Ardern Jacinda: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1009. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):I want to come back to some of the review processes that are being established around the public protection orders particularly under clause 14 of Part 1. I do think the review process is important given that as has already been stipulated this is a civil regime which is a departure from the well-established principles within our justice system. Those were the points that were raised by the Greens.Although I agree with the principle of what is being done here with some significant caveats I would be interested in whether the Minister Hekia Parata wanted to explore the difference between the use of preventive detention versus the orders that we are looking at today. Preventive detention is used internationally for an offender who has a potential risk at the time of sentencing of repeating their offence if they are not given an indeterminate sentence. So a judgment is made at the time by the judge that the seriousness of the offending and the nature of the offender are such that an indeterminate sentence needs to be used. But the threshold for that in New Zealand as I understand it is an offence punishable by no less than 5 years’ imprisonment. The standard in these sets of orders is 7 years so that is a higher threshold test. So actually those who might be up for consideration for preventive detention could end up as the exact same offenders who end up being detained under public protection orders.But the punishment is somewhat less for the public protection order given the additional freedoms that are granted and given that it is a civil regime. Yet there are I understand currently as of 30 June 2010 719 prisoners serving indeterminate sentences. Compare that with some states in Australia: Victoria has 54 prisoners Queensland has 350. Comparatively we use preventive detention at what would seem like a relatively high rate. I would be interested if there were any other international comparisons. There are 719 uses of preventive detention which has a slightly lower threshold probably targeting the same group.Preventive detention probably has a lower set of tests as well because we are requiring a range of tests by psychologists health assessments and an ongoing monitoring regime by the courts on a yearly basis to ensure that that public protection order should still apply. Under preventive detention a parole board can say it does not want to see you for 5 years which is quite different from this regime.It is interesting that we draw the line here to say that a public protection order would be a breach of human rights but a preventive detention order which is granted at a time when there has not been say a sentencing period to assess whether or not a prisoner is indeed an ongoing risk is somehow a greater breach. I am sure that there are all sorts of reasons around our justice system that would determine why that is at the point of sentencing and so on but when you actually just break it down it is an interesting question to ask which one you could consider to be a greater breach of someone’s human rights: the decision at the beginning for a sentence that would usually attract perhaps only 5 years that says actually we are not going to tell you whether or not you are ever going to be released because we consider you that much of a risk versus an individual who after serving 7 years is determined under a very high threshold to still be a risk and we determine that we will do a yearly ongoing monitoring at a lesser enforcement level—so not within the prison system but within a civil regime. I understand why they are obviously two different bars but if you break it down like that one might consider the issue somewhat differently.Going back to the review process which is set out in clause 14 it is an annual review. My question is whether at that annual review—and the Minister might like to clarify this; my apologies if it is contained in the bill—a full assessment will happen each and every time within that review process which is set out in clause 14 because it did not seem quite clear to me whether it would. The initial assessment as to whether or not someone should have a public protection order apply to them is that they will have a report by a health assessor—at least two separately prepared—