Cosgrove Clayton: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7069] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I will make a couple of brief comments in respect of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill and correct something that Mr Bridges said. Any time members of the Opposition raise points of conjecture or points in this bill that we believe need to be examined someone from the Government—and I do not include Mr Borrows in this as I sat on the Justice and Electoral Committee as he chaired it through consideration of the bill and I think he did an admirable job—always pops his or her head up and says that we are not supporting the bill. Well as my colleague Moana Mackey has said we are supporting it but we have an obligation as Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition to raise issues of concern. This is the debating chamber in which this legislation should be rigorously examined and hopefully with the contribution of many members improved. It is our job as a Parliament to control the quality of this sort of legislation. 
I for one have had the privilege of seeing the police use this technology on a number of occasions and I support its use. Members who have said that this modern technology is another tool in the police’s tool box are right. It provides huge advantages. Before I rose to speak I was speaking with my colleague Moana Mackey about the David Dougherty case. As I understand it that is in essence an example of technology freeing an innocent person. Had it not been for that technology who knows what the consequences would have been in respect of Mr Dougherty’s life? Equally looking at historical technologies we can recall the case of Arthur Allan Thomas where evidence was planted using shall we say different technology from the contemporary one we are discussing now. 
Although Labour members support the bill and think it is essential—it will aid policing and the uncovering of crime—my colleague and others have raised some concerns in respect of for instance judicial oversight. It is a basic principle that there need to be some substantial safeguards. My colleague has already referred to criminal elements that are technologically literate; we fool ourselves today if we do not believe they exist. With respect it is a little bit like the accountancy profession which is charged with finding new loopholes and likewise the legal profession in legislation. They do that legally of course. The criminal profession is adequately resourced to discover loopholes in legislation designed to prevent criminal activity—and by loophole in this context I mean illegality. 
My colleague and others have said that there is some evidence to suggest that criminal elements are using and planting DNA evidence. That is a concern and a worry and it raises the spectre that this technology has to be used with a high degree of quality and quality assurance. For that reason we are proposing that there be substantial judicial oversight. I heard some arguments against that in terms of ability to obtain access and warrants—officials said that police could lack access to justices of the peace when trying to gain authorisation to do certain tasks permitted within this legislation. As one who had an oversight with justices of the peace and who administered their appointments I know that we are flooded with them. I do not think I received complaints from the police or others that they could not access justices of the peace in the execution of after-hours search warrants. We simply put the case up that although we support this legislation we feel that there need to be a couple of safeguards and those safeguards need to be tightened up. People like Mr Bridges make glib comments every time this side raises some concerns in a genuine way; he tries to perpetuate some myth that we are not supporting it because we have the audacity to raise some concerns. But far from that we raise our concerns in a legitimate way and we will be putting forward proposals that we believe will strengthen the legislation. 
I must say that when listening to some of the submitters the counterfactual prevailed and a number of conspiracy theories were put forward to the committee. From a personal point of view I was less than impressed with the Human Rights Commissioner’s submission. I was more impressed with the Privacy Commissioner’s submission. I think those of us who heard the Human Rights Commissioner’s submission on what potentially could happen and what had allegedly happened around the world found that to put it bluntly very little substantiated evidence was put to the committee about some of the conspiracy theories in those submissions. My colleague Moana Mackey made some very good points based on scientific knowledge and evidence rather than simply conjecture. I hope—if there is anyone from the Human Rights Commission listening—they might clean up their act a little bit in respect of that— 
Hon David Carter 
: Listening? They’ve turned off by now 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Possibly. They certainly will if that member rises to his feet and makes some sort of utterance. 
We support this bill. I note Treasury’s input in terms of the regulatory impact statement. It said it was inadequate for a number of reasons including “a lack of clarity around the nature of problems with the current DNA testing regime along with evidence (anecdotal and empirical) to support these;”. I also note that Treasury gave other reasons for the legislation being inadequate. There was “limited analysis of the impacts of the options. The analysis of costs is partial e.g. only aggregate first year costs are estimated and capital costs are excluded; and there is no assessment of risks such as risks related to implementation and how these will be mitigated;”. We do not know the costs involved and in this legislation we do not have a real and viable assessment and analysis of the risks. I think that falls short of Mr Hide’s role as the regulatory slayer who would cut all the red tape as the regulatory tsar of this Parliament who said he would examine with a fine-tooth comb and microscope every piece of legislation to ensure that it was up to scratch. Again a bill is going through this House where Mr Hide has been asleep at the wheel—he collects the Queen’s shilling but does not do the job—and another regulatory impact statement that is not up to the mark is sliding on through. 
With those comments and reinforcing the comments that Moana Mackey and others made from a technical and scientific point of view I say that we will support this bill. I congratulate the chair of the select committee on his conduct and members of the committee on putting this bill through. Certainly the debate and submissions that I listened to were generally very forthright and informative. I think that if amendments are accepted and looked at in a bipartisan way we can tighten up this bill. We could provide some safety and alleviate some of the concerns that a number in our community have. They are not just people whom some Government members may characterise as hand-wringers or do-gooders; they have genuine heartfelt concerns and want to see the bad guys apprehended. Where there is a miscarriage of justice like with Mr Dougherty this technology can be used to free people who are innocent. They are not hand-wringing do-gooders who are simply obsessed with the civil liberties argument; they have heartfelt concerns and want to see appropriate safeguards in this legislation so that it can be even more effective than the technology is today. With those thoughts I commend the bill to the House.