Naylor JonoJONO NAYLOR (National): Well it has been an interesting evening so far when we have been debating this bill. I have heard people from the other side of the House say we are being too hard on criminals and then we have heard from New Zealand First members saying we are too soft on criminals. We have just had a really interesting challenge from my colleague Darroch Ball who sort of dared any of us on this side to say how somebody would survive on half of their benefit or survive on none of their benefit. I think that is the point actually. If somebody needs to take responsibility as most people do for ensuring that they continue to have income coming into their house then actually there are some responsibilities that go with that. What we expect of those people is that they actually comply with their community sentence and then they will never ever ever ever have to worry about that issue that Mr Ball has just suggested. Let us start with talking about offenders a little bit. Many offenders who are found guilty will find themselves in prison and they will find themselves there because of the seriousness of their crime. There needs to be some sort of deterrent for them ever reoffending or it might be for the sake of public safety or otherwise. But there are other offenders who in our wisdom over the years as a society we have realised will actually do better by having a community sentence of some description because their chances of being rehabilitated and reoffending are lessened than if they go to prison. So we have community-based sentences for some people. But it is right and it is fair for society to expect that those people who have had the privilege of not going to jail and have had the privilege of actually serving their sentence in the community actually comply with that sentence. When someone is in prison it is pretty easy to enforce the rules and say what you can and cannot do and that kind of thing. With community-based sentences there are fewer tools available to ensure that people will comply. This bill is about giving the Department of Corrections another tool in its tool box to actually ensure that people comply. Let us think about why we want people to comply with those provisions. Why do people have provisions in their community sentences? The first one that I thought of was to ensure their best chances of rehabilitation. We put those conditions on them and they meet them because we believe that by meeting those conditions we stand the best chance of rehabilitating them. Yet what I am hearing from the other side of the House is: Let's not make them let's not force them let's not make sure that they comply with those." So actually by voting against this bill what I hear from the other side of the House is: "We don't care about rehabilitation; we don't want to see these people rehabilitated because we are not going to give probation officers the tools to have at their disposal to ensure that people will comply." The other reason we have those provisions in community sentences is to help ensure public safety. Therefore why would we not want people to comply? Oh! So maybe the people on the other side of the House say: "We're not going to give probation officers another tool in their tool box to ensure that people comply with their community sentences because we are not concerned about public safety." Well on this side of the House we are concerned with the rehabilitation of offenders to ensure that they stand less chance of offending in the future. We are concerned with public safety and we will do what we can—we will use the tools that are available to us—to ensure that people are being rehabilitated properly; that there is going to be public safety. They do not just get that thrown on them straight away. As has been well documented there are warnings in place and so this is not thrust upon them. We are not forcing people to not get their benefit. Those people are making that choice for themselves. At the point where they say "We are not going to comply with the orders that the court has put on us" they are making the choice themselves not to bring income into their own household. I am not going to stand here and make excuses for that because those people need to take responsibility for themselves. Finally the bill is coming to the Social Services Committee. Why? It is because this bill is an amendment to the Social Security Act. That committee is a hard-working committee that will not shy away from hard work—we are quite happy to engage with this. Yes primarily the bill is to do with the Department of Corrections but it is going to make an amendment to the Social Security Act which we are more than happy to take our parliamentary responsibility for. I look forward to this bill going through coming to our committee and ensuring that New Zealand will be a safer better place because this legislation is in place."