Goff Phil: Parole Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionGoff Phil: Parole Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 19 November 2013. Volume:695;Page:15094. Text is subject to correction.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Labour will be supporting this bill the Parole Amendment Bill. But at the same time at the Law and Order Committee which I sit on we will be examining it very closely because I think that the quid pro quo for the changes being recommended here being acceptable is that there are adequate safeguards to ensure that there continues to be fair and timely consideration given to parole decisions.It is not often I talk about movies in this House but there is a particular movie that I remember very clearly calledThe Shawshank Redemption. I remember very clearly in that movie the unfairness of the system that was prevalent in the United States at the time where you got called up for parole but they were never going to give it to you. That is taking the system far too far in the wrong direction even when people had reached the point where they had done their time they had shown remorse they were clearly on a better track in their lives and there was not much point in keeping them in the prison system. Even this Government has acknowledged that keeping people in the prison system beyond the time that is necessary to preserve the safety of the community is not a good idea.I put the Parole Act 2002 in place when I was the Minister of Justice. There was a huge amount of work that went into that new legislation and that legislation brought in huge changes which I think have had major and beneficial effects for New Zealand. The regulatory impact statement for this bill actually acknowledges that the reform put in place by the 2002 legislation has been really effective. It notes and this was something that I insisted on in that legislation that the Parole Board’s paramount consideration—and those are the words it used: “paramount consideration”—must be the safety of the community. That is exactly as it should be. The Parole Board has to be satisfied before it grants release on parole to any inmate that that person will not pose undue risk—those are the words that are used—to the public. That considerably tightened the parole system. It put the public and the victims first. When I say “victims” I mean not only the victims of the offending that saw that inmate put into prison but also the potential victims if you let somebody out when it was inappropriate to do so and raised the risk that they would continue offending.The regulatory impact statement produced by this Government notes that the decisions made under that parole system that I put in place have resulted in a lot more prisoners serving a higher percentage of their total imposed sentence in prison but it also makes this comment which is absolutely vital: the result of that system is that the number of offences committed by prisoners between release on parole and the end of the sentence date has halved—the amount of offending by inmates on parole has halved. That is a huge achievement and that is a major vindication of what that Labour Government did in 2002. Not only was the offending halved but on the measurementsof harm done to the community by people on parole that had also halved. So the legislation was a lot tougher it was a lot more effective and it has produced the results. It was not flimflam legislation designed to make the public think how tough you are on law and order; it was genuinely about the safety of the community and that is the way that it needed to be.Well that legislation is now 12 years old and I am happy for it to be reviewed. On first consideration I think that the changes proposed will be beneficial and they will be beneficial in particular to the victims who will not unnecessarily have to worry every time an inmate comes up for parole even if that inmate is patently unready or unsuitable to be released on parole. I and the Labour Party put a huge amount of emphasis on the position of the victim in society. The victim in the past has too often been the second consideration. It is the victim who comes first. If a person in all likelihood is not going to be released on parole why then put the victim through the trauma of having to attend the parole hearing or wait to hear the results of the parole hearing all the time fearing what the result might be from the release of the person who offended against them—particularly in the case of very serious offences? If you are in the situation of getting parole generally the offences are very serious. So what we put first is the position of the victim.The regulatory impact statement makes much of the fact that there will be a saving of about $700000 a year. Well you know it is always good to save $700000 a year but that is not I hope and should not be the driving cause for this reform. I think the cause for this reform has got to be that if a person is ready to be released on parole then they should be released. It is pointless and is not right to continue to incarcerate a person who is ready for release but we want to make sure that the person is ready for release.The regulatory impact statement also points out many of the problems that we have. Most inmates go up for parole three or four times before they are actually released on parole and that indicates to me that probably we are taking people to parole too early. There is a safeguard—that the prisoner himself or herself can at any time ask for parole to be given if there is a change in their circumstances. If a person has completed a programme and they have come through and all of the assessments—and the assessments today are much more professional—show that they are unlikely to reoffend then let us get the person off the taxpayer’s back out of the prison back with their family and back contributing to the community. That is quite important.The other thing with the 12-month review that we have in the present law is that because you have to do it within 12 months many people are coming up at the 11 month period each time. So the period is actually shorter than the 12 months set out in the current legislation.Further to that in many cases the parole hearing is taking place before the offender has completed the programme that they are on to address the causes of their offending. That is a bit dumb to be frank. You know if you go in there and if you have as so many of our prisoners do an alcohol or a drug problem and you are doing one of the programmes that we started up—which this Government to be fair has continued and expanded—for your alcohol and drug problem then you are not going to be released before you have completed the programme. So why would you have a parole hearing—because you have to every 12 months—if you are working on a 17-month offender rehabilitation programme that is going to vastly reduce the chances of your reoffending while in the community? So there is a certain amount of common sense in the proposals that are being made and that is the reason we are actually supporting this legislation before the House.I want to reiterate that although I am in favour of not holding unnecessary parole hearings I am in favour of those parole hearings in appropriate cases being unattendedby the offender. That sounds extreme but there are many cases where the second parole hearing is just to get more information. If the inmate does not need to be there and provided those rules are followed fairly and honestly then I think there can be an exemption for the inmate having the right to attend that parole hearing. There are other cases where the only work being done is technical work where it does not require attendance.There is also a provision for parole to be attended electronically rather than in person. I have been in court when inmates have appeared electronically before court hearings. That works perfectly well particularly in circumstances where it may be dangerous to transport the inmate. So there are some good things happening there but what we at the select committee will be doing is looking to ensure that this does not obstruct the right to a fair and timely parole hearing and that what we do will be about common sense. It will not be about actually keeping people in prison longer; it will be about not having unnecessary parole hearings when it is patently obvious to everybody that the answer will be no.Last but not least is that we need to make sure that what we are is consistent with all of the international human rights standards that we as a country have signed up to and have always acknowledged.