Power Simon: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
Power Simon: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10572] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 Well what an interesting 30 minutes we have just had on the Criminal Justice Reform Bill the title of which is now the subject of the debate as is the commencement date. The interesting thing about the commencement date is that what is about to commence is quite different from what was going to commence 25 minutes ago. 
Yesterday when the National Party raised issues with the Minister over the rights of victims of crimes to appear before the Parole Board in a very limited and narrow fashion—only at the invitation of the Parole Board and only on certain limited matters such as public safety and the like—the Minister purred cooed checked with the officials and told us that everything was all right. I said at the time that I was worried about the ambiguous nature of these particular clauses and I was worried that the victims of crimes throughout New Zealand would consider it to be a loss rather than a win to have victims’ rights heard on what otherwise could be seen as a bill concerned only with offenders’ rights. The interesting thing of course is that this very point was raised by Victim Support at the Justice and Electoral Committee when the bill was before that committee. 
Then the most curious series of events occurred. As Heather Roy tabled her amendments to the bill National looked at them quickly and was supportive of them. Ron Mark on behalf of New Zealand First quickly made an assessment that the amendments were worthwhile and decided to support them. All the while Lynne Pillay and Charles Chauvel were put in the odd position of standing up and rejecting the amendments for various reasons which I am sure they believed to be right and proper—which they were not. 
Then the Minister stood up and took a call and in one of the most glaringly obvious and clever understandings of MMP that we have seen in this Chamber for some time he realised after doing the maths on his fingers and toes that these particular amendments would pass whether or not the Government supported them. This meant that the rights of victims to appear before the Parole Board would remain as they are today and that the issues National had raised in the Committee yesterday—and that were put on paper by Heather Roy on behalf of the ACT party—would stand forever inscribed as the Government being opposed to any lack of ambiguity around a victim’s right to appear before the Parole Board. 
Not only were Charles Chauvel and Lynne Pillay completely sideswiped and had their legs knocked out from under them having stood in the Committee to speak against Heather Roy’s amendments but the Minister—who is a Minister because he is able to do numbers unlike his two colleagues—realised it was all going to turn to custard. All of a sudden the ambiguity that National had referred to yesterday became a problem for Labour and it was suddenly a problem for the Minister of Justice who stood in a reasonably chastened way and said: “Well we don’t want any ambiguity on this; let’s just make it all crystal clear.” He talked to the officials who shook their heads. But the Minister who takes political responsibility for the numbers game in this House worked it out and the Government supported ACT’s amendments the contents of which were pointed out to the Government yesterday by National—then there was not a problem; today there was a problem. The Government has finally realised the mistake of its ways because of Victim Support because of National because of ACT and because of other organisations outside the House that have strong views on these issues and it was forced to back down despite sending its loyal troops Lynne Pillay and Charles Chauvel in to argue the contrary. 
This is a good day for MMP because a common-sense result occurred despite the Government giving assurances yesterday that there would not be a problem. Today it has recognised that there was a big problem. It was a big problem because if the Committee had voted on this the Government would have—