Barclay Todd: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarclay Todd: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11613. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is an honour to be able to speak in support of this bill. I would just like to acknowledge the Minister of Corrections who is here and who leads this bill; the select committee chair; and the other members of the committee from across the House. This was one of the first pieces of legislation that I had the privilege of being a part of on the Law and Order Committee and I want to acknowledge many of the remarks made by Phil Goff. I was on that visit to Auckland when we visited the facility that monitors the people who are out in the community on electronic monitoring. I have got to say that it was a much more sophisticated set-up than what I had envisaged. When you take into consideration the fact that you have got about 3000 to 4000 people on electronic monitoring at any one time across the country 24/7 and you have got the ability for any one of those people to breach their conditions it is a pretty dedicated staff I think in the facility in Auckland who are monitoring and keeping in contact with the Department of Corrections and the police on a regular basis.Just a bit of background as to why this bill was necessary. We know that under the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Bail Act respectively they all have various conditions set out where electronic monitoring can be used. So within the Sentencing Act it can be used as a condition of home detention or community detention under the Parole Act it can be used as residential restrictions and under the Bail Act it can be used as a condition of bail. But one of the things that it could not do was that for prisoners who were released after 2 years or less there was not the ability to be able to impose electronic monitoring on those people nor was it there for people under intensive supervision or people going into post-detention conditions at the end of their home detention.This bill is really an extension of what already exists within the legislation. It is a pragmatic step because what it does is it enables people who have served sentences for less serious crimes than crimes that warrant over 2 years’ imprisonment to be able to get out of the prison system a lot quicker and reintegrate into the community and for the Government to be able to use these people and for them to be able to take advantage of some of the reintegration tools that exist within the community already.What it also does is it enables people who are in prisons to go out on work to contract positions. For example in Milton prison where there are 22 people in this position where they are in contract-to-work parties they are out across the South Otago region on a daily basis providing support to council or community organisations or whoever. These guys—it is a high-trust model. They are obviously out in the community; they could be doing anything but now what this does is it gives the Department of Corrections the ability to slap on a bracelet and to be able to monitor these people more intensively. Also Milton prison under Jack Harrison’s management has 28 prisoners who work on the prison farm a vast piece of land basically offsite from the prison. This bill gives the ability for the department to be able to monitor these people out in the workforce as well. So it will enable us to help reintegrate these people into the community and provide training while still monitoring and managing their integration back into the community. It is an honour to be able to support this bill.