under Labour. 
In 2002 that same Sentencing Act also recognised the potential of restorative justice processes to make offenders more accountable to victims. Very real progress has been made. This is good practical stuff. It has enabled the courts to take into account both financial and non-financial offers of amends made by an offender. 
Labour also introduced and passed the Victims’ Rights Act in 2002—in that very same year—which extended a number of rights to victims such as the right to information and the ability to have input into sentencing decisions through victim impact statements. We have seen the impact that has had in some very recent high-profile court cases in this country. A law that was passed in 2002 continues to be put to good use and so it should be. These are some of the actual real practical impacts on victims. 
The problem with the bill we are presently addressing is that this $50 levy is a feel-good factor that may never ever get near the victims who really need that support. I agree with Simon Bridges on one fact though. Well-researched evidence suggests that low-income people suffer more frequently as victims of crime than people at the higher end of our social spectrum. There is also plenty of evidence to suggest that women are more frequently victims of crime as well. Of course we take these issues very seriously. 
Again under Labour in 2003 the Ministry of Justice launched a campaign to trace those who owed money. It spent $385000 on advertising an 0800 number for people to call and the establishment of new collection centres further bolstered the collection and disbursement of reparations which had been put in place by the Sentencing Act 2002. An amount of $9 million was allocated in the 2003 Budget for this purpose. Labour also passed the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act in 2005 which ensured that the victims of inmates who had been awarded compensation could claim against that compensation. 
These are very real examples of things that made a difference. The list goes on and on and I am about only one-third of the way through it but members can get the sense of the very real and practical things that Labour did when in Government that made a difference. Those things continue to make a very real difference. 
I will be interested to see in 2 years’ time when the electorate gets to make its decision and cast its judgment on whether National has reduced crime whether National has made life better for victims and whether these $50 levies come anywhere near any of the victims of crime who need this so much. It is a very important issue. I do not think that this bill goes anywhere near addressing the seriousness of it. It is an interesting attempt at window dressing but it will not resolve the issue.