Davis KelvinKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): The Labour Party too supports the legislation arising from the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. As the Minister of Corrections just said it was divided into three bills at the Committee stage—so into the Corrections (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill the Parole (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill and the Sentencing (Electronic Monitoring of Offenders) Amendment Bill. I will touch on some of those three bills hopefully later in my speech. The bills are to enable the electronic monitoring of offenders who are released from a sentence of 2 years or less and offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. Intensive supervision is a community-based rehabilitation sentence. It targets offenders assessed as being at medium to high risk of reoffending or who have been convicted of more serious offences—although we do not really define what the words more serious" mean—and offenders who have complex or severe rehabilitative needs. They would be subject to standard release conditions and I will just run through those standard conditions quickly: that the offenders are not to reside at a specific address are not to engage in specific employment and are not to associate with specific people. In other words it makes sure that offenders are at the right place at the right time and are associating with the right people. They will probably have special conditions applied that are similar. Those special conditions as opposed to the standard conditions may be that they restrict an offender to a specific address they complete an assessment in various rehabilitation programmes they are not to associate with certain people or groups of people—and if we think of people whose offending was related around gangs they would probably not be allowed to associate with gangs or go near gang premises. If for example they were child sex offenders they would not be allowed near—you would hope—schools playgrounds or parks where children would be playing. Some other special conditions may be that they have to take prescription medicine that may help with any condition that they have they may be prohibited from entering specific places and of course the imposition of this electronic monitoring. There was an issue around this legislation coming into conflict with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. There was concern that this legislation is an added punishment in that it restricts the freedom of movement of offenders and as Phil Goff so eloquently explained in the Committee stage—that is right. This bill is designed to restrict the freedom of offenders because why would you not limit the ability of people to move such as someone who is convicted of a child sex offence? Why would you not restrict their freedom of movement to go into a park or into a swimming pool area where kids may be playing or into a school or a kindergarten or a kōhanga reo? Or as I said earlier if their offending is related to gang activities why would you not limit their ability to go and associate with gang members or go on to gang premises? So yes that is the point of this legislation. It is to limit the freedom of offenders and it is as the Minister said to keep New Zealanders safe and to prevent more victims from occurring. There are issues of course around electronic monitoring. It is not without its problems. As Kim Workman an adviser to the justice reform group JustSpeak said "Every day as I understand it well over a hundred people who are on GPS monitoring breach the conditions. So they move outside the boundaries of the order and so on." but the fact is that we do not have the resources to chase up all those hundreds of people in any given day who may have breached their conditions. Most of these people are not a serious threat to New Zealanders but the fact is GPS monitoring is not a foolproof system because also back in 2014 a hacker exposed some flaws in the bracelets in that he was able to trick the bracelets into fooling the system allowing the offenders to move outside where they were meant to be. Recently I visited a man who was electronically monitored in Ōpōnoni up in Northland there in the Hokianga. There was an issue around the satellite not being able to access his monitoring equipment or whatever and it was a bit of a black spot. It would fade in and out. So the Department of Corrections had to shift him funnily enough down the hill into an area you would think would have worse reception as he was perched up on a beautiful spot at the top of the Hokianga Harbour. There were issues raised around the number of people who are off. In any given day it was stated that between 20 and 47 offenders may be loose. National said: "Look let's put it into context. That's less than 1 percent of people who are on the bracelets." We said: "OK that may be right. They may be correct that it's less than 1 percent of people but that's still 20 to 47 communities that may be living with an element of fear because they do not know where these offenders are and there's very little information given out about them." Also Ruth Money who is a victims' advocate said: "It's completely disrespectful to [families] and actually the New Zealand public as a whole to make a comment like it's only 1 percent of everybody with a bracelet." She said: "It's absolutely disgraceful that they would make a comment like that when we have 47 people unaccounted for [in January of this year]." So I take her point. We should not downplay the fact that people do get loose and do cut off their bracelets. Of course that was the other flaw in electronic monitoring—the ability of offenders to cut their bracelets off. Even when the Government has bought stronger tougher bracelets and the Minister infamously stated to the Law and Order Committee that offenders had a choice—they would have to use a chainsaw to cut it off and they had a choice of either a leg or no leg. That very night on television the cameraman from TV3 Billy Weepu just got a pair of scissors and cut through the bracelet. Of course the Government said "Oh look he is the brother of an All Black." as if a brother of an All Black has these superpowers that the rest of us do not have. The fact of the matter is that there is any number of people with the immense strength of Billy Weepu the fine centre who plays for the Parliamentary "Golden Oldies" Rugby Team. He is not unique and he is not the only New Zealander who would be able to get a blunt pair of kitchen scissors and cut off the bracelet. The Corrections Act 2004 is amended. As the Minister has explained it allows monitoring of persons temporarily released from custody and temporarily removed from prison. It allows for the electronic monitoring of prisoners employed in work or accommodated outside the secure perimeter of the prison. This legislation amends the Parole Act 2002 and requires an offender to submit to electronic monitoring and comply with release conditions or conditions of an extended supervision order. The offender may be required to have electronic monitoring equipment attached to his or her body. They must comply with written instructions of a probation officer—it clarifies that. Also this amends the Sentencing Act 2002 and creates conditions to prohibit an offender from being in specific places also known as a whereabouts condition. The whereabouts condition means that they cannot go in certain places in the community. The electronic monitoring may be used to gather evidence of the wearer not complying with the conditions such as being at the wrong place at the wrong time in the company of the wrong people. So as I said when I started off the Labour Party members agree with and will be voting for this legislation in the third reading. Kia ora."