Nash Stuart: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Nash Stuart: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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STUART NASH (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in support of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. Labour supports this bill for a number of reasons but the main reason is that the people who elected us have a reasonable level of expectation around the support we will give to victims. I believe that this bill does that. First and foremost the main expectation of a person going to trial is that the case will be wound up as soon as possible. Any early resolution to a case or anything that helps to achieve an early resolution has to be good for victims’ rights and for society in general. A classic case would be this: we all know the dreadful statistics around the number of women who come forward after they have been sexually violated abused and raped. The number is incredibly low. The trials are incredibly traumatic for a whole lot of reasons. Often what happens is that it appears as though the woman herself is on trial and the perpetrator of the crime gets off the charge or sits there while the woman’s history is denigrated. I think that this bill will help in achieving a speedy resolution to a lot of those trials. But I also hope it will ensure that a lot more women who have been victims of sexual crimes will come forward in the knowledge that DNA samples will help to achieve a speedy resolution to any trial. I hope this will encourage women to come forward. 
Clauses 31 to 46 in Part 2 of the bill as introduced extend the authority to obtain a DNA sample from suspected persons. Primarily these clauses would permit a sample to be taken from a person suspected of committing an imprisonable offence and allow a compulsion order application to be made to the District Court to allow a sample to be taken from a person suspected of committing an imprisonable offence who had refused to consent to the taking of a bodily sample. As we know there are fundamental human rights issues around this. The Human Rights Commission has expressed concerns that the proposed changes may go a little too far. The bill allows the police to take DNA from anyone charged with an imprisonable offence whereas the current law has a much higher threshold—for example for serious offences punishable by more than 7 years in prison. 
The Human Rights Commissioner stated: “The bill infringes the right to freedom from unreasonable search and seizure but also creates the possibility of discrimination on the grounds of race family status and impacts disproportionately on youth.” Perhaps but I would also argue that the rights of the victim and the rights of society in general have to be weighed up against individual rights. I think it is time that people started taking individual responsibility for their actions. If they have done nothing wrong they have nothing whatsoever to fear from this. However if they have committed a crime or if they do have something to fear then they have to take responsibility for that and they will be caught. 
This bill sends a very strong message to the criminal classes of New Zealand that this Parliament will not tolerate the level of crime that we are beginning to see these days. It is simply not acceptable. Labour demands that people start taking individual responsibility for their actions and I think this is what this bill does. The Privacy Commissioner has expressed concerns that the changes proposed jeopardise the value of the existing criminal DNA databank in detecting and preventing crime by undermining public trust in the police and the Government. I would argue quite the opposite. If the people of New Zealand know that the police have these sorts of tools in their tool kit to solve crimes my personal view is that that will increase the confidence in the police’s ability to solve crimes in a quick clear and decisive manner. Again this brings me back to the point that there are a lot of women out there who have been victims of sexual crimes but are too afraid to come forward because of the distress that a trial will put them through. I think this bill will help to send a message that we will not tolerate this at all. 
There is one other issue I am slightly concerned about and my colleague Ms Moana Mackey alluded to this. I have read the regulatory impact statement and I do not see any costing anywhere at all for administering the consequences of this bill the cost of storing the DNA the collecting of the DNA or anything around that. It is my personal view that any regulatory impact statement should have a cost-benefit analysis in it. What I am not saying is that we can put a cost on the price of justice. However I think that provision should be included in this bill. Thank you very much.