Nash Stuart: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNash Stuart: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 02 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1027. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART NASH (Labour—Napier):That was a great speech from Jenny and it outlined a lot of the problems we face in our society at the moment.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order!STUART NASH: Oh—Jenny Salesa. What I would like to talk about is new section 107I inserted by clause 11 and new sections 107IAA and 107IAB inserted by clause 12.Basically a lot of what we do in society is assessing risk and the ability to assess risk and make a sound judgment based on that assessment has a very strong determination on where we end up and the actions that are taken. This is in business; this is in life. You know we decide whether we are going to walk home or whether we are going to have a couple of wines and drink etc. What this section talks about is the ability to assess risk and what defines high risk and very high risk.Mrs Salesa talked about the fact that there are only 25 to 30 people under these extended supervision orders. I find it very difficult to believe that there are so few people who have committed these crimes. But what we need to do is have a look at this and what the court must do when it looks to make an extended supervision order following the hearing of an application—I am talking about new section 107I(2) here—is look at a couple of conditions.The first condition is that the court has to be satisfied that “the offender has or has had a pervasive pattern of serious sexual or violent offending;”. What we are talking about here is the most insidious people in our society—those who have committed the most heinous crimes. Part of this is that the court has to be satisfied that “there is a high risk that the offender will in future commit a relevant sexual offence:” or in fact that there is a very high risk. So the bill makes a distinction between high risk and very high risk. It sets out a series of conditions under which high risk and very high risk are assessed. I find it a little strange to be honest that we are talking about people who have committed the most heinous of crimes and I would have thought that all of these people fall under the category of “very high risk” anyway. But let me just go through the differences if I may and I seek the Committee’s indulgence on that.New section 107IAA “Matters court must be satisfied of when assessing risk” talks about high risk so this is high risk as opposed to very high risk. Subsection (1) states: “A court may determine that there is a high risk that an eligible offender will commit a relevant sexual offence only if it is satisfied that the offender—(a) displays an intense drive desire or urge to commit a relevant sexual offence;”. So again we are talking about someone who may have a physiological disposition for this and whom I assume has quite a low mental capacity to assess their own behaviour let alone what society thinks is right and wrong. In fact they may even have a blurred perception of what is right and wrong anyway. They also have to have: “(b) … a predilection for”—oh they have to be serious sexual offenders. The third one is that they have to have: “(c) … limited self-regulatory capacity;”—i.e. again they do not have the ability to determine the difference between right and wrong—and they have to display: “(d) … either or both of the following: (i) a lack of acceptance of responsibility … for past offending: (ii) an absence of understanding for or concern about the impact of [their] sexual offending on actual or potential victims.”That is pretty serious I would argue. But that is only the high risk category. Believe it or not there is another category above high risk—and this goes to subsection (2)—and this is very high risk. So there is a difference believe it or not between high risk and very high risk.The conditions that have to be satisfied for the offender to be very high risk are that the offender “(a) has a severe disturbance in behavioural functioning established by evidence of each of the following characteristics: (i) intense drive desires or urges to commit acts of violence; and (ii) extreme aggressive volatility; and (iii) persistent harbouring of vengeful intentions towards 1 or more other persons; and (b) either—(i) displays behavioural evidence of clear and long-term planning of serious violent offences to meet a premeditated goal; or (ii) has limited self-regulatory capacity; and (c) displays an absence of understanding for or concern about the impact of his or her violence on actual or potential victims.”I would have thought that people who display the sort of behaviour that is listed in the very high risk category would actually be on what is it called—life—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): The member means preventive detention.STUART NASH: Sorry—preventive detention. That is what I meant sorry—preventive.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I just did not want to wait too long.STUART NASH: The sort of behaviour that we are talking about here is the sort of behaviour where the offenders have done their chips. They have committed the most heinous of crimes which our society really does not accept. This is the sort of crime where you do not get out. We are talking about premeditated—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Where the person does not get out I think.STUART NASH: —where the person does not get out—after how many years? After 24 years or is it 28 years—27 years in the House—in the big house; the really big house.Maybe the Minister can help me on this matter. Why are we looking at extended supervision orders for parole for people who have “an absence of understanding or concern about the impact of his or her sexual offending on actual or potential victims. Why are we looking at parole no matter how extended it is for persons with “severe disturbance in behavioural functioning established by evidence of … (i) intense drive desires or urges to commit acts of violence; and (ii) extreme aggressive volatility; and (iii) persistent harbouring of vengeful intentions towards 1 or more persons” and where the person displays such clear evidence of antisocial behaviour that basically they are going to commit a crime? This is what this says.The thing that I am not too sure about I suppose is who assesses this? I am assuming that a trained criminal psychiatrist is the person who comes up with the assessment distinguishing between high and very high risk. I do not know of a court in the land or of a learned member of the judiciary that would have the ability to determine whether someone is a high or a very high risk. The sort of behavioural conditions we are talking about here are those that can be assessed only by a registered and highly trained medical professional.I was looking through this bill and I could not find anywhere in it a description of who actually came up with the determination of whether such a person would be high risk or very high risk. But there must be some sort of criteria. I am assuming that before a person like this goes before a court there is a psychiatrist’s report given and the psychiatrist says: “Your Honour under section 107IAA I deem this person to be of a very high risk.”But the thing I have learnt when debating a law like this is to never make an assumption because you can often be wrong. This is the sort of bill that cuts to the heart of what we judge is a civilised society and what we need to weigh up in terms of human rights versus the expectations of communities that they will be safe. Perhaps the Minister in the chair Nathan Guy could just enlighten me slightly on who will have the ability to assess what constitutes high risk versus very high risk.The other thing also is that I suppose we get to a certain point where this person is on extended parole and they are not living with the person from the Parole Board 24/7. My real concern is that if they are showing such antisocial behaviour—and they are obviously doing this 24/7—and they commit the type of crime that we are talking about here while out on parole there is not only harm to the community but massive political risk and the Minister himself knows this. If someone out on parole who shows this sort of behaviour commits a crime well then we know the sort of stuff that Garth McVicar and his characters will go on about. But if you have got any comments to make Minister I would love to hear them. With that I will sit down. Thank you.