Ardern Jacinda: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Ardern Jacinda: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7061] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. The Minister of Justice Simon Power is right to point out that the Justice and Electoral Committee has been busy. The bill was quite technical when it came to its consideration by the select committee. I thank the officials who serviced the committee during its consideration of the bill. We required some guidance on some of the technical aspects and we also received some very useful initial briefings from the Institute of Environmental Science and Research which will be implicated directly with a heavy increase in its workload as a consequence of the changes this bill will make. 
This bill makes considerable changes. I will reflect though on something that was discussed in the first reading debate of the bill and to a certain extent during the select committee consideration. That issue is whether DNA is comparable to a fingerprint. Is it fair and right to call DNA the modern fingerprint? I think it is right that we insert a little bit of scientific reality into this discussion. The DNA collection that we are talking about as opposed to fingerprint collection is a much more intrusive and invasive procedure. Historically it has been; the modernising of the process has reduced that somewhat. But because DNA links far beyond an individual fingerprint and even has the ability to link into family and relatives it is a broadening in a sense. I know that my colleague Moana Mackey will have much to say on this particular matter from her scientific background. 
I will go on to the substantive parts of the bill. For the Labour members of the committee the most significant issue in the bill was the broadening of the definition of when DNA collection can be made. As it stands the criteria for DNA collection depend on the severity of the offence and collection applies at the point that a charge has been laid against a potential offender. This bill changes that considerably. It will allow DNA collection by the police without judicial approval at the point that they intend to charge and it broadens the range of offences for which DNA collection can take place. 
In the commentary on the bill the Government has given the reason for judicial oversight not being included and it is a matter of convenience. That is something that ultimately has to be weighed against the other consideration in this House and that is the balance of someone’s individual freedoms and rights. Of course DNA collection is a crime-fighting tool. Taken to the extreme on one end of the scale we could take everyone’s DNA sample at birth. It could be recorded and documented and then at any point when someone committed a crime we could cross-check against that database. That is the extreme. 
Simon Bridges 
: I like that. I like that. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: Simon Bridges seems quite intrigued and seems to like that. Perhaps only a limitation of resources is stopping the Government from going down that track. But I think—I would hope—that we accept in this House that doing that would counter the personal freedoms that individuals have. At the other extreme of the scale people have the right to protect themselves from any kind of invasive search or seizure or any intrusion of that kind from the State. We need to find the balance between those two extremes. 
At the moment I am concerned that the bill as it currently stands does not have the checks and balances that could improve it considerably. I point out that as is stated in the commentary on the bill: “New Zealand Labour members of the committee having carefully considered the Attorney-General’s report to the House on the inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 felt strongly”—and continue to feel strongly—“that there should be an amendment. The amendment should provide for some form of judicial oversight when Police take a DNA sample. We do not think that there would be problems with the availability of Justices of the Peace after hours as predicted by officials. For example there does not appear to be a problem in gaining after-hours search warrants. [Therefore] Labour members intend to table an amendment to this effect in the committee stage of the bill.” I do not think this will come as a surprise to Government members particularly given that when this bill was introduced the Attorney-General pointed out that this was also an issue from his perspective. We intend to table that Supplementary Order Paper in the name of Charles Chauvel. 
I will reflect on some of the other issues that the select committee discussed at great length. The Minister quite rightly pointed out that the committee gave great consideration to the taking of bodily samples from young offenders. Again I acknowledge the role that the chair played in navigating us through that discussion so well. There was discussion over what kinds of checks and balances should be in place for young people from whom bodily samples are required—and when I say “young” that includes people under the age of 17—because they will be captured by the intention-to-charge extension that I discussed earlier. The select committee decided that the most robust way to ensure not only that a sample taken from a young person falls within the criteria but also that protections would be provided for that young person would be to mirror the provisions contained under the care and protection legislation that we already have. That sets out the criteria for a young person to choose an advocate to sit in while a sample is taken. The committee did not want young people to be unnecessarily incarcerated for longer than was required if for instance they named a person who was unable to be contacted by the police with the explicit intention of evading a sample being taken. In the end I think the select committee collectively came up with a solution to ensure that that balance was struck and there is consistency—which I am a big fan of—with the existing legislation. 
Another point that I will quickly reflect on is the issue of holding samples. In the version of the bill that we were first presented with there was a staggered range of time periods for which a sample could be kept in a databank for cross-checking at the time that another crime is committed. Ultimately the aim of this bill is to ensure not only that a current crime is cleared but also that crimes committed in the past that still stay on the police books can have a chance of clearance as well. One concern that I raised in the first reading of the bill and that I continue to have is about the staggering of various years that have been apportioned to when samples can be kept and when samples can be disposed of. It will be quite a technical and potentially bureaucratic process. I think it is important though that we continue to maintain oversight to ensure that the time at which a sample is meant to be disposed of—and it ranges under different criteria from 7 to 10 years—is abided by particularly because these samples are cross-checked again. If people have not offended within a particular period of time and have not come back through the criminal justice system then a clean slate provision applies to their sample. We must ensure despite the fact that it will be quite a technical and difficult thing for the Institute of Environmental and Scientific Research to manage that that continues to happen and we should keep oversight of that. 
There is much more in this bill that I am very interested in debating later on. I look forward to having a greater opportunity to delve into the detail of many more technical provisions—in particular those that refer to young people—as this bill proceeds through the House.