Borrows Chester: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12075. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is interesting to hear the tirade that is coming from the other side of the Chamber as Opposition members seek to elevate themselves in terms of the issue of protecting victims’ rights just as when previously in Government they sought to elevate themselves by claiming to be harder and harder on crime. It is very interesting to note the number of things that they did not do along with the number of things that they have not supported when they have come up within the House to actually address things such as preventing crime preventing the causes of crime and looking after victims. 
For instance we remember the tirade that we heard about the introduction of the DNA legislation which provided for the taking of DNA samples from everybody who was arrested for an imprisonable offence. We remember the long speeches that we heard from for instance Moana Mackey who told us what terrible things one could do once one had secured the DNA from somebody who had been arrested for an offence. That legislation allows us to isolate the DNA profile of somebody who has been arrested for a minor offence so that at some stage in the future if further and more serious crimes are committed against victims that person can be identified early. That is probably the single most significant legislation that has been introduced to this House in 100 years to prevent victims from being violated in very serious ways. All that we received were brickbats from the Labour members in respect of that. 
The previous speaker Iain Lees-Galloway talked about this Government having done nothing for victims. I ask what about the Child and Family Protection Bill? The Opposition members will very quickly say they drew up the provisions that are now in that bill introduced them in the House and did a whole lot more than we are doing. But I ask when Labour’s bill was introduced to the House. It was 4 days before the Parliament adjourned for the 2008 election. It was introduced then because Labour had been too busy self-promoting in terms of the Electoral Finance Act to get on with the business of protecting the citizens of this country. Although in the whole course of this debate those members have banged on and on about victims they failed throughout the whole term of the previous Government—9 long years—to address the prisoners who are languishing within our cells and the victims of their crimes. The previous speaker talked about the Victims’ Rights Act 2002. That Act replaced the Victims’ Rights Bill which had been introduced by the former National Government prior to its leaving office in 1999. Labour waited 2 years before it did anything about replacing that bill. It is all very interesting to hear the Opposition members accusing us of doing stuff while we are in Government in respect of victims yet Labour wasted and squandered the opportunities that it had to do things while it was in Government. 
The Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill maintains the integrity of those people who are in jail by making sure they receive the best treatment and punishing those who would keep them in a manner that does not give them the best treatment which they deserve as inmates being held at the bequest of the Crown. But having been sentenced for a crime it prevents them from accessing big amounts of monetary compensation that should rightfully find its way to the victims of their crimes. The Opposition members will vote for this bill; in fact almost everyone in the House will vote for it. We have not heard one single reason why the Labour Party supports this legislation other than that its members bang on that they might have thought of it first. Any sensible Government would have done so. We do not try to claim lots of points for promoting legislation that Labour put in. Labour agreed with this bill and it transitioned through the Justice and Electoral Committee very speedily because of the ability that we have on that committee to compromise and understand one other regardless of which side of the House we come from and because of the sterling work of that committee.