Gallagher Martin: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
Gallagher Martin: Corrections Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12602] 
MARTIN GALLAGHER (Labour—Hamilton West) 
: 
 As members of the House will be aware the Law and Order Committee looked at this bill. The fact that there was a four-four split on the committee showed it was obviously unable to reach agreement on whether the bill should be passed. We had the interesting situation again of a degree of gridlock in the select committee so we reported the bill back to the House with no amendments. 
However the story in the telling is in the commentary. I would certainly like to acknowledge all members of the committee for the way in which we did work together on this bill. Obviously the commentary embraces the different views of respective parties. I certainly acknowledge the deputy chairman of the committee Marc Alexander and the Hon Tony Ryall and Brian Connell from National Edwin Perry from New Zealand First as well as my own Government colleagues Ann Hartley Mahara Okeroa and Georgina Beyer. 
Notwithstanding that we could not reach agreement I think the prime area of disagreement was the philosophical approach to the management of the prison service in terms of the role of the private sector in providing prisons versus the State and public sector. In the select committee I certainly detected quite a degree of commonality on a number of issues in spite of what a previous speaker has said. 
As has been said in previous speeches to the House—certainly from the Government side; let me acknowledge two previous Government speakers when this bill was last considered the current Minister the Hon Paul Swain and the Hon Matt Robson—and again to put this bill into perspective this is a major reform of law governing the operations of the corrections system. It will replace the Penal Institutions Act of 1954—obviously that is now 50 years old—and parts of the Criminal Justice Act 1985 and requires the replacement of the Penal Institutions Regulations 2000. The reform is clearly needed so that the legislation now reflects modern conditions and approaches to the management of offenders. In spite of what a previous speaker may have implied the bill is absolutely compatible with the Government’s criminal justice reforms—the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Victims’ Rights Act—which is clear evidence that this Government certainly has listened to public concern. 
We want to emphasise the central importance of public safety so it is obviously important we update the legislation. I want to make the observation that those on the other side of the House including members of the ACT party had 9 long years to do something in this area. Did they do it? No they did not. 
I want to take a bit of time—which a second reading speech allows perhaps—to deal with a couple of aspects we spent some time on. First of all I will deal with the issue of justices of the peace as visiting justices and also with the issue of information sharing and the need to refine information sharing with the New Zealand Police and the Immigration Service. I would like to use the remainder of my time in this second reading speech in contributing to those areas. 
As the report identified we had considerable discussion over the bill’s proposal to exclude justices of the peace from being appointed as visiting justices to our prisons. Supporting their exclusion were assertions that the use of justices of the peace as visiting justices was not working well for several reasons. The reasons included a perception of litigation risk and most judicial review actions relate to cases where the visiting justice was a justice of the peace. It was said that such actions could result in significant costs to the Crown particularly in legal fees and court costs even with the small number of cases subject to review and with the complexity of cases. Particularly since the introduction of drug testing in 1998 a high proportion of cases heard by visiting justices have related to drug charges. Such cases can often be overturned on procedural or technical issues related for example to evidentiary and testing procedures and legal representation. Those are the issues put in favour of excluding JPs as visiting justices. 
In terms of legal representation we talked about the potential for complex arguments to be raised and visiting justice cases have increased since prisoners have had the right to be represented by counsel. In some disciplinary cases a visiting justice who is legally trained may be able to deal more confidently with the issues raised. That was the argument. 
I want to acknowledge publicly what I believe was an excellent submission from the Royal Federation of New Zealand Justices Associations. Clearly it strongly opposed—understandably in my view—the removal of the appointment of justices of the peace as visiting justices. We certainly noted the associations’ concerns that it was not consulted about this change and certainly was not able to understand the rationale behind the proposals. Again we as a committee were not convinced that JPs should be excluded from the list of those who could be appointed as visiting justices. We also noted that only a small number of cases heard by visiting JPs have been overturned and that in the last 4 years there have been only six applications for judicial review of decisions made by JPs as visiting justices. On the whole as a select committee—and I agree with this quite strongly—we certainly do see a continuing role for visiting JPs. Let me take this opportunity to acknowledge the very good work that our JPs have done with regard to prisons. Theirs is a voluntary office and I certainly want to commend the submission and the work by the Royal Federation of the New Zealand Justices Associations. 
The other issue I want to touch on is the concerns we had in respect of information sharing—first of all with the New Zealand Police. We note that the Department of Corrections and the police have identified difficulties with the current legislative framework for information sharing which relate to the case-by-case approach required by the Privacy Act. To assist the police and the department to share information more effectively with the aim of better maintenance of law and order we support four information-sharing proposals with amendments to the bill as follows. 
We note that the department currently discloses information about offenders to the police on a case-by-case basis under the Privacy Act. However for certain classes of offenders—notably sexual offenders—the information provided is not adequate to provide the level of coordination necessary to ensure public safety. So again we have made some recommendations about how there can be a better coordination of information between the police and the Department of Corrections to boost and reinforce public safety. 
The other area of great importance to us I will say in the brief time I have left is to make sure we beef up information matching in terms of the provisions of this new bill with regard to the New Zealand Immigration Service. We have made certain proposals that the Immigration Service should identify individuals who are liable for deportation or removal from New Zealand. That will be conveyed to the Department of Corrections. We believe hopefully that that proposal for this sharing of information will largely eliminate the risk of individuals with criminal convictions escaping deportation or removal because of administrative oversights. Clearly the prison service and the authorities should be aware of the point at which a prisoner who is not a New Zealand citizen leaves so that people do not slip through the system. That is quite important. Obviously there will be a number of changes in that area—bearing in mind as I said that we have reported a bill back without any changes. It is my understanding that the Minister will introduce Supplementary Order Papers to encompass some of the recommendations made by the Government members of the committee. 
Finally let me applaud all members of the committee for the way in which they conducted themselves. Notwithstanding that we had a gridlock I believe that the commentary is a useful contribution to the progressing forward of this very important legislation.