Mitchell Mark: Bail Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: Bail Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12889. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): The previous speaker Jan Logie said that the Government and the National Party have moved the posts and that is right. We have moved the posts and I am actually very proud about that.I want to acknowledge the Hon Judith Collins because for too long in this country—yes we have a system that is built on the presumption of innocence and that is important and we will never depart from that—I do not think we have actually given proper care and consideration to victims’ rights. It is important that a victim is actually brought into the process and I do not see anything wrong with actually putting the victim’s rights ahead of an offender’s rights.I would like to acknowledge the families that appeared in front of the Law and Order Committee because that was a tough process for them to go through. It was critically important for us as a committee because sometimes we can sit in this sanitised environment down here and to actually hear the stories and to be able to understand the huge impact that they make on these people’s lives—and they will always have a huge impact on their lives—was really important to us.I want to acknowledge Tracey and BrianMarceau. They are the parents of ChristieMarceau. I met with Brian and Tracey shortly after the tragedy when Christie was murdered. Of course it would be fair to say that they were still stunned at that point. Of course Tracey has gone on with the support of the Sensible Sentencing Trust to campaign on Christie’s behalf. I want to acknowledge them and I want to acknowledge the submission that they made to the select committee as well because it was compelling and I know that it sits in the forefront of our own minds when we are dealing with this Bail Amendment Bill.I want to acknowledge the Hon Phil Goff and of course Kris Faafoi who were on the select committee with us. I feel that we worked really well together on this bill. I want to acknowledge the chairperson Jacqui Dean and of course Richard Prosser who took the time to put those Supplementary Order Papers 334 and 335 together and as the Minister said to get them out there early for review. Of course I am disappointed in the Greens’ position. David Clendon always has some interesting contributions to make in the committee. It appeared that the Greens had already taken a position on thebill and that was to oppose it which was disappointing but in some ways it does not surprise us.Mr Goff made an interesting comment about making sure that the process in terms of getting offenders back to court was important because offenders out on bail if they are on bail for too long are likely to offend. Well to me that is almost counter-intuitive. If we are worried about that then that is probably a good test to say that an offender should be remanded in custody if the clock is ticking in terms of when they are going to offend.In terms of the numbers that are going to be affected by this bill it does have some real meat in it. All I would say to that is that if we can save one ChristieMarceau—save someone from having that happen again—then this bill is actually doing the job it was designed to do.I just want to say that this is a very very good bill. It was a pleasure to work on it. It is certainly in line with the programme that has been implemented by our Minister of Justice and Minister of Police and I am very happy to commend it to the House.