Yates Dianne: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Yates Dianne: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2208] 
DIANNE YATES (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the first reading of the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. I am particularly pleased that the bill will be referred to the Foreign Affairs Defence and Trade Committee because that committee has already conducted an examination into the Optional Protocol and it concluded: “Ratification will reinforce New Zealand’s reputation as a country that has a strong and unfaltering commitment to human rights and is prepared to take steps in order to ensure human rights are protected in New Zealand and the international community.” As we have seen it is the good guys who have signed this treaty so far. It was initially agreed in 2002 and the Hon Phil Goff put out a press release on 24 August 2003 that said New Zealand was to sign this treaty. We now have in 2006 that we will bring it into our legislation because as we all know no international treaty can come into New Zealand law unless it goes through this House. 
We have noticed that the legislation allows for inspection of places of detention and those places of detention are described in the bill as a prison a police cell a court cell a hospital a secure facility a residence established under section 364 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act premises approved under the Immigration Act and a service penal establishment. I would be interested to see whether that covers monasteries and also home detention but that is something the select committee can look at when we are going through the bill and getting advice from both the Ministry of Justice as the bill is in the name of the Minister of Justice and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 
I note too that the committee that is to do this inspection if we are concerned about who is to do it is the National Preventive Mechanism which is a strange name. The National Preventive Mechanism means one or more of the following that may for the time being be designated under section 26 as a National Preventive Mechanism: an ombudsman holding office under the Ombudsmen Act the Police Complaints Authority the Children’s Commissioner persons designated by the director-general under section 32 of the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act visiting officers appointed in accordance with relevant Defence Force Orders and any other person or agency that is designated a National Preventive Mechanism. I think the last one is a rather vague definition and once again the select committee when we get to that stage might like to ask for a closer definition in that regard. 
We note too that when an inspection has been made the report is given in confidence to the particular Government. I note also there is confidentiality of information for people who will give information under the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill. We note that the schedules as designed by the UN are attached to the bill and we note also that there are several changes to many bills. I am sure Richard Worth will be very interested that we are amending the Corrections Act; the Crimes of Torture Act which is what this is all about; the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act; the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act; the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act; the Ombudsmen Act; and the Police Complaints Authority Act. So a whole range of Acts have to be amended in order for this bill to come into law. 
The select committee no doubt will be asking some very interesting questions—what if this happens; what if that happens—to ensure that our New Zealand sovereignty is maintained because whenever we sign anything of this nature we have to ensure that the sovereignty of New Zealand is maintained over our own institutions. So even though we are signing up to allow inspections and will be involved in inspections there is still the right of New Zealand to have its own information and its own laws in this regard. 
We look forward to examining this bill in closer detail in the select committee. We look forward to hearing submissions from members of the public. We look forward to hearing from officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade who have advised the Government on this issue and from the Ministry of Justice. I thank the Minister for bringing this bill to the House. Once again we are pleased that New Zealand is taking a lead because I do not think anybody in this House condones torture of any kind. However when we adopt this sort of legislation we need to be very careful about how we check it off with our own legislation.