Faafoi Kris: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFaafoi Kris: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 18 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13482. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana):Talohani Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. Following the member Kate Wilkinson who has just resumed her seat and in contrast to our stance on a bill that we spoke on last night I do rise and agree with most of what she has said in her speech because we do have to make sure that the public are protected as she said from the worst of the worst of these offenders who are very soon about to be released from prison but who will still in the eyes of the High Court pose a very high risk of sexual or violent reoffending.One of the fundamental functions of this Parliament is to keep public safety and good order within our society and within our communities. A vast number of pieces of legislation deals with that in a very broad sense such as when we deal with police or any kind of corrections bills. But as the previous speaker said this piece of legislation applies to only a very small number of people. It does pose on them a heavy degree of restriction even though they are entitled to be released after having served a sentence in prison for offending seriously. But because of the nature of their offending and because of the nature of their personalities and any I guess condition that they might have they do pose a very serious risk of reoffending and we need to protect the safety of the public in terms of that.I guess one of the things that Andrew Little mentioned in his speech—as he has just joined us—was the notion of getting the balance right between protecting public safety when you do have very serious criminals being released who do pose serious risk to the public and the kinds of restrictions that we put on them even though they are entitled to be released. Some of the restrictions that have already been mentioned are the monitoring of their communications via both their letters and also their phone calls. I guess that is one of the reasons why we want to make sure that we get that balance right. We are supporting this piece of legislation’s referral to the Justice and Electoral Committee so that we can ask some of those questions about getting that balance right because we do want to make sure that public safety is preserved while also preserving some pretty fundamental principles around criminal justice. That is why we will be supporting the referral of this piece of legislation as it stands now to the Justice and Electoral Committee for closer examination.Just for those who may not be familiar with the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and what it does—and this has already been mentioned—the bill allows the chief executive of the Department of Corrections to ask the High Court for an order in relation to prisoners who meet a number of very tight circumstances. The first is that the prisoner will have been convicted of a serious sexual or serious violent offence the chief executive at the time considers that that prisoner poses a risk of imminent sexual or violent offending if they are released out into communities and the prisoner has been subject to a sentence and that sentence is close to being or has been completed.If a public protection order is granted the court will be able to grant that order if it is satisfied that there is indeed a risk of imminent offending and that risk is to be assessed on the basis of reports from at least two psychologists or reports from a psychiatrist and a psychologist. I think that is a very important safeguard that has been put into this piece of legislation. The detention of the person who is the subject of the protection order will be on prison grounds which is necessary for the safety of both the prisoner and the community and the prisoner is not to be suffering any other mental health condition that would qualify him or her for detention in a mental health facility.I guess that was a good point that Andrew Little made in his speech last night: what happened to these people in the past before this type of measure could be taken? Hewas very concerned that some of these people might have been in some of our mental institutions or they might be falling through the cracks at the moment and we have not really had an ideal way of looking after them. So we think that this could certainly be one way of making sure that we protect the safety of the public and that we also protect the rights of the people who are subject to these public protection orders.Of course there is a bit of politics involved in this because it is 18 September 2013 and 12 months ago Charles Chauvel a former colleague of ours who was our justice spokesperson at the time was concerned about a lack of scrutiny or about a lack of—I guess the word we could use here is “communication”—communication from that side of the House over to here and—Andrew Little: Consultation.KRIS FAAFOI: —consultation on this bill. It was exactly 1 year ago that he was concerned about that.Andrew Little: I thought this date reminded me of something.KRIS FAAFOI: That is right—exactly 1 year ago. The consultation has not continued and 1 year later—it has taken a whole year to get to the first reading of this bill. It has taken exactly 1 year for us to get to the first reading of this bill. But as we have said we are going to support this bill’s referral to the select committee because we do think that it is worthy of closer examination and to make sure that we get the balance right.I just want to look at some of the details of the bill including some of the safeguards that are built into the bill that the select committee will look at. Clause 14 is one that I want to look at—as I put this Post-it note over there—and it says that there will be a review panel which will review public protection orders annually. I think given the nature of some of these protection orders and the seriousness of the restrictions on the subjects and also the nature of the offenders—or I guess they are not offenders at that stage; they are formally convicted. Is that right? But because of that we want to make sure that those protection orders are reviewed and clause 14 by way of an annual review certainly gives the ability for us to make sure that those public protection orders—Andrew Little: Detainees.KRIS FAAFOI: —are looked at and that they are still appropriate for the person.There are also some question marks that we have on this side and questions that we will certainly be asking around the communications of the detainees. This piece of legislation gives the right for the Department of Corrections to monitor telephone calls. It also gives the ability for the department to monitor the internet use of the detainees. I think given some of our concerns around that we will certainly be asking some questions about that in the select committee process.The balance is what we are looking for in this piece of legislation. There could have been greater balance if there had been more consultation from the Minister of Justice with the Labour side of the House maybe a year ago or even a year before that when this piece of legislation was introduced. So we do have a number of concerns about that but we do believe that the select committee process will address some of those. We do believe that there are some concerns around the basics of criminal justice principles but we believe that with questioning from the Labour side of the House we can certainly address some of those issues. Thank you.