Parker DavidRETURNING OFFENDERS (MANAGEMENT AND INFORMATION) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingDebate resumed.Hon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General): Thank you Madam Speaker. I will take a brief call. It is an unusual situation that we find ourselves in. Can I firstly endorse some of the comments from other members. I thought Nicole McKee's description of how the legislation works was very fulsome and accurate—thank you for that. I also agree with the analysis of Michael Woodhouse as to how this came about. It wasn't a deal as was suggested by the Green Party. It was a decision of the sovereign Australian Government that we might disagree with but none the less they had the power to make and did make and it meant that there were consequences that the New Zealand Parliament had to address in order to deal with the consequences of people being deported immediately upon release from prison in Australia and not being able to be supervised upon their release as they would have had they been released to Australia or had they been released in New Zealand following a similar sentence in the New Zealand system. So the New Zealand Parliament and the then Attorney-General thought it was appropriate to pass that legislation viewing it as rehabilitative rather than punitive and in the view of the Parliament thought that we were applying that not just to people who were sentenced after the date of that legislation in New Zealand but people who had previously been sentenced earlier than that date.We find ourselves in the unusual position that because of our respect for the courts even though we have that decision under appeal—and it may succeed or it may not succeed but in relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet that now has to be done that has to record that the view of the courts is that this is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. Even though we don't agree with all aspects of that decision we do have to respect it and therefore that creates the need for this remedial legislation and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet attempts to make those points.Can I also thank Chris Penk for pointing out to Parliament that even if we won the appeal G still gets the benefit of the decision personally. None the less there is a need to in the view of this Parliament—and now I'm speaking as a member of Parliament rather than the producer of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act vet—remedy the situation by enabling supervision of returning deportees following serious sentences in Australia including those who were sentenced prior to the passage of the remedial New Zealand legislation. We believe that it's important that supervision is possible in part because we can sometimes help those offenders deal with the problems that underlie their offending. There could be some strength to what the Green Party says that we should be doing more to help these returning offenders to integrate into New Zealand without reoffending and that could be a valid criticism that we're not doing enough. But that doesn't mean that we shouldn't have the power to intervene through supervision-like or parole-like conditions being imposed on returning deportees from Australia in these circumstances.