Worth Richard: Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Worth Richard: Parole (Extended Supervision) Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Volume:618;Page:14189] 
RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 As I gaze across to the Government benches on the opposite side of the Chamber and see the crowd of members present—and I look specifically at Marian Hobbs at Mark Peck at the two whips of the Labour Government at Helen Duncan at a widely alert Parekura Horomia at the Minister in charge of the bill at David Parker and at Lianne Dalziel—I pause to reflect on how they will judge the contribution they have made tonight to this significant legislation. The reality is that apart from the Minister no one else has uttered a word of any substance at all. A number of people have successfully taken closure motions and the whips have apparently cast votes accurately on behalf of the Labour Party but apart from that the Labour members have contributed nothing. I think it is a great shame that in a Chamber that should be a place of public debate the Government members sit silently and sullenly waiting for the close of business on this legislation when the House is in urgency on 29 June. It is instructive to note that the second reading of this legislation has followed from a Justice and Electoral Committee report presented on 14 June 2004. As I had the opportunity of saying at an earlier part in the debate it is quite surprising that since the original bill was presented to the House for its second reading the Government has found 17 shortfalls in this legislation necessitating a scurry of amendments. 
Mr Barker has spoken of and properly acknowledged the reservations that National has in support of this legislation. We have voted in favour of most of the major provisions but we have done so with a reservation because really all that we see of merit and intrinsic worth in this legislation is the introduction of a new extended supervision regime that will manage high-risk child sex offenders. It would be great if we could say that the legislation had within it the mechanisms to actively—and I underscore that word—manage high-risk child sex offenders but the history of the supervision of offenders by the agencies responsible for that task is unfortunately lamentable. That was identified very clearly for us the other day by the chairman of the New Zealand Parole Board in the comments he made when he realised with surprise just how poor that supervision was. Parole supervision starts with a bang but very much ends with a whimper and the consequence is unfortunately a hugely high rate of recidivism. 
I have spoken in the course of the debate about the particular clauses that cause a degree of concern to National and I have also noted that this legislation is amongst that where the Attorney-General has given a certificate that it infringes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—not only in one respect but in two. When I last looked at that issue which was about half a year ago I found that no fewer than 19 statutes had been passed in the term of the present Government—and presumably the number is much higher than that now—where the Government had pushed on recklessly in the face of determinations by the Attorney-General that there had been breaches of various degrees of egregiousness in respect of the civil rights legislation. That is a great pity. 
It is also right to say that the select committee that sat in judgment on this legislation did something to improve it. But it still remains the case that the whole regime of parole has become overly sophisticated complex and beset with qualifications elaborations and ambiguities. With the open-weave legislation style that has been adopted an opportunity is provided for the courts to actively intervene and gloss up the gaps in the legislation that seem to require the interpretative aid. 
I will just conclude by saying that it has proved possible in the context of looking at the problems that child sex offenders cause to the community to identify the factors that increase the risk of sexual recidivism against children. The key factors seem to be first the age of onset of the offending. It seems to be the case that the younger the offender the greater the risk is of reoffending particularly for those people who are under the age of 25. Second it seems clear that those who offend against boys rather than girls pose a greater risk of reoffending although I was interested to see on television this evening that increasing consideration is being given to dealing with the problem of those female offenders who have lurked for a substantial period undetected in the community. The third aspect is whether the victim is a stranger or a relative for it seems to be the case that there is a greater likelihood of reoffending where the victims are strangers. Then there are the issues of previous offending history and finally to the extent that therapy is available of whether the particular offender has embarked on a course of therapy and completed it or has failed in that process. 
This legislation is about to go to the further step of obtaining the Royal assent yet National judges it to be not without blotches. Certainly in the context of the policy National plans to announce on 4 July this year in connection with law and order a lot of this material will not sit well with that policy. We can confidently expect when National comes to power in May 2005 that legislation of this type will significantly come under the blowtorch and is likely to be substantially changed.