Goff Phil: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17354. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): The Labour Party will of course be supporting the Victims of Crime Reform Bill. I think it has some worthwhile measures in it. There is a range of questions that I would like to ask about it and I am curious that the Minister in the chair the Minister of Immigration is not the Minister who introduced the bill the Minister of Justice but I think we all understand the reason for that. With the controversy swirling around her she would not be in a fit state of mind actually to manage this bill through the Committee. I would have to say to be honest—and I am not going to dwell on this—that frankly there is certainly amongst many of the parties in this House a total loss of confidence in the ability of the Minister of Justice. The failure to tell the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth is surely fundamental—Tim Macindoe: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. This member who is an experienced member is now straying far from the bill and making allegations that are—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am the judge of that and I know that the member is coming back to the point.Hon PHIL GOFF: Absolutely—thank you very much Mr Chairman. I will just finish that point which is that of all people in the House it really is important for the Minister of Justice—most particularly—to be seen as a person who can judge conflicts of interest who is a person of full integrity and one who tells the full truth.I come to the bill. The bill is incremental in the changes that it makes and I am not saying that hugely as a criticism. We have over time really strongly improved the provision for victims’ rights. It is fair to say that when I started studying law there were only two things that were important in the courtroom. One was the prosecutor who was prosecuting on behalf of society and the other was the accused who was trying to defend their innocence and the victim really was not part of that. It was shameful that our justice system paid so little attention to the needs of victims.The fourth Labour Government began the process with I think the Victims of Offences Act in 1987 if I recall rightly and as Minister of Justice in 2002 I was responsible for passing the Victims’ Rights Act. I have got to say that I picked up that bill from the National Party. I am not sure whether you were here at the time Mr Chairman. If you were you will recall that the Victims’ Rights Bill which was on the table when I became Minister was a very weak affair. It talked vaguely about the rights of victims but it actually did not do anything to cast the vague principles as explicit rights. What we tried to do in 2002 was set out the explicit rights that victims had and the mandatory obligations on specific Government agencies to make sure that those rights were upheld. Victims had to be informed about the progress in the case against the offender. With regard to serious offences I brought in provisions that victims needed the ability to have input into the decisions on bail. I think that was really important. The victim should be able to express their fears and concerns on baildecisions; that should be taken into account. We strengthened the victim impact statements. We promoted restorative justice processes.The interesting thing about this Part 1 of the bill is that it builds on the things that we put in that Victims’ Rights Act of 2002. I think that from time to time we do need to come back and look at whether the Act is working as well as it should do. One thing that happened under Labour in 2007 if my colleagues will remind me was that we set up the Justice and Electoral Committee inquiry into victims. Building on that material and subsequent material we have these changes that I think are worthwhile in their own right. They are not revolutionary but they are worthwhile.I want to pick up a couple of points—probably four major points—in relation to the bill as it has been reported back. The first thing that I want to pick up is the question of funding adequacy. What I would refer you to is page 5 of the regulatory impact statement where it says: “Agencies have indicated that to successfully implement some of the proposals they will need to look to reprioritise funding from other areas. If funding can not be re-prioritised to provide these additional resources then this may result in pressure on services and service delivery may be affected.” Well that is vitally important. One thing we know is that it is one thing to have rights and people responsible for upholding those rights but if you do not fund it properly then how can we be confident that this will work?A specific question to Mr Woodhouse in the chair tonight is what was done in response to that concern raised in the regulatory impact statement? Have the resources been provided? Are they reprioritised resources from other areas in which case which areas have suffered cutbacks? Or has the money not actually been determined yet? Do we face the potential prospect of setting up some very good rights and processes but with inadequate funding to make sure those things are carried into effect particularly if I look at the question of restorative justice? I put restorative justice in the original Act. I am glad to see that there is still an emphasis on that. But in the bill it talks about being subject to resources. I know that everything is subject to resources but will there be adequate resources to ensure that restorative justice processes can be held and that they can be held properly? Again if the resources are not there and it is not done well restorative justice instead of having the positive impact that it might can actually have a negative impact. If the homework is not done and the support services are not there then it can turn out to be negative for the victim when it could otherwise be a very positive experience.There are other things that seem to be missed out in relation to this bill in this part because of a lack of resources. I know that the regulatory impact statement talked about setting up a victims’ centre that would give oversight to victims’ rights and they talked about a victims of crime complaints officer. Both of those seem to have disappeared. They are not in the bill; I cannot find them anywhere. They were recommendations but they have not been picked up. We still do have the code and I think the code is a good idea to ensure that victims have information about their rights and the services available to them—the duties and responsibilities. That goes a little bit further but not necessarily a whole lot further than the original Act. The code itself is a good idea. Minister Woodhouse might like to answer this one too. Why were those other ideas dropped? Why do we not have somebody there who will give oversight? Why do we not have a victims’ centre as was originally looked at by the Ministry of Justice?I think the question of victim impact statements is central. I remember watching a programme where Gil Elliot was talking. He is of course the father of Sophie Elliott who was murdered. He was expressing intense frustration. He was allowed to give a victim impact statement but somebody was censoring everything he wanted to say in it. I accept that there will be a need for certain restraints on victim impact statements. Itcannot be offensive in terms of the language used. It cannot direct the judge what to do but within reason the victim—or the family of the victim in a murder case—has to be allowed to vent their feelings as part of their process of being able to put that crime behind them. There must be nothing more frustrating than a victim being told what he or she can or cannot say to the judge in the court and to the offender who is sitting across from them in the court.So I hope that this bill when it becomes an Act is interpreted in a way that actually emphasises the rights of the victim. It might be uncomfortable for the offender to hear what the family of the victim is saying but so it should be. It should be uncomfortable for the offender if that offender has been convicted and is guilty of sometimes a terrible offence—such as in the case of this family the taking away of their beautiful daughter and the extreme arrogance that the offender expressed in the court during that process which all of us saw in the televised accounts.I think the bill is basically right in that the victim the prosecutor or a person nominated by the victim can read out the statement. I like the wording of the language that the judicial officer must agree to the request made unless he or she considers it inappropriate to do so and there are quite narrow and specific reasons set out. I think the emphasis here must be on this process serving the victim or the family of the victim. The person has been convicted at that stage and the judge is considering the sentence. The judge needs to know exactly what the damage that has been done to that family is and what might be regarded by them as a way of if possible putting things right or certainly going in that direction. There is pretty free rein given to the judge—