Bradford Sue: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
Bradford Sue: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9564] 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party welcomes the return of this bill to the House today. As most members will be aware it has been around for an awfully long time. While it is odd that we are dealing with such neglected legislation under urgency I am glad for the sake of the people affected that it will be finally passed into law. 
The need for this bill and for its accompanying Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) was created in part by changes to criminal and mental health legislation in 1992. The Green Party totally supports the intent of those changes which are to separate out legally offenders who are suffering from mental illness from those who have an intellectual impairment. Unlike some other speakers in this House over the last 24 hours Green Party members do not think that mental illness and an intellectual disability are the same thing. It was and is entirely appropriate that criminal offenders in those categories should be treated quite separately and distinctly under law. 
A problem occurred however when the legislative gap created by those changes meant that too few options in the intervening years were left to the courts for dealing with people with intellectual impairment in need of compulsory care. While their numbers are not large at any given time it does not mean that we as a society should simply dump those people into inappropriate places like prisons or mental health units. Over the last 20 years or so there has been a lot in the media and elsewhere about the problems associated with that unacceptable situation. 
For example the incidence of physical and mental abuse of intellectually disabled offenders in prisons is well documented and lurks like an unspeakable shadow within the greater conspiracy of silence about real life in New Zealand prisons. It is also reported that such prisoners are often abused and even exploited by other inmates are even less able to cope with the harsh environment and are far more likely to regress rather than progress towards any form at all of rehabilitation. Prison is a tough place even for those in sound physical and mental health and without any physical or intellectual disability. For people with major intellectual impairment it is horrendous that prisons have and continue to be the sentence of last resort. I hope that the passage of this bill really will mark the beginning of the end of that situation. 
The major concern the Green Party has with the legislation is not with its intent but with its implementation as the previous speaker also pointed out. We are suspicious that the number of secure placements needed for offenders covered by the bill’s provisions will not be enough—either now or in the future. We know that the Government has allocated more money and has started setting up hospital-level secure services facilities but progress does not appear to be happening quickly enough. I hope that the new regional intellectual disability care agencies will move as quickly as is practicable towards establishing the full range of services possible and that the Government will continue to commit sufficient funding as the agencies go along to make sure that that happens. 
I also note that the Green Party very much supports changes from the original drafting of the bill which mean adults and young people who are not criminal offenders will be excluded from the scope of this legislation. It was totally unacceptable from a human rights and a civil liberties point of view that the National Government even considered subjecting non-offenders to the provision of compulsory care under this bill. I am glad that the select committee had the sense to take that provision out as soon as it could. For example in a submission to the Health Committee on the original bill People First New Zealand a self-advocacy group for people with an intellectual disability and others expressed their fear that even people who had committed no crime at all could be locked up and that that provision would apply not just to adults but also to children and young people. Such a discriminatory approach has no place in the 21st century and I can assure people that the Green Party would never have supported this bill had those provisions remained in place. 
We welcome changes on the Supplementary Order Paper to the definition of intellectual disability so that it is now in line with the most up to date international standards. It is good to see that the select committee has made it clear that people cannot be defined as intellectually disabled solely because they have a mental disorder personality disorder or a brain injury. We are also pleased that there is now a greater focus on rehabilitation than was originally intended. 
The Green Party looks forward to the passage of this bill into law later today. I hope that the Government will put the necessary resources behind it so that it can fulfil its functions satisfactorily and well.