O'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8061. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): We in New Zealand First accept that we have a rather novel situation here. We also accept that it is not of the Government’s making. I have already criticised the Australian Government for that and am not going to go back there. I have also criticised John Key for some of his behaviour over it. Again I am not going back there now. But I do want to say that I think we should all see this bill as a starting point and that there is going to be a journey after this to continue to deal with what is happening in terms of the return of offenders from Australia to New Zealand and that the bill will need review. I am glad to see that there is a review provision in it so that we can do that. There are going to be a number of areas where there are provisions that may in the end prove to be inappropriate or that are likely to cause problems or that in fact prove to be unfair.I am certain that we are going to see all of that happen within the next 2 years but New Zealand First does accept that the matter is extremely urgent because of what the Australians have done to us and because there is actually going to be a significant—very significant—number of people returning from Australia to New Zealand and that is going to happen within a matter of days. So we accept that this is a pretty good attempt at some legislation in the first instance but we do not accept that it will be the end and we think that the review will be necessary and changes will have to be made in due course. So we accept and we will support this bill warts and all because it is certainly better than nothing at all. Nothing at all would in fact mean relative chaos so the urgency is obvious and the need for some fairly comprehensive legislation is clear. This is better than nothing. It is not as good as I would have liked to see in terms of the refinement of some of the provisions some of which I am going to refer to in a moment.But the bill is saved by clause 37 which requires the Justice and Electoral Committee to review the whole bill after 2 years and then to report to Parliament. Implicit in that is that the Government will be willing to make changes. It does not say that. There is no actual commitment from this Government—if indeed it is still here in 2 years—to make the changes that may be needed. However I welcome the provision for the review and I am sure it will be taken seriously by all concerned.New Zealand First does have areas of concern which I briefly referred to in my first reading speech. One of those areas is clause 10 and clause 10 relates to detention by police for the purpose of obtaining identifying particulars. Clause 10(1) allows detention of an offender at any time within 6 months of return and I wonder whether that provision is actually reasonable because one would expect that if any action needs to be taken it would need to be taken well within 6 months of an offender’s return. So I raise the simple question—why so long? Surely that period is too long and ought to be reduced. In fact where people have committed only obviously minor offences then I think that perhaps there needs to be some way of sifting those people out so that they are not subject to the full rigour of what we see in clause 10.One of the other provisions in clause 10(2) refers to police detention for the purpose of taking identifying particulars at any time within 6 months and states: “A constable may detain an offender … only for a period that is no longer than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances …”. What on earth does “no longer than is reasonably necessary in the circumstances” really mean? It is actually a very wide power conferred on the police for them to judge how long that may be and I would prefer to see a maximum period prescribed in the Act rather than to rely on such a wide and indefinite term.That is not the only issue because relating to how the particulars are taken we see that clause 11 states that a constable: “(a) must do so in a manner that is reasonable … and (b) may only use reasonable force … to secure those identifying particulars.” So there is a tremendous reliability on reasonableness and reasonableness of the police. I think that the police usually are very reasonable but there are many cases that one could point to in which they have not been. So New Zealand First is a little concerned about the breadth of those provisions and the reliance on the reasonableness of police actions. I accept that those particular provisions will probably be used only in relation to samples for DNA testing and not for other areas but if that is the case why is it not restricted to just that. I do not understand why it is as wide as it has been stated. That is one of the areas that may cause difficulty in the future so it is a concern to us and maybe that is something that we could discuss further in the Committee stage of the bill.The final area—actually the penultimate area in which I wish to express some general concern—relates to clauses 26 and 27 and these relate to special conditions that may be imposed by the court and the kinds of conditions are specified to be the kinds that are set out in the Parole Act. Having just reviewed the Parole Act we can I think all be relatively satisfied that those are generally reasonable conditions but I still suspect that the breadth and definition of this power for the court may actually cause problems. The reason I say that is because the basis is in terms of events that have occurred overseas convictions that have occurred overseas and circumstances that have occurred overseas and I just feel that that may lead to difficulties when it comes to imposing appropriate conditions.I do note however with some satisfaction that there are limitations on that. Clause 26(2) states: “A court must not impose a special condition for a longer period than the period for which the standard release conditions apply to the returning prisoner.” And clause 26(3) states: “A court may not impose a special condition unless it is designed to—(a) reduce the risk of reoffending … or (b) facilitate or promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of the returning prisoner; or (c) provide for the reasonable concerns of victims of the returning prisoner.” Those are well worthwhile provisions.But clause 27(3) is an area of general concern. Again nothing absolutely specific but when you read the words in subclause (3) it states: “to avoid doubt a court may impose interim special conditions on the information that is then available to the court even though that information is incomplete or additional information is still being sought.” So that power for the court to impose quite serious conditions on incomplete or unreliable information is for New Zealand First another area of concern. The application may be made without notice but the special conditions will expire after a period of 30 working days. Nevertheless I just express a general concern over that particular provision.The last part relates to Subpart 3—people returning more than 6 months after release from custody. There is some possible difficulty over that in that a person must have been under some kind of supervision or something like an extended supervision order or a public protection order for the subpart to apply and yet I still feel that there is room for concern that after 6 months the ability to impose those conditions may not be appropriate.