Dean Jacqui: Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dean Jacqui: Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 08 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:2041. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) 
: 
 I was reading the regulatory impact statement and it makes for quite interesting reading because the Administration of Community Sentences and Orders Bill comes out of a review of the current legislative and regulatory framework. The Department of Corrections has identified some minor but worth-to-do legislative amendments that will make the day-to-day management of offenders in all the areas that I am going to go over more effective and more efficient.  
According to the regulatory impact statement the preferred option for the Department of Corrections is to make these minor amendments. Option one was the status quo and to do nothing. It is worth remembering that this National-led Government has passed 18 new laws and made other policy changes to not only improve public safety but also put the rights of victims to the forefront. National will continue to promote policies that hold offenders to account and that put victims at the heart of the justice system. Generally the current legislation is providing a sound corrections framework but there are certain provisions that have been identified as barriers to managing offenders in the community in a manner that is safe in a manner that is secure and in a manner that is humane but also effective and efficient. This bill will remove those barriers.  
Minor policy changes are recommended to the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Bail Act. For the Sentencing Act there are a number of changes which the Minister outlined fully in her speech to the House. But just very quickly changes to the Sentencing Act will require pre-sentence reports before an offender is sentenced to home detention or community detention. So that is strengthening that connection between the court and sentencing. It clarifies the effect on home detention of a subsequent sentence of imprisonment. So if an offender is already on home detention and subsequently is sentenced to imprisonment it just clarifies the effect on that home detention sentence which is a little unclear at the moment. It prevents the imposition of old custodial sentences that are inconsistent with an existing sentence or order and it aligns electronic monitoring conditions with the range of the monitoring equipment. Once again the legislation needs to keep up with modern technology. It clarifies when time should stop and start on community-based sentences during periods of non-compliance. If the offender goes back before the court what happens to the community-based sentence? That needs to be clarified. It enables court registrars to issue arrest warrants in applications to review a non-custodial sentence.  
The changes to the Parole Act of 2002 clarifies—once again this is about clarifying and giving certainty to the Department of Corrections—the responsibility for preparing reports on suitability for residential restrictions. The changes to the Bail Act—and I am not sure that I share the concerns expressed by the member who spoke previously on changes to the Bail Act—that I see outlined in the bill are to prevent the imposition of bail conditions that are inconsistent with an existing sentence or order. We will have a good look at that and we will also have a good look at enabling home detention to continue pending an appeal. The Law and Order Committee will have a close look at those and at the other changes.  
As to the final financial impact the Department of Corrections estimates that the proposal to clarify the effect of a subsequent sentence of imprisonment on home detention might require an additional $200000 of capital funding. That will be required to update the courts’ case management systems. I think that sounds like quite a good efficiency to take and that is something that the Law and Order Committee will be able to further review when we are doing our financial review of the Department of Corrections. The Law and Order Committee will give this bill full consideration and I commend it to the House.