SpeechVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you Mr Speaker for an opportunity to take a call in relation to this bill. There are times at which this House makes legislation under circumstances of necessity and I believe that this is one. I'd first make a comment in terms of the use of urgency. I do know that sometimes we lament the use of urgency in the House but in truth we provide for it in our Standing Orders not only urgency but extraordinary urgency as well. So as a matter of our parliamentary process we recognise that there are times at which we will need to make decisions under circumstances of necessity. And certainly when there is a significant risk to public safety that is justified. Now this bill is really the result of the declaratory judgement under the Declaratory Judgments Act 1908 which has been referenced already. Mr Goldsmith when he was seeking responses to why it was at that stage it was also made in the shadow of the case of C v the New Zealand Parole Board and Mr Goldsmith asked the question of why we can't find very quickly providers who would both be able to provide the rehabilitative treatment as well as the residential programmes. At paragraph 15 of the declaratory judgment it speaks to an affidavit that was provided by Ms Brittany McNamara who was the national manager of high risk at the Department of Corrections and I'll quote from it in paragraph 16. She said It is often difficult to find acceptable housing for the riskiest ESO offenders in the community." And so it is that practical issue really that has resulted in this declaratory judgment and indeed now this legislative change. So in terms of the declaratory judgment the parole board was seeking a declaration in relation to whether section 107K(3)(bb)(ii) prevented an accommodation provider from ever providing rehabilitative programmes and they also posed two other questions for consideration. The first was that if it doesn't what limits if any does that section establish on the board's ability to impose conditions that enable an offenders accommodation provider to also provide rehabilitative programmes. And finally they posed a question about whether the parole board has the power to revisit its decision imposing special conditions in the event that its previous decisions are found to be inconsistent with the law. Judge Isaac's provided a very thorough decision and he concluded at paragraph 104 of the judgment "For the foregoing reasons I declined to make a declaration sought by the parties. In my view section 107K(3)(bb)(ii) of the Parole Act prevents the board from imposing a special condition that requires or results an offender residing with his or her programme provider." Now while that was the final decision having read—I haven't read the whole judgment—but having read parts of it I did note at paragraph 86 that Judge Isaac did acknowledge that one can readily imagine a rehabilitative programme that might involve a residential component for entirely proper therapeutic reasons. What he says is "As Mr Butler acknowledged there is some strength in the party's submission that the broad interpretation may be overboard in its effect because in some situations there are no additional concerns about an ESO offender being subject to a programme operated by their resident's provider. In this respect"—he goes on to say—"the concerns of Sir Ronald Young and corrections about the implications of a broad interpretation are well founded but practical considerations must yield to the statutory language." That is really the core of the judgement in terms of where we are moving today. He goes on to say "If Parliament wishes to enable programme conditions that require an offender to reside with the programme provider it will need to amend the language it chose to adopt which is what we are doing today. In doing so it will no doubt consider again the balance between protection of the community and the Bill of Rights implications." And we have tabled with us the Attorney-General's provisions today.I would conclude by saying I do think bill of rights considerations are important and indeed to compensate for the removal of section 107K(3)(bb)(ii) of the Parole Act and because New Zealand Bill of Rights Act provisions are engaged the bill adds in a balancing protection by requiring the parole board to undertake periodic reviews of their special conditions so that human rights bill of rights protection is woven in there again. I will lastly say again that I do believe this is a bill of necessity and I commend it to the House."