Smith Murray: Clean Slate Bill — Second Reading 
Smith Murray: Clean Slate Bill — Second Reading 
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MURRAY SMITH (United Future) 
: 
 United Future will vote against the Clean Slate Bill because the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill that was passed recently has clearly superseded and overtaken it. I commend Nandor Tanczos for bringing this bill to the House. I have understood from members who have spoken that there is clearly some sympathy among parties generally for people who have picked up some convictions in earlier years and have to live with them for the rest of their lives. As the Justice and Electoral Committee report states the Clean Slate Bill and the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill were considered together by the select committee. Because the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill was a Government bill the committee concentrated basically on that with the idea that the Clean Slate Bill would be discharged as looks likely to happen. United Future did not support the Government bill—for reasons that are set out in the select committee report on that bill—and that was so because of key matters of principle some of which are shared with this bill. There are some aspects of this bill that are preferable to the Government legislation and which United Future leant towards. 
Primarily the principle behind both pieces of legislation is that people with minor convictions should not be plagued by them for the rest of their lives. When people are convicted of an offence whatever it is they suffer three penalties. They suffer the criminal penalty—in these cases largely fines for minor offences but maybe also community service. Then they are subject to civil remedies—they can be sued for compensation. They also have social penalties—in particular the stigma that they carry with them and the threat of publication of prior convictions—that haunt them for the rest of their lives. 
It may well be as Mr Prebble said that the stigma as far as employment is concerned is more perception than reality. Certainly New Zealanders are reasonably forgiving as far as old offences are concerned. But in a lot of cases people bear within themselves the weight of the convictions they have and cannot get on with their lives because they know that it is something they incurred and which haunts them. It may be that the matter of self-confidence and self-respect on the part of people who have become law-abiding citizens is more the cause for concern. 
For some the social penalties far outweigh the crime that was committed. They have become upstanding citizens. Some find they are impeded in employment because of those convictions even a long time afterwards. Certainly overseas travel is a problem. Prior convictions sometimes come back to haunt people on issues of social standing such as running for public office as the media get hold of some juicy titbit about something that happened 20 years ago. 
United Future has considerable sympathy for such people and certainly would like to see past convictions wiped once people have proved themselves to be good law-abiding citizens. Unfortunately the Government legislation does not do that. This bill would do that but the Government legislation does not wipe convictions despite having the “clean slate” name. That legislation simply hides the convictions so there is quite a difference between the two pieces of legislation. 
The question is how the exoneration of convictions should be carried out. This bill has some positive and negative suggestions with regard to how that could happen particularly in comparison with the Government legislation. On the positive side the convictions were to be spent. Contrary to what Mr Prebble said Mr Tanczos’ bill does not require or sanction lying. Under clause 8 the conviction would be spent. People would not be required to disclose their convictions and under clause 8(1)(b) no person or organisation could ask questions concerning or requiring a person to disclose convictions. That is certainly a more honest approach. It allows non-disclosure and requires a person not to enforce disclosure as opposed to the Government legislation in which people are sanctioned to lie about the existence of their convictions. 
The bill is also positive in so far as spent convictions do not revive on further convictions. So the issue of dredging up the past is less of an issue. However there are also a number of negative aspects in the bill. Firstly as alluded to earlier 6 months’ imprisonment is too high a threshold. Secondly individual convictions are to be wiped at the time they expire so that people with a string of convictions would have them drop off the end no doubt notwithstanding the fact that they continue to incur convictions. Receiving further convictions is not evidence that people are upstanding citizens who have reformed their ways and who deserve the consideration of having their convictions wiped. That would be a major impediment were this bill to proceed further. No application to wipe convictions is required and I will allude to that when I allude to United Future’s alternative. 
This bill lacks certainty would be confusing and its provisions would be difficult for the police to monitor. It restricts the power of the police to disclose full information to the courts and it also lacks detail. Although select committees do improve bills it seems to me that it would have been beyond the committee’s capability to entertain the work needed on this bill. It is too much of a skeleton but that is not unusual when it comes to members’ bills simply because members do not have the resources the Government has to put energy into drafting lengthy legislation. 
 So in some ways the policy direction of this bill is preferable to what the Government did. It wipes convictions rather than merely hiding them and a person would have been able to honestly say if that procedure had been adopted that he or she had no convictions whereas under the Government’s legislation that person has to lie. 
United Future however proposed a model that would have been far preferable and would have met in my view all the objections of the other parties. Under the United Future proposal the law would recognise that the clean slate scheme was a privilege which was being given to eligible people because they had maintained a good character record. In order to convey that a person would apply to have his or her convictions expunged. Following that a certificate would be issued—which would avoid any doubt about the matter—to confirm that “in recognition of their good behaviour the person’s convictions had now been expunged.” Any application for expungement would be sent to the police who would have an opportunity to oppose the application for reasons such as the fact that the person had offended overseas during the interim period—now 7 years—or that the person was well known to the police who therefore had good reasons for opposing any expungement of convictions. That would help to ensure that only people who truly deserved the expungement of their convictions achieved that. 
Such a scheme would give people who did not want their convictions expunged control over whether that occurred. I remember that one of my colleagues in the select committee who is sitting in the Chamber said she was proud of her convictions and would not want them expunged. Under the Government’s measure she gets them hidden whether she wants that or not. The exemptions contained in the Government’s legislation could still be provided for by creating a historical record of convictions which would be accessible by the exempt authorities in the same way that legislation shows the historical provisions of Acts prior to their amendment. The record would simply be a historical record of previous convictions that the person had had but that had now been expunged. 
The fact that the convictions were historical would also serve to encourage exempt employers to treat them more lightly. It would mean that once a person had completed the 7-year rehabilitation period his or her previous history would be expunged and even if the person reoffended he or she would be truly starting with a clean slate. Under the exceptions in the Government’s legislation the police and courts would know the full history for investigation and sentencing purposes which would apply also in United Future’s legislation. It would be an easy scheme to administer because although there might be a rush of applications at the early stage we consider that they would then settle down to a regular trickle and simply require the Ministry of Justice when applications were received and approved to transfer convictions shown on a person’s record into a history file. 
In order to avoid mandating lying about the absence of convictions we along with Nandor Tanczos’ proposal would have constrained the employer as to the questions that could be asked. In particular any question would need to be framed in a way that specified that it excluded convictions that had been expunged under the clean slate scheme. Such a provision would be a simple matter to incorporate into standard employment application forms. That would have been a far preferable way of handling the matter instead of what the Government has proposed but we will oppose the bill because of the passage of the Government’s legislation.