Collins Judith: Bail Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Bail Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12881. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Justice): Good morning Mr Deputy Speaker to you and to the House. The Bail Amendment Bill also strengthens the ability of police and courts to deal with young defendants on bail. The current law includes a strong presumption in favour of bail for defendants aged 17 to 19 years. The original bill removed this presumption for those who had previously been imprisoned as the data showed that this group had a high rate of offending on bail. The Law and Order Committee questioned the justification for the presumption for bail for 18 and 19-year-olds. This provision seemed to have rather obscure historical origins and the committee recommended that it be removed. The Government has agreed to this change although the original provision for 17-year-olds remains. This recognises the need wherever possible to avoid the incarceration of those under 18 in keeping with New Zealand’s international commitments.The bill includes a statutory regime for electronically monitored or EM bail. This has been a useful aspect of our bail system for several years but until now electronically monitored bail has been granted by the courts under their generic power to impose bail conditions. The Government believes that the time has come to make specific provision for electronically monitored bail in the legislation to ensure that it is applied consistently and effectively.The original bill provided for electronically monitored bail to be administered by police as it is at present. At the Committee of the whole House stage I tabled Supplementary Order Paper 339 to allow the Department of Corrections as well as the New Zealand Police to administer electronically monitored bail. The Department of Corrections already administers a number of other programmes involving the electronic monitoring of offenders in their homes such as home detention and parole conditions involving residential restrictions. It makes sense to take advantage of this expertise by allowing corrections staff to assess defendants in their homes for their suitability for electronically monitored bail. Police however will retain primary responsibility for the oversight of defendants on bail.The member Richard Prosser has tabled two Supplementary Order Papers to bring in what would have become known as Christie’s Law. This started from a petition put together by Mrs TraceyMarceau signed by about 58000 people and that petition is currently with the Law and Order Committee. Can I just thank the member Richard Prosser for providing me with copies of the Supplementary Order Papers prior to the Committee stage so that I was able to consider them. That is a matter that we would look forward to considering after the Christie’s Law petition has been dealt with by the committee and sent back to the House.I have also taken note of comments made by some members in the debates regarding the slowness of matters passing through the criminal justice system. I could not agree more. It is absolutely ridiculous that people are on bail for 18 months and that we wait in some cases for years for these serious matters to come through the court system. I can say that there is some hope already and that is around the implementation of the Criminal Procedure Amendment Act the Criminal Procedure Act Implementation Project legislation—or the “CPAI Act”—which is now in place. But also I look forwardto the support of other parties for the Judicature Modernisation Bill which I intend bringing to this House in the very near future to speed up the system and have justice not only being seen to be done but being seen to be done in a prompt and efficient manner. I commend this bill to the House.