Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
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Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill 
Second Reading 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. I thank the Law and Order Committee for its work on the bill and for the amendments it has suggested. As introduced the bill had three main objectives: firstly allowing the use of mouth or buccal swabs to obtain DNA profiles; secondly extending the range of offences for which police may apply to the court to obtain DNA samples to include those suspected of committing burglary; and thirdly extending compulsory DNA testing for databank purposes to serious offenders currently in prison who were convicted of a relevant offence prior to the law change that allowed DNA testing for the first time in 1996. 
Although the bill represents a key part of the Government’s comprehensive burglary package its application is much broader and will greatly improve the ability of police to investigate and solve other serious crime. The bill significantly increases the scope for the DNA testing of suspects and those convicted of relevant offences. However careful consideration has been given to ensuring that the law strikes an appropriate balance between legitimate law enforcement and the protection of basic personal rights. The ability for DNA samples to be obtained by buccal swabs will result in considerable benefits. Buccal swabs are obviously less intrusive than taking blood. They will also eliminate the cost of having a medically qualified person to perform the task of taking DNA samples while at the same time producing a DNA profile of the same integrity as that obtained from a blood sample. 
The extension of the suspect procedures in Part II to include burglary reinforces the Government’s determination to crack down further on burglary. Burglary is a serious crime is highly intrusive and is often the gateway to more serious offending. Burglary rates have fallen under this Government’s policies—which include better resourcing for police record high police numbers record high police budgets and a stronger burglary focus. Resolution rates have also risen significantly under this Government. This amendment will further improve the police’s ability to resolve burglaries. 
Currently the offences in respect of which a suspect or convicted person can be required to provide a DNA sample are specified in the schedule to the Criminal Investigations (Blood Samples) Act. The bill originally extended this to encompass only burglary—that in itself will have a major impact as this is a high-volume offence. In light of submissions received the committee recommended that the range of offences to which the Act applies be further extended to cover the new list of offences specified in Part 2 schedule 1A: any other offence punishable by a maximum penalty of at least 7 years’ imprisonment and any attempt or conspiracy to commit any of those offences including offences in the principal Act. I concur with this extension which gives the police the ability to obtain DNA to investigate a wider range of offences. The amendments have been made to better align the relevant offences under this legislation with the serious sexual or violent offences specified under the Sentencing Act for determining eligibility for preventive detention. 
In addition as a result of a submission from the Police Association three further offences preparatory to burglary with a maximum penalty of less than 7 years’ imprisonment have been included. These offences relate to being in possession of items that indicate an intention to commit a burglary or to convert another person’s property. While the new definition of “relevant offence” does not go as far as some submitters would wish the offence threshold has been set at a sufficiently high level to indicate a rational connection between serious criminal conduct and the ability for compulsory State intervention. In recognising civil liberties submissions that raised issues about the retrospective application of the criminal law retrospective powers will not attach to any of the new specified relevant offences. 
The select committee has also recommended a number of amendments to ensure that the legislation will operate effectively by streamlining or improving aspects of both the existing law and the bill as introduced. In particular I wish to refer to a number of amendments recommended to the new Part III police databank notice regime. These amendments will ensure that the operation of the Act cannot be defeated solely by a convicted person seeking a judicial hearing on grounds that lack merit. In the bill as introduced potential did exist for convicted persons close to the expiry of the relevant time periods—that is 6 months from conviction for a person not detained in prison or during the term of detention for those in prison—to challenge the grounds for a databank notice and thereby ensure that the DNA sample could not be obtained during the allowable period. That loophole has been closed and the person seeking the hearing will be bound by the judicial determination even if that requires the sample to be taken after the relevant period has expired. 
There is one further committee recommendation I want to mention. The committee has proposed that where a young person aged 14 to 16 consents to give a bodily sample and elects for a buccal swab to be taken that young person may take it him or herself. Under the bill as introduced only a medically qualified person could take such a sample. Given that many young people will be more comfortable taking the sample themselves in a manner no more invasive than cleaning their teeth rather than being required to submit to a stranger swabbing inside their mouths I believe that that is sensible. However the added protection of an independent adult confirming the child’s desire to take the sample and witnessing the taking of the sample is included. A number of other practical and technical amendments have been recommended by the committee. All have my support as sensible changes and clarifications. 
This bill represents a comprehensive overhaul of the 1995 Act. It strikes the appropriate balance in extending the use of DNA as a powerful crime-fighting investigative tool while at the same time recognising and protecting personal rights. It should be noted that the bill applies not only to convicted persons but also to suspects in respect of whom the presumption of innocence exists. This legislation is an important initiative in the Government’s strong commitment to fight crime. Burglary rates will be driven down further resolution rates will continue to improve and community safety and the apprehension of criminals will be enhanced across the board by this legislation. 
It is my intention during the Committee stage to move amendments to the bill by Supplementary Order Paper. Those amendments will preserve and regulate an existing police practice of obtaining buccal samples by consent from children. The proposed amendments will allow DNA profiles obtained by consent from children suspected of committing certain indictable offences to be used either to clear the child of suspicion or alternatively to support an application for a Family Court declaration that the child is in need of care and protection. I commend this bill to the House. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 One would think listening to the Minister that we are embarking on a bold new strategy to defeat crime. Certainly that is how he has portrayed it. It is sort of up there with the Sentencing Act and is one of the great measures in response to the referendum in which 92 percent of New Zealanders voted to deal with crime. Certainly the Minister is focused on burglary but it seems to me that he needs to be reminded of some facts—matters that he has scarcely touched upon. 
Members will be interested to know that on the North Shore alone drug offences are up by 44 percent—not 4.4 percent but 44 percent. That is a huge increase in the space of just 1 year and the Minister’s response to it is a concern about extending laws to deal with burglary. Perhaps that is the one area where the offending rate has gone down somewhat and no doubt that is not due to the Government but largely to people installing burglar alarms. 
Even if one considered this legislation a reasonable proposition which the Government proclaims and National supports the reality is that it is only a small step. Why for instance has the Minister not taken a bold step? A bold step would be to say that modern DNA technology is essentially the same as old fingerprint technology. DNA is intended to identify suspects just as fingerprints are. DNA is the modern fingerprint so a truly innovative approach would have been say that for everyone arrested DNA samples would be taken. The old arguments that used to be run—that we could not do so because the taking of blood samples was too intrusive—do not work any more. The select committee report itself revealed that the mouth swab essentially a swab between the lips takes 10 to 20 seconds. I can guarantee that to take a fingerprint is a much more laborious process than that and is more intrusive upon the individual. 
So I say to the Government that it should get with modern technology. It should be forward-looking and provide real tools to the police so that they can deal with crime. The Government should not be bringing in a half-hearted measure like this. We in our interjections mentioned that we have had 4 long years of this Government and this is the best that it can do in providing new tools for crime fighting. The Government has taken a minor step forward and that is the best way we can describe it. There has been a complete failure to recognise the increase in violent crime right across the board. [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister of Police who obviously needs to be educated should know that crime across the nation is up 2.5 percent. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Is the member in favour of the bill? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: I have said I am in favour of the bill. I have also said that the Government has a responsibility to put measures before this House that would go further much further and it has failed to take that step. Because this is such an important issue it is necessary to record in  
Hansard 
 the increase in crime in the last 12 months. Overall the crime rate is up by 2. 5 percent but it is worse because violent crime is up by 3.6 percent. Sexual offences went down and drug offences went up by 4.9 percent. The crime rate at the more serious end of the scale went up 14 percent and overall crime is up on the North Shore. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Homicides are down about 20 percent aren’t they? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: As the Minister will know that is susceptible to the law of small figures—that we can get large variations because of the relative scarcity of the crime. But when we look at the huge sweep of the large scale we see that the rate of the number of grievous assaults is up 8.5 percent and group assemblies are up 35.5 percent. 
On this side of the Chamber we have been reflecting our concern about methamphetamine. That is one of the great scourges. The gangs control crime in our country. Everyone will tell us that the bulk of crime comes from a relatively small number of gang-related families. Has this Government introduced into this Parliament any measures that would deal with gang behaviour? 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Yeah. It’s got them on the dole. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: It has them on the dole committing crime. That is what is happening. Gang members are on the dole committing crime but where are the measures that would deal with association? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Lowest numbers on the dole for 15 years. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: What about the huge increase in the number of gang members generally? The Minister needs to evaluate his own department’s statistics which show that the number of gang members is now 20000. A few years ago that number was only 15000. That is a 25 percent increase and when the Minister wonders why it is that drug offences are up so much he need look only at gang numbers. 
 It is not enough for the Government to bring these kinds of measures to the House after 4 years but not take the serious steps—the urgent steps—that would deal with crime on a much more substantive basis. It is not just a question of the law; it is also a question of police resourcing. Why is it that we have only just over 7000 police officers in this nation—a nation that has a population of 4 million? That is a ratio of less than one police officer for every 500 people which is a ratio worse than that of Australia Canada Britain and every single state in the United States—then we wonder why our crime is increasing. We should be taking the serious steps that are needed to make a real difference not just doing minor tinkering around the edges of criminal law. 
Another point I wish to make is that yesterday the Minister presented a 23-page Supplementary Order Paper. I find it extraordinary that the extensive provisions on that Supplementary Order Paper—on a bill that was introduced years ago and that was before the Law and Order Committee for an extensive period of time with plenty of opportunity being given to make submissions—were not put before the select committee where it could have been debated and considered and the necessary extensions made. The Minister might go on about all the great measures he has made but this bill is an indictment. It is an indictment on the Government and its minor trivial and pathetic efforts to deal with crime. We do not have enough police. We do not have sufficient tools in the criminal kit. The sentencing laws are still deficient. United Future has not been able to put the necessary pressure on the Government to change the Sentencing Act. Violent offenders are still getting out of prison at one-third of their sentences. People on home detention are committing crimes almost on a daily basis. The reality is that we have an indictment of failure. 
Just on Sunday of this week I went to a public meeting on the North Shore and I can tell the Minister—I know I cannot draw the Speaker into the debate—that the member for Northcote was present. It was the first sunny day in Auckland for weeks and weeks and the meeting was well attended. There was a deep anger— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How many were there? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: There were 50 people there all demonstrating their concerns. I want to close by saying that the people at that meeting were family members of victims of murder but what is the Minister’s response? He laughs at that. He laughs at their pain and does not change the Sentencing Act which would deal directly with their concerns. That is what they want. They want action and they have not got it. 
DARREN HUGHES (Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise in support of the second reading of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill which has been returned from the Law and Order Committee. As the Minister said the bill has three main objectives: to allow the use of mouth samples to obtain DNA profiles because technology allows us to do that now; to give the police the power to apply to the court to obtain DNA samples from those who are suspected of having committed burglaries— 
Edwin Perry 
: We know that. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: That is a very good provision in the bill as well and I know that Mr Perry from New Zealand First will want to expand on it. The bill also extends compulsory DNA testing to serious offenders in prison for databank purposes if they were committed for an offence before 1986. This is very good legislation. We should pass it through the House so we can continue the very good grip on law and order that the Labour-led Government is proud to have. 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of New Zealand First to support the second reading and to fully support the bill—unlike the Prostitution Reform Bill that New Zealand First vigorously opposed. Let us get back to this very good bill. Its aim is to amend the Criminal Investigations (Blood Samples) Act by extending the powers of the police to firstly allow DNA samples to be collected by mouth swab; secondly allow DNA samples to be taken from persons suspected of committing burglary or entering with intent; thirdly provide for compulsory DNA testing of inmates detained under a sentence of imprisonment who are in custody for a relevant offence for which they were convicted prior to the commencement of the Act; fourthly repeal the current requirement for a compulsion order hearing before a judge prior to a databank compulsion sample being taken from a person convicted of a relevant offence; fifthly extend the range of material that may be used as a basis to compel a suspect to provide a DNA sample; and sixthly simplify and modify procedures or repeal significant requirements to reduce costs improve efficiency or ease administration. 
New Zealand First upholds the principles underpinning this bill—that it is the basic right of all New Zealanders to live in a safe society that the rights of victims are paramount and that the offender’s rights are subject to the rights of both the victim and the State. Our 2002 manifesto in the last election  
Keeping New Zealand First 
 clearly outlines our plan for law and order issues including our desire to legislate to have all criminals DNA tested and records stored and to introduce a requirement that every person arrested irrespective of the seriousness or the nature of the crime contribute a sample to the DNA databank. That would occur at the same time and in the same manner that applies at present for the fingerprinting of all those arrested and would form an electronic record of detainees as opposed to a database of fingerprints. Mouth swabs would generally be used as opposed to blood samples. 
Forensic DNA profiling has been the most remarkable breakthrough in finding the perpetrators of horrendous crimes—crimes that otherwise would be impossible to solve. Here we have on our doorstep a way of bringing to account those people who commit heinous crimes against our innocents. There should be no hesitation whatsoever that this bill should be processed through the House and given the royal assent to become the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Act. 
However I have some serious reservations that the limited respective provisions of this bill mean that samples cannot be obtained compulsorily from all those who have committed relevant offences. That was a concern to a number of members on the Justice and Electoral Committee. The law should apply equally to those currently alive who have already demonstrated that they have a potential to commit a serious crime. An inmate who has done his or her time in prison but is fortunate to have been released a few days before the commencement of the Criminal Investigations (Blood Samples) Act which came into force on 12 August 1996 should not be given any special privileges. We are looking at legislation of at least a decade ago and justice should not be kind with time. Time and time again we have seen repeat offenders and although we have been unable to DNA test absolutely everybody in this country this bill will enable us to target a group that has a high probability of committing serious crime and it will therefore aid the police in their investigations which will save an enormous amount of time resources and manpower. 
The bill in its present form seems to be generous in that it has widened the provisions relating to the taking of samples from persons convicted of offences to also include those convicted of attempts to commit offences. That however is useless if it is not pursuant to a databank compulsion notice. The bill should recognise that it would be both in the interests of victims and in the public interest if the police were unfettered in their duties of enforcing the law by being able to issue databank compulsion notices as legislation allows if they are authorised to do so by the Commissioner of Police. 
The bill has provision for those receiving databank compulsion notices to request a hearing to have an opinion by a judge on three grounds: the offence is not a relevant offence the conviction is not one to which the bill applies or for which conviction has been quashed and the taking of bodily samples by all three methods will cause serious harm to a person’s health. There are also other specified matters relating to service of all the content of the notice. These grounds should also be applied to the taking of mouth swabs. The Police Association places a high emphasis on crime-scene training including preserving crime-scene sites and emphasising to crime-scene staff the risk of the contamination which has been a problem in past investigations. If police are able to breathalyse drivers randomly for alcohol there is no reason why they should not also be able to take mouth samples. 
It concerns me that the bill could be self-defeating when its own provisions can contradict the very reason for having the bill in the first place. I appreciate that human rights and quality assurance provisions should be incorporated into legislation but if it is in the public’s interest for a person to be issued a databank compulsion notice and the DNA is sampled only in extreme and glaring examples why should the rights of that person prevail? It is all very well to ask the consent of the person providing the sample whether he or she minds whether a registered nurse a medical technologist or a phlebotomist takes the sample. Instead we should specify who is the best to take the sample at a given time and specify that there are sufficient quality controls in place to ensure the process is 100 percent error-free. I would hate to see legislative technicalities political correctness or lawyers’ self-interest standing in the way of public interest and safety. 
There was a time when people thought it was a breach of human rights if they were stopped randomly for breath testing. Science and legislation made that possible and as a result thousands of lives have been saved on our roads. We cannot back the sum statistically because we have no way of knowing how many people would have died if those sorts of measures had not been put in place. This bill will let criminals know that if they commit crimes they will be caught. They can run but they cannot hide. 
It will also prevent innocent people like David Dougherty from being wrongly convicted. He spent many years needlessly behind bars whilst the true perpetrator Nicholas Reekie carried on with his deviant acts of sexual violence against children women and the elderly. It will also save millions in compensation claims and lengthy legal hearings. Teresa Cormack’s murderer thought he would not have to pay the price for his criminal and senseless act which cost a sweet young girl’s life and left her family forever grieving. At least now they can find a small sense of peace in the knowledge that this person is behind bars at last. 
I would like to think that this legislation would not just bring people to justice but that it would prevent heinous crimes from occurring in the first place. How many murderers and rapists start off with assault petty thieving and that type of deviant behaviour? The public are crying out to feel safe on the streets and in their own homes. People will think twice about their actions when they know they will be caught. 
I commend the Law and Order Committee on its cooperation across the political divide in upholding the need for the police to be given sufficient power and resources to bring former and current criminals to justice. I conclude by fully endorsing the bill and by encouraging all those deliberating on it to put public interest and safety at the forefront of their consideration. New Zealand First supports this bill. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The ACT party looking at the bodily samples bill has to rely on the work done by the Law and Order Committee and our own reading of what we can of the bill. With the Minister bringing in yesterday a series of technical amendments in a Supplementary Order Paper amounting to 25 pages it is very hard to look at this bill as a parliamentarian should. It is going through under urgency—all its stages in one day. We had a 68-page bill to start with with a commentary from the select committee of some 26 pages and we were prepared to do what we could in some highly technical areas on the basis of that. Then the Minister brought in Supplementary Order Paper 159 with all these amendments. What it means is that we have to go back to first principles. 
I hope that in the course of the Committee stage my colleagues in the ACT party will find out the answers to a few simple questions. Why is it that DNA is not simply taken routinely from every person who commits an offence punishable by say more than 3 months’ imprisonment? Why is there not some understanding that the entire community could grasp instead of pages and pages of technical requirements and distinctions between consent measuring and compulsion orders? Why cannot the community simply absorb the idea that if a person commits an offence of a certain degree of seriousness that person will automatically have a DNA profile stored? 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: In fact any offence. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Any offence any conviction. It may be that traffic offenders do not have any particular predictable— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Arrestable offence. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: An arrestable offence Mr Mapp suggests—but any offence with which there is some statistical probability of subsequent reoffending. Why is that not the case? I have another question. How do all of these provisions relate to the law’s only real concern—that the innocent go free and the guilty are convicted? I say that because as I go through the report I see that there is a whole lot of detail on concerns about process and a great deal of prescription of the manner in which samples have to be taken. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: That’s right because the people are presumed to be innocent until proved guilty—unless the member believes it to be otherwise. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: It seems to me from the interjection of the Minister that he thinks that in some way DNA sampling is a punishment and that to take a sample is an evidence of conviction. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: No generally we need consent from a person who is still deemed to be innocent for an intrusive process. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The Minister says that consent is required. Why is consent required? Is consent required for a fingerprint? What is the difference I ask the Minister between a fingerprint and DNA? What is the difference between taking a photograph and taking a DNA sample? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: How is it that the member can be such a libertarian on some issues then pretend not to respect the civil liberties of others? 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The Minister asks how can we be libertarians on some issues and not be worried about civil liberties in relation to DNA. I am asking questions that are simply not answered. There is one very serious sign that the select committee addressed the issues entirely in terms of the Government view. That is found on page 23 of the commentary on the bill where the committee deals with what it calls amendments outside the scope of the bill. The commentary states: “amendments aimed at reducing the potential for contamination of crime scene samples by the investigating officer whether deliberate or accidental are outside the scope of the bill.” I would have thought that that should have been the primary concern of this bill. The real issue for us all is not whether consent should be obtained—a simply evidential matter—but whether the evidence once gained could be misused as appears to have been the case for Arthur Alan Thomas or whether as often suspected by other offenders it is used for fitting up where police decide that they will take justice into their own hands and manufacture the evidence. If there is a widespread community fear of that then this bill should address that fear instead of having reams and reams of procedure to tangle up the police and reams of protection against having to give a sample. The real focus here should have been on making sure that samples could not be planted at the site and that samples could not be misread by scientists whose main customers are the police and who become wearily suspicious and predisposed towards believing in the police case. 
 There has been enough evidence from the United States experience of the risk in having one body—as we do in New Zealand; we have the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. Even with the highest standards of integrity that one body comes to know that its main client is the police. This bill should have been focused precisely on the things that the select committee members tell us it did not even touch which I say again is the potential for contamination of crime-scene samples by the investigating officer whether deliberate or accidental. Contamination or planting is what it is all about. From the ACT perspective we cannot understand why so much time has been taken and why a bill that has been lying about in this form since 3 June—but first introduced in May last year; more than a year ago—has all this preoccupation with procedural correctness and does not address the main risk of injustice. The main risk the thing we should all be alarmed about is the prospect of the police deciding that they will do justice as they see it by manufacturing evidence or by being careless with evidence. As the select committee said this bill does not even touch on that. 
In his introductory speech to this second reading the Minister referred repeatedly to success in fighting crime. Why does this bill not recognise that the greatest predictor of future crime now and the most valuable information would in fact be samples taken from youth offenders? Once again this Government is establishing a pattern that says to young people: “Don’t worry about being responsible. We don’t treat your crime as real. If you commit a crime even if it’s of adult viciousness you won’t be obliged to give a sample. You can’t be required to consent.” These young offenders are getting exactly the wrong message. Offenders should know that it is automatic that if they start down that path they will be readily detected in the future. They are the ones where a pattern has not yet been set then established—that is a pattern of regarding the law as a joke and having the view that the community puts all sorts of technical trips in the path of the police and the justice authorities because it does not really mean what it says when it says that crime will not pay. This bill should have provided that age would be no obstacle to getting a sample. It should have simply said: “We judge by the crime; not by the status.” I am also concerned that the select committee allowed itself to be sidetracked by the so-called libertarians into worrying about retrospectivity. What does that have to do with it? In their discussion committee members allowed themselves to treat the question of whether a sample can be taken as though it were a form of punishment. It is simply gathering evidence. 
There is no reason for all the endless detail in the bill: how long after the conviction; when the application must be made; what status it had; and why the sample was not taken within a prescribed period. That is all utterly irrelevant if we see DNA sampling as being like fingerprints or as being evidence—like taking a photograph—or as being an aid to gathering evidence for the court to consider. Instead they have fallen into the trap of seeing this as some kind of punishment. It is not a punishment. It should be an automatic consequence of conviction. It should be an automatic consequence indeed of suspicion in cases where the person has a prior record that reasonably leads to any expectation that it is legitimate to take him or her into account as the suspect population. 
I see that the select committee took approximately 4 hours to hear the evidence and a total of 16 hours on this bill. I only wish it had been directed to recognising that for the law to work it must be simple and it must fit people’s intuitive expectations. Every offender or would-be offender in this country needs to know that any method that does not infringe on the rights of the innocent will be used to determine guilt or innocence. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support the second reading of this bill. We support the bill because it expands the range of offences for which DNA samples can be collected as well as expanding the methods by which those samples may be collected beyond those listed in the Criminal Investigations (Blood Samples) Act. That Act has been superseded not only in advances in technology but also by an increasing recognition of the power of DNA profiling to apprehend our most dangerous criminals. The acceptance of buccal swabs as reliable samples for the purposes of DNA profiling means that the whole process of matching crime-scene evidence with the offender is now that much easier. Samples from inside the mouth are quicker to administer much less invasive and less susceptible to claims that they conflict with religious sensitivities if that matters to people and belonephobia which is the fear of needles. By expanding the ambit of the Act from blood samples to bodily samples the bill also provides some future-proofing in the likely eventuality that further advances will be made in the sampling and testing of DNA material. 
The bill also expands the range of crimes to which these crime-fighting tools will be applied. In the case of burglary the current law enables samples to be collected and entered on to the databank only from those convicted of burglary and entering with intent for the purposes of matching with more serious crimes. This meant that the Act already recognised the gateway effect of burglary in terms of its relationship with sexual and violent crime but did not allow police to collect from burglary suspects evidential samples that might help to convict them of other crimes associated with burglary. The inclusion of burglary suspects in the regime proposed by this bill remedies the situation and also means that the DNA sampling and matching regime now treats burglary as a serious offence in itself and rightly so. Although a large number of burglars leave at a scene DNA material that can be applied to profiles in the databank if the match cannot be used as a basis for applying a suspect compulsion order for a burglary then yet another offending thug may avoid conviction. 
In its wisdom the Law and Order Committee saw fit to add a number of sexual and violent offences to the sampling regime and here I think there was a great deal of unanimity amongst not only United Future New Zealand First and National but also Labour. I congratulate the process on showing that unanimity. This is very much in keeping with the objectives of the original Act to ensure that it covers serious violent and indictable offences where DNA is likely to be left at the crime scene. The committee recommended that offences that endanger human life and all of those punishable by a sentence of at least 7 years be included. We also recommended that as the bill included attempted crimes conspiracy to commit a serious offence should also be included. If police are able to apprehend an offender before a crime is actually committed but is clearly about to occur then this hardly makes for front-page news yet in this case at least one person if not a number of people would be saved the pain of becoming yet another victim. If we want to help the police to apprehend criminals before they ruin the lives of others then we need to give them all the available tools to do so. The only difference between a crime committed and a crime contemplated is success and to this extent we are quite happy to encourage failure. 
Whilst United Future agrees with the select committee recommendations that seek to extend the range of relevant offences that are able to utilise DNA testing we are strongly of the view that we should not stop there. We concur with the submission of the Police Association and also of the Sensible Sentencing Trust that DNA samples should be obtained from all offenders on arrest to create an even more potent crime-fighting tool. But Government members on the committee rejected that on the basis that it would necessitate a major rewrite of the law and therefore was outside the scope of the bill. This was the advice of the Office of the Clerk and I acknowledge the difficulties that such a sizable amendment would present. The simple truth is that we did not want to wait another 2 years for a re-write to come through and allow another range of scumbags to get through in the process at the moment. 
We would like to revisit this law down the track with an amendment to expand the legislation even further. The main reason adopted by the Government we think was that by including all suspects in the testing regime we would be unnecessarily infringing on their personal liberty simply on the basis of those suspicions. The Government used the same rationale to reject the submission of the Police Association that offences punishable by a maximum of 3 years in prison be included—something that I thought would have at least represented a compromise position. As an aside I note that most of the remaining violent offences that would fall into this category have since been included in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper and we are grateful for that. 
 The argument that all crimes should not be included due to the protection of personal liberty is made by the very same people who also argue quite rightly that the use of buccal techniques should open up the number of offences for which DNA samples can be obtained because it is less invasive and less intrusive on personal liberties. How is it any more a breach of personal liberties than the current requirement of obtaining fingerprints for all arrests? That answer has never been given. As an example I cannot understand why peeping and peering are not included in this bill. The reason given is that it is subject to a maximum sentence of a $500 fine upon conviction and despite anecdotal evidence to the contrary from the police and criminal profilers it is also claimed that peeping and peering is not the gateway to more serious offending that it is claimed to be. Of those in prison for violent and sexual offences from 1995 to 1998 only 2 percent had previous convictions for peeping compared with the 45 percent of violent offenders and 25 of percent sexual offenders who had convictions for burglaries. But I say that even 2 percent is good enough if we can use DNA sampling to stop one peeping Tom from becoming a serial rapist. How do we exclude them from people who are simply casing the joint so they can commit a robbery? 
There is another good argument as to why peeping should be included in the bill. The police know that this kind of offending leads to more dangerous sex crimes so they will be tempted to book peeping Toms for observing with intent to commit a burglary so that they can be sure that their slimy genetic material is on file. If we do not include more crimes in this regime then we are sending the message to the victims of those crimes that the resolution of those offences is not a priority for the Government or the police and that is not fair on the police who want to solve those crimes and make these people feel safe again. I have a potential solution. If the Government will not lower the bar on the types of crimes that should apply to this bill then we could always increase the sentences for those crimes to 7 years’ prison and beyond. Another reason United Future would like to see this technique applied to other offenders is the potential for deterrence that it creates. By compelling those currently incarcerated to submit to a DNA sample this bill may alter the rate of recidivism of those offenders when they leave prison. Knowing that the law enforcement authorities have their DNA profile on file should make any logical criminal reluctant to reoffend—criminals would know that a powerful evidentiary tool is readily available to be used against them. 
In addition the Law and Order Committee recommended that additional information be included on the sample compulsion notice given to offenders advising them of the nature of the offence and what the sample will be used for. This should be a salutatory reminder of the forces stacked against the criminals should they lapse again so why not extend it to all serious crime and create an even more wide-ranging deterrent effect? United Future supports this legislation because it leads down the right track but it needs to go much further and include the widest possible range of offences if it is to be ultimately effective in nipping aspiring criminals and deviants in the bud and assisting the police in resolving crimes. Like the member from ACT who spoke before we also have concerns that youth crime is subject to a different regime. Catching a criminal and the sentencing that accrues from that should not be dependent upon the age of the criminal. It should be directly in proportion to the crime committed and the offence that that crime imposes upon victims and society. We heartily recommend this bill because it is a very good step forward. We look forward to amendments further down the track to expand and entrench this legislation. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 The Greens will be opposing this bill. We had concerns about it when it was first introduced and although we support the provisions that allow the use of buccal samples as a less invasive way of obtaining DNA we have expressed concern about the extension of the powers to take DNA samples by force or coercive means from people who are suspected—not convicted; merely suspects—of committing a burglary. 
We are even more concerned about the bill as reported back from the Law and Order Committee because it now includes a number of other offences and we believe that the bill as reported back goes beyond what are acceptable limits on the ability of the police to take samples by coercive means. I refer to appendix B of the select committee report where it refers to a number of offences many of them very serious offences and also to any other offence punishable by a maximum penalty of at least 7 years’ imprisonment. Perhaps my memory is failing me but as far as I recall that includes stealing a goat and it seems rather bizarre that someone suspected of stealing a goat is able to have DNA compulsorily obtained from them. 
We believe that this bill goes far too far and we cannot support it. We will be supporting during the Committee stage the Supplementary Order Paper from the Minister. We believe that it does include a number of sensible provisions and if the bill is to proceed it will be sensible to include those provisions. In particular we think that allowing buccal samples to be taken from children under certain circumstances and with their consent is a sensible measure. We had discussions with the Minister about that and we assured ourselves that there are some adequate safeguards to protect the rights of children in those circumstances. So we will support that Supplementary Order Paper. But we are unable to support the bill through further stages. I will not speak at great length about that now but I will speak during further stages of the bill. 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I rise to support this bill which forms part of an important strategy by this Government to combat burglary. This Government recognises that criminals start off with burglary and often escalate on to far more serious crimes including sexual and violent crimes as my colleague from United Future Marc Alexander pointed out. Therefore extending the ability of police to take DNA samples from burglary suspects is a vital component of attacking burglary. If those criminals are dealt with at that stage in their criminal careers or if they do go on to later offend they are more likely to be picked up further down the track. 
DNA technology has moved on significantly since 1995 and this bill reflects that. At that time it was thought that only blood would give accurate enough results in order to put someone in prison for a crime. The reality now is that buccal samples which are far less expensive and far less invasive are able to do that. This bill will provide police with an excellent resource for combating burglary and serious crime and I commend it to the House. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on this bill and I want to raise the issue of the seriousness with which this Minister takes the problem of serious heinous crime in New Zealand when today he introduces a 23-page Supplementary Order Paper. That may be OK for him because he has been planning this but for members in the House who have only just had the opportunity to try to digest it today it is totally unfair. On the other hand it gives an indication to the public of New Zealand as to whether this Minister is serious about fighting serious awful crime in New Zealand. I would suggest that the Minister think about whether he would show a more serious attitude by allowing this Supplementary Order Paper to go back to the Law and Order Committee so that it could be properly debated. It is totally unfair that he introduces this today in urgency when we will suddenly after 4 years rush this matter through the House. 
On the other hand this has now proven to be a regular modus operandi of a Government that I think in the end does not do things necessarily for the right reason and finds itself in a position where it is coming up to the end of the year and 4 years later I guess the Minister thinks: “Well gosh I guess it’s time I’d better get this bill through the House.” and so here we are. 
 It is worth reminding the House that he probably felt he needed to do something anyway. The Hon Tony Ryall had certainly progressed the work for the bill and was looking to address the matter before the 1999 election. He then had a member’s bill in the ballot and no doubt that would have put pressure on the Minister to do something about it. 
That is absolutely not good enough. Serious crime is up out there in real New Zealand and the public is worried about whether it has a Government that is serious about fighting serious crime. I guarantee that there is no New Zealand person out there who thinks that especially considering the Minister with the great barking he used to do when he was in Opposition and the promises he used to make of how he would address these matters. Four years later we are only just dealing with something on which a lot of the work had already been done when he came into power. 
The original Act that underpins the bill today came into force in 1996. Since then of course the technology of DNA testing has moved on significantly and accordingly this legislation updates the use of DNA testing as an effective crime-fighting tool. Goodness knows the police need every tool they can get to fight the level of serious offending that is now going on in New Zealand and of which we see evidence daily. 
Under the existing legislation there are two regimes for the collection of samples. The Part II suspect regime allows for blood samples to be obtained from those suspected of committing an indictable offence. While most people provide blood samples by consent the New Zealand Police can apply to the court for a compulsion order if consent is refused. The Part III databank regime differs in that while any person over the age of 17 may be requested to provide a blood sample to store in the databank he or she may be compelled to give a blood sample only following conviction for a relevant offence as listed in the schedule. 
The main provisions of the bill have been traversed by previous speakers. They allow for the use of improvements in technology over the last 4 years. I shall focus on a couple of matters that have been raised by a previous speaker the ACT MP Stephen Franks. I also want to ask why we are piffling around here when as I said crime soars. For instance why do we not extend the provisions to all those arrested? On the other side of the ledger there is the issue of civil liberties and the protection of individual rights. The select committee clearly covered that issue. But it would show a responsibility on the part of this House if we looked more seriously at extending the provisions of the legislation to include even those who are arrested on charges that have a penalty of potential imprisonment of 3 months or over or a more extended time if necessary. 
While it is important that we support this legislation it does not go far enough. At the end of the day the true benefit of the legislation will be known only by victims and their families if they are still around to talk about it and that is the problem. No one responsible citizen out there would think that we had gone far enough in addressing matters of serious crime. 
The other issue that was also raised previously by the United Future member of Parliament was concern about a different regime being applied to youth offenders. If members cast their minds back to some of the most serious crimes that have been committed over the last 12 months to 2 years or so the age of those offenders is a huge worry for law-abiding citizens who are entitled to safety and security. Of course with the awful rise in the use of the drug P and it seems that a lot of younger people are getting involved in using that drug one would have to question why the regime that applies to young offenders should be different. Again those are matters that members in this House were elected to address and it is not good enough that we have a regime that does not take into account the fact that the age of offenders has got younger and the seriousness of crimes committed by young people has become more dire. 
The select committee obviously worked its way through the issues put before it. I certainly agree that there needs to be a proper balance between the use and extension of crime-fighting tools such as DNA testing. That has to be balanced against the rights of the individual. No doubt the select committee report shows that the balancing act was one of the main issues addressed at the committee. But that being so this bill does not go far enough. It does not address the worries and the concerns of law-abiding citizens out there in the real world. This bill does not go far enough. Serious crime is up. We see it for ourselves day in and day out on our television stations and in our newspapers. Ask the victims of serious crime what it is like to be at the receiving end of some of the heinous activity that is now going on in our country. Members should think about the pairing of this legislation with the rising use of the drug P and whether we address that problem in the very modest way we do. 
Bill read a second time. 
Instruction to CommitteeCWH 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill 
that it take the bill part by part and consider any schedules as one question. 
JOHN CARTER (Senior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. I understand that there has been a little bit of discussion and it seems as we did with the previous bill that there may be agreement over the whole of the Committee to seek leave for us to take a wide-ranging debate. Before the motion is put I seek leave of the House that it be an instruction to the Committee that we have one wide-ranging debate on the bill. Members can object to that if they wish. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Leave is sought to take a wide-ranging debate. Is there any objection? There is not. 
In Committee 
Clauses 1 to 40 and schedules 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I will be moving an amendment which is more in the nature of a statement of intent. I am doing it because I believe the purpose of this bill is fundamentally too limited. It is fundamentally too modest and that speaks enormously of the deficiency or the paucity of imagination of the Government. The Government has simply not taken on board that a DNA sample is the modern equivalent of a fingerprint so it has produced a relatively complex bill built on the 1995 legislation. It has then provided a 23-page Supplementary Order Paper. 
I said in my second reading speech and elsewhere that DNA is the modern fingerprint. No one has any objections on civil liberties grounds to requiring persons who are arrested to give fingerprints. That is just seen as a normal and proper thing to happen. It is done for the purposes of identification so that the people who are known risks are entered on a criminal database not only in the case of a particular offence they have committed but also for checking purposes with regard to any future offences. Basically there is no other purpose for the taking of fingerprints. It is to provide proof in certain circumstances of a particular offence but also to be entered on a database. I ask the Minister in the chair Phil Goff this basic question: why does the Government not take the leap of imagination that would be required to think forward and to understand that we are no longer in 1995 when blood samples had to be taken for DNA—and I can understand the concerns around that—and that the technology has moved on so that the taking of a sample is no longer intrusive? It is now no more intrusive than taking a fingerprint. 
On principle I will be moving an amendment that states that the Act should apply to all offences that could carry a penalty of imprisonment. I have limited it to that. It could actually be wider but I understand the Government’s and other parties’ concerns about widening it. As a matter of principle surely we should be able to say that offenders who commit offences that carry a term of imprisonment—even if that penalty is not imposed—should be required to give a DNA sample both in relation to the particular offence for issues of proof in the trial and to the database generally. I have put forward as a matter of principle an amendment that would establish that. Essentially I ask the Government to look at our criminal law in a forward-thinking way and to appreciate that we are no longer locked into the past. The technology has evolved DNA is the modern fingerprint and the law ought to reflect that. 
In my speech in the second reading debate I made a great deal about the failure of the Government to take the essential critical steps that would get on top of crime. Now is the opportunity for the Government to demonstrate that it is serious about crime and to change its whole way of thinking in relation to crime detection so that this kind of technique could be used for a much broader purpose. I notice the Minister in the chair the Hon Phil Goff is consulting the officials. I would like him to take a call and say what is wrong if anything with the proposition that I have made. I appreciate that I have not provided a 23-page Supplementary Order Paper. He may feel that that sort of Supplementary Order Paper would be required for that kind of change. Nevertheless as a matter of principle the Minister may take on board that kind of change. 
This is an important point because I want Government members even if they pass this bill into law today which they undoubtedly will— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: With the member’s support. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: Yes we will support it. I want Government members to say that they do need to take a more back-to-basics back-to-first-principles approach to this measure and to look at what they are doing. I want them to say that maybe there needs to be some legislation—perhaps called the “DNA Samples Bill 2004”—that would require all people charged with an offence that carries a term of imprisonment to provide a DNA sample irrespective of whether the offence is under the Crimes Act the Transport Act the Misuse of Drugs Act or a whole host of other legislation. The general principle I am talking about is crimes the seriousness of which can be measured according to whether they carry a term of imprisonment. 
I do not suggest going quite as far as one could. One could simply substitute “DNA” for “fingerprints”. In that case a DNA sample would be taken for all offences many of which do not carry terms of imprisonment. That would be one approach. But the approach that I suggest which would essentially lead to a new bill and would treat this legislation as merely an interim or a holding measure would make a real difference. It would be a meaningful change to the law that would give a real tool to the police and the law enforcement authorities of this nation. I hope the Minister does take a call. I have set out what I think is a sound case in principle for a change that would make a genuine difference to our criminal law. My proposal would enable the officials to work over the summer to produce legislation that does not have to be 100 pages long and would establish some basic rules that would give a new way of detecting offending. 
I take the Government at its word in some respects. When it says it is serious about crime I would like to think on behalf of all New Zealanders that it is. This would be one way the Government could actually— 
Rodney Hide 
: Why would you believe it on that? 
Dr WAYNE MAPP 
: This would be one way the Government could demonstrate that. It could demonstrate it by way of action as opposed to words. As I said in my speech in the second reading debate we have seen big increases in crime and particularly in violent crime. I want the Government to say that it understands it has not done enough in the last 4 years that the Sentencing Act ended up becoming something of a damp squib that the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill should be an interim measure only and that a meaningful measure is required. I suggest to the Minister that if he introduces such legislation to the House in 2004 he would get consent from the Opposition parties. He would get consent from New Zealand First from the ACT party and from the United Future party. There was one party only that I did not mention which was the Green Party. All other parties in this Parliament are serious about crime and are willing to cast their vote for a proper measure that recognises that changes in technology enable the sorts of measures that are necessary to get on top of crime. So I say to the Minister that when we on the Opposition side of the Chamber ask for a considered fresh approach to crime we are not doing it just for the purposes of filibustering but are suggesting it as a serious measure. 
I understand that the Minister is likely to vote against the amendment. That is why I have suggested that he take the idea to the officials and produce new legislation—a new bill. I ask that he give the select committee a serious opportunity to ask whether the world is different from the way it was in 1995. Have things changed since 1998? Is this new technology moving on? Is it time to take a fresh approach and say that yes the technology has matured? 
Our understanding is clear. DNA is the new fingerprint. Let us have that form of database rather than one that rests on a technology that is now well over a century old: that of taking fingerprints. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to follow my colleague Dr Mapp because I do want to commend his amendment to the Minister in the chair the Hon Phil Goff. I would like the Minister to take a call. He knows that we support this bill. It makes absolute sense to support the bill no matter that criticism has been levelled at the Minister for the length of time that he has taken to bring it to the House. However I would have hoped that the 4-year delay in the context of the advances that have been made in technology and of the huge upward sweep of serious crime in this country in recent years might have influenced him to seriously consider extending the provisions of this bill. 
I indicated in my second reading speech that although there is a view that DNA testing swabs should be applied to all people who are arrested like my colleague I certainly do not go as far as that. There is the underlying principle of balancing the rights of the individual against the measures we take to protect the security and safety of law-abiding citizens. But some consideration by the Minister to applying this technology to those arrested on charges that are punishable by a term of imprisonment I do not think goes too far in the current environment. No doubt the Minister will take a call and explain why he possibly will not support the amendment proposed by my colleague. However Dr Mapp will have the support I have no doubt of all parties in this House other than the Greens. The Greens obviously want the balance to be so weighted that they would rather see law-abiding citizens at the mercy of heinous offenders than be serious about addressing crime in this country. So as I say my colleague’s proposed amendment is a good one. 
I would go further than Dr Mapp and suggest to the Minister that perhaps he would consider—maybe even over the next 12 hours if he will not do so now—whether it is possible to have that amendment included in the bill so that we can deal with it now. We would not then have to come back and tinker with the legislation after Christmas or have a new bill after Christmas as my colleague says. Perhaps we are able to deal with the amendment now because the speeches made by my colleagues on the Opposition side of the House are clearly in favour of an extension to the use of this technology and there may be a way that it can be done before the end of the Committee stage. 
Such a change is clearly supported by the police who actually suggested that the Law and Order Committee go further than it did. They are at the forefront of fighting crime. They are the people in whom we vest the safety of New Zealanders. The police are the people who are given the burdensome task the huge task of fighting rising levels of serious crime with unfortunately limited tools in their tool kit. Although they are no doubt very pleased that this legislation will now see its way through the Committee they clearly consider that their task would be far better enhanced and made a lot easier if they were given more tools. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I rise to reply briefly to the points raised by members. Dr Mapp seemed to suggest I should have changed this legislation 4 years ago. Perhaps I could remind him that at the time I became the Minister the legislation was not yet 4 years old. It was a new bill. It was passed by that member’s Government and came into effect in 1996. I think he was even a member of the select committee that considered the bill. I recall sitting on that committee and the then National Government was adamant that the bill should not be extended to cover even burglary. I had a different view of that because in 1996 burglary was running at a rate of 90000 reported offences a year—90000. I knew and the select committee heard evidence that burglary is a precursor offence to more serious offending. There is a clear link between burglary and serious sexual and violent crimes. That is why very soon after becoming Minister I put the policy process in train to extend the legislation to cover burglary. 
This Government has done an extraordinary job in getting burglaries down from 90000 a year to 60000. That is an extraordinary drop in offending rates and we want to make further progress still in that area. Nevertheless I believe that burglary should be an offence for which there can be compulsion orders for DNA sampling and that is why I brought this bill in. I listened carefully to the submissions on the bill that were made to the select committee and I agreed to take it even further so that all offences imprisonable by 7 years or more would be covered. All serious offences are now covered plus some less serious offences. The New Zealand Police Association put forward three precursor offences to burglary so we have put those in as well. 
Clearly in legislation of this nature given the time and the money expended not only in taking DNA but also in processing it the focus should go where the priorities lie. The priorities are in terms of serious crimes and that is why this bill has remarkably expanded the numbers of people who as suspects will be required to give DNA samples and I applaud that. The country applauds that. All parties but one in Parliament will vote for it. We have done that job and I can tell the member that the number of DNA samples—blood samples—taken in the last 2 years alone has more than doubled. So this Government is doing more than ever before— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: You haven’t answered the point I am making. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Dr Mapp should listen rather than just talk. He asked questions and I am about to answer them. He asked whether the world has changed since 1995. It has indeed and I will ask members to share with me the graph I have before me which is taken from the New Zealand crime statistics for 2002-03 from the office of the Police Commissioner. I will show it to the Committee. It graphs crime statistics between 1995 and 2003 per 10000 New Zealanders and lo and behold shows that the incidence of crime since 1995 has gone down. That is according to the Police Commissioner. So the member was right: the world has changed. Not only have crime figures gone down but I am proud to say according to police figures crime resolution rates have gone up. Crime is down resolution rates are up and there is more use of DNA. 
This legislation dramatically expands the use of DNA but we have set its use at a level that most New Zealanders would regard as sensible. Any serious offence is now covered by this legislation. DNA samples can be required from anybody in this country who commits a serious crime. Most New Zealanders think that is sensible. The National Party in Opposition is much braver than it was in Government; it wants to go much further now. This bill already goes much further than that Government was prepared to go 4 years before I became the Minister of Justice. 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 As previously mentioned in this debate New Zealand First supports this bill. There is not a lot more that I would like to say but it would be wrong of me to mention that New Zealand First did not have some concerns with this bill as it traversed the select committee. One concern that we promoted was people being DNA-tested on arrest but as we have heard today that was overturned for the reasons mentioned in the Chamber by the Minister. New Zealand First pushed the second issue—the issue of burglary—in the select committee and we are pleased that it has now become part of the bill. We believe that burglaries are an apprenticeship to crime and we are therefore pleased that the bill addresses the issue. 
Just recently in the Wairarapa a heinous crime was committed in respect of little Coral Burrows. I was involved in the search which for me lasted approximately 6 hours. I believe that DNA will probably play a very important role in supplying further evidence in that case. Even though someone has already admitted to it he has yet to be convicted. 
DNA was mentioned here today by one of our colleagues with regard to the drug P. Again I believe that DNA will play a very important role in the fight against that drug. The positives out of this bill are that it will lower the crime rate—or make criminals aware that they will not get away so easily in respect of some of those heinous crimes—and there will be a large cost-saving to the police so that their resources can be spent in other areas to combat other crimes. It will also prevent the locking up a large number of staff in investigations as is currently happening in solving some of these crimes. Just recently something like 20 detectives were put into the Wairarapa to try to find that little girl Coral Burrows. 
Some very positive things are coming out of this bill and New Zealand First supports it. It will curb heinous crimes and capture within its provisions those criminals who may still be in prison and who have yet to be DNA-tested for some crimes that are still unsolved out there in the community. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I very much appreciated the Minister rising to his feet and endeavouring to answer my colleagues’ questions. However I do not think he addressed the issue raised both at the Committee stage and in the second reading speeches of DNA tests being the modern equivalent of the fingerprint identification process. I would certainly appreciate—as would many who are listening—hearing the Minister’s views on that. Again I have to agree with my learned colleague Dr Mapp that in essence when we talk about things having moved on that is one of the areas where they have—that is to say whereas in the old days the fingerprint was the main means of identification today its equivalent the DNA test is and I think most people accept that. 
If that is the case and we on this side of the Chamber certainly believe it is then why is it such a big call—as it seems to be in the Minister’s mind and in the Government’s position—that such testing is not extended to all those who are arrested say on charges punishable by imprisonment? Why in 2003 does that seem such a big call? There will come a time given the convenience of the DNA test that fingerprinting will probably fall into misuse. I ask my honourable colleague whether that would be the case. 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Yes. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: So as I say we regard DNA testing as the equivalent of fingerprinting and in a very short space of time that process will be seen as being out of date. 
I would be very grateful if the Minister would get to his feet and give us the benefit of his thinking on that issue. The issues of civil liberties and of the rights of individuals disappeared when their fingerprints could be taken anyway. That is the point. If we now have a modern form of identification that is clearly simpler and quicker to use then why should we not move to that point? The other thing I flag is the issue of who should administer the test and we certainly have some views on that. We do not think the legislation goes far enough in that regard. 
One of the scheduled offences that should be included in the bill relates to peeping and peering. There is a very good reason for that. That offence is regarded by many as being a precursor to sexual violence. Why would we not include in the legislation the men who do that? They are slime-bags anyway. Anybody who indulges in peeping and peering deserves to fall within the authority of this legislation. It is not good enough that they do not. They are slime-bags and every tool available to the kit should be used. Mita Ririnui frowns but I say that he should think about those things. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 The reason I am taking a call is that the Minister said he was addressing the concerns I raised when I said that as matter of principle—and I recognise that it is an issue of principle and I can concede that the Government may not wish to totally overturn its thinking about the bill by one two-line clause—why is it that all persons charged with offences capable of carrying a term of imprisonment should not give a DNA sample? I presume that the Minister thought he had answered me but he did not. It is quite a direct straightforward proposition. Did he say that yes the ministry will look at the proposition and that if it seems a reasonable proposition then he will introduce legislation next year? Did he answer my simple question? 
I listened for over 5 minutes and I did not hear a single direct statement that the Ministry of Justice would be directed to examine that basic proposition. I did not put the proposition forward without a lot of thought. I have thought about the issue over the years and the Minister well knows that I have referred to DNA as being the modern fingerprint. I ask the Government with all its resources—those hundreds of bureaucrats paid by hardworking law-abiding New Zealand taxpayers—why it would not undertake the research necessary to consider the proposition. That is the proposition that was put to the Minister. Instead he wittered on about what had happened in 1996 and 1998 and all those sorts of things and about the huge schedule. He was as the Speaker says addressing the question not answering the question. So often on this side of the Chamber we have heard Ministers address questions but not answer them. 
I believe that I put a reasonable proposition to the Minister. I was not making a political point as such. I put a reasonable proposition for the Ministry of Justice to consider. If it thinks fit after all its deliberations then a bill could be introduced to the House in 2004 that would embody that proposition. Obviously it would replace the 1996 legislation and obviously it would replace the amendment bill of 2002. But that is the way the law develops particularly when we are talking about a new form of technology which everyone now considers an effective form of identification. My colleague referred to the fact that in a few years time we will think of fingerprint databases as quaint and old-fashioned. We are asking the Government to consider the proposition that it should look at DNA as the new technology that would essentially replace fingerprinting. 
My final point is that the Minister thinking that he had the killer fact said that crime is down since 1995. He was not prepared to dig beneath the surface of the fact because he knows that the crime that concerns New Zealanders—violent crime—is up. Can the Minister get on his feet in this Chamber and deny that violent crime has gone up in the last year? He knows that is the case. He knows that violent crime has increased across the board. He might say that burglaries are down and he is right. Burglaries are down over an extended period of time not due to police surveillance operations but largely due to the fact that the public have had to take their own measures and install burglar alarms. Now we can hardly see a house in New Zealand without a burglar alarm. That is why crime is down. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I think it is important—so that the public of New Zealand knows just how serious or not the Government and the Minister are about violent crime—that we mention again two or three of those areas the Government was not prepared to address for fear of upsetting those who came to the select committee and whose primary angle was the issue of civil liberties and protection of individual rights. My colleague and I have said enough times already that we certainly understand the need to balance the issue of civil liberties and the rights of the individual against the need to properly equip the police. As I said earlier to the Minister he should tell it to the public. Tell the public that the Government is serious about violent crime because the public all know—they see it daily and weekly on their television sets—that violent crime is up. Tell them and the victims that the Government is serious about addressing violent crime. Tell them because in the end—while the Minister might stand and answer our queries and maybe make light of them if he wants to—the public of New Zealand have the right to expect that members of this Parliament will discharge their responsibilities in an honourable way and take all possible steps to make sure that public security and safety are being properly addressed. 
Including offences punishable by 3 years imprisonment was recommended by the Police Association. The select committee and Government members considered that these offences were not serious enough to warrant such an intrusion on personal liberties. Government members on the committee considered that it was inappropriate to include other suggested offences which included peeping and peering—they were not considered serious enough. Government members did not believe there was sufficient evidence to support the belief that peeping and peering would advance to more serious sexual offences. 
Where do they get off? Where are they coming from? I tell them to get into the real world. It is known that such offences are often precursors to serious sexual offending. Who wants peepers and peerers standing outside bedrooms peeping and peering? I certainly do not and neither does any reasonable law-abiding citizen out there in good old New Zealand. 
The other issue was that of DNA sampling. It was not recommended that all offenders be DNA-sampled on arrest. The Government members on the committee considered that to be outside the scope of the bill. That is a cop-out. If we are serious in this Chamber about looking after the safety and security of law-abiding New Zealanders then we should be serious about considering what in my view in the current environment are serious submissions. That is not to be. The reality is as we have already said that violent crime is up. The Minister can take statistics and make them sound as if the Government is doing all it can to address the issue of violent crime—well it is not. The figures show that violent crime is up. 
I say to the Maori members on the other side of the Chamber that it would be great if they could take a call and tell us why they agree with every single thing their Government does even when a lot of it does not make sense. A lot of it is just too modest for words and does not really address the issue that a lot of victims of violent crime are our people—Maori people. I say to Minister Tamihere—who is great at coming to the Chamber and rarely taking a call—that rather than wittering away over there— 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Both Dr Mapp and Mrs te Heuheu have raised the question of violent crime. This bill is about compulsion orders for particular offences. What seems to have gone right over their heads is that every violent crime now subjects the offender or the suspect to a compulsory DNA test if he or she does not give consent. So the issue of violent crime has been dealt with firmly by this legislation. 
Mrs te Heuheu raised the matter of peeping and peering. I presume that Mrs te Heuheu was not on the Law and Order Committee because otherwise she would have been aware of the information that was given to that select committee. She may not know for example that peeping and peering is regarded as such a serious crime in this country that it is a non-imprisonable offence and it is subject to a maximum fine of $500. We are talking about taking compulsorily DNA samples before a person has been convicted. The presumption of innocence still exists. We have considered it to be sufficiently important that where the alleged offence is serious a compulsion order can be gained for particular offences but not non-imprisonable offences and not one that is regarded under the law and has been by successive Governments as being a minor offence. 
What motivated this bill was my strong belief that those who commit burglary will go on to commit serious sexual and violent offences and the statistics given to the select committee back that up. Forty-five percent of violent offenders and 25 percent of sexual offenders in that group had a prior conviction for burglary. There is a clear linkage between burglary and going on to more serious offences of a violent and sexual nature. 
Then we looked at peeping and peering. How did peeping and peering compare in regard to the causal link between that offence and going on to commit a serious one? Two percent went on to commit a serious offence. Ninety-eight percent of peepers and peerers did not go on to commit a violent or sexual offence. There were not very many of them—it is only 76 people. It is marginal. We are talking about burglary as an offence here. There are 60000 recorded burglaries a year. That is 60000 offences—that makes a huge difference to the use of those DNA samples for crime investigation and as an evidential tool. The member has taken three calls and wittered on about peeping and peering when there is no causal link and there are 76 of them. So for God’s sake let us move on to something a little bit more serious than that. 
I come to Dr Mapp’s point. He asked why we should not take DNA samples as we take fingerprints. The member may be aware that fingerprints are taken once a person is arrested. We are talking here about a bill that allows samples to be taken before a person is arrested; but whether before or after arrest a person is presumed innocent. Once convicted all of those people can be required to put their DNA on a database. But before a person is arrested the presumption of innocence prevails particularly when the crime is at the lesser end of offending. This bill is about making compulsion orders available for offences where they are somewhat serious offences. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I have to say that the ACT party does not have a member on the Law and Order Committee so we have been very interested to hear what has been going on at the committee and some of the submissions that were presented. I take exception to what the Minister has just been saying. He has been trying to back up the fact that he says his Government is tough on crime when everybody knows that the Labour Government is soft on crime. If you look at what laws they have passed in this House— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot bring the Chair into the debate. She has said: “If you look” which is referring to me. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I am sorry. If anybody looks at the laws that have been passed in this House they will know that the most disgraceful legislation of all has been the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. We now have sentences that can be reduced down to one-third so if somebody gets 9 years he is out in 3. On top of that we have serious offenders who are on home detention. We have people sentenced to community work and they do not even turn up. That was the big revelation over the weekend. They are sentenced to 100 hours of community work and what happens? They do not turn up and the poor probation officers have a problem on their hands. But does this Government seem to care? No. It talks tough but it does nothing. 
I want to talk a little bit about DNA sampling because DNA technology is the most effective crime-fighting tool ever invented. We should be expanding DNA technology to the widest possible level. I want the Minister to take a call to answer a couple of very very important questions. With all this DNA stuff going on what is the Government going to do about the critical shortage of workers at Environmental Science and Research? We already know that there is a year-long waiting list for samples from burglary and so on to be analysed by that institute. That means that the case has to be put on hold for a year people are on bail for a year and the police cannot actually get on with finishing the job because of the backlog at Environmental Science and Research. When it comes to worse crime like methamphetamine-related crime the cops know they have to wait for 2 years before those labs will be investigated by Environmental Science and Research. 
I am sure the Minister will tell us that the Government has more scientists coming out from England and so on but I want him to tell us whether the Government is going to give the police specific ring-fenced funding for DNA testing. Under the points in this bill DNA testing will be much more comprehensive. The police at the moment have to find that from within their budgets and we are talking about a police force that is still understaffed under-resourced and over-stressed with a Government that is squeezing police funding every single year compared with what used to happen as a percentage of all Government spending. The Minister can shake his head but if he looks at the figures he will see that that is the case. The real numbers have gone up but the percentage of Government spending has gone down since Labour has been in power. 
I want to reflect on some of the advantages of DNA technology. The information I have comes from the Home Office in Britain where they have comprehensive funding for DNA technology and competitive work in the actual sampling of DNA testing so that the analysis is done not only by a Government agency but by the private sector which I think is the model that New Zealand needs to duplicate. 
The Home Office knows that if burglary does not have DNA samples associated with it only 15 percent of those cases are solved whereas with DNA 58 percent are solved. As far as non-burglary offences are concerned if there is no DNA only 10 percent of those cases are solved; but if there is DNA 54 percent of those crimes are solved. 
So it goes on. Regarding property theft we find that if there is no DNA only 6 percent of those crimes are solved and with DNA evidence 51 percent of those crimes are solved. The numbers are overwhelming. DNA solves crimes but we have to have a Government that has a commitment to solving crime and is prepared to resource the police properly so that those crimes can be solved in a timely fashion. In England the DNA samples take 2 weeks to come back; here it is 2 years. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Very briefly in response to that member there was a problem with Environmental Science and Research because of staff turnover and an unexpected increase in work volume. She will be pleased to know that the number of staff in this area has now been increased. Environmental Science and Research aims to clear the backlog by June 2004. In fact in the last 12 months it has completed 3000 analyses whereas its projected target was only 2500. On the question of the police we have the highest number of police officers ever and the biggest budget ever. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Whip—ACT) 
: 
 I have to say that was an absolutely pathetic response from the Minister of Justice. He got up and read from some notes that somebody had given him without knowing what he was talking about. I want him to put on the record how many new staff are coming into Environmental Science and Research. We know that institute has been woefully understaffed and overstressed. People were leaving because of the stress. 
He is telling us that all crime samples will now be completed by June 2004. Can he put on the record that all methamphetamine cases will be analysed by 2004? Is he prepared to put that on the record? I know that the police will be absolutely delighted to know that an end is in sight. At the moment they ask themselves why they are doing their job why they are busting these labs when they know that they will have to wait for 2 years for results while the criminals go free and set up new labs all over the place while more methamphetamine is being put on the streets while more people are being hooked on methamphetamine and while there is more violent crime. 
It is this Minister’s Government that is responsible for all of that. Rather than giving wishy-washy hopeless responses the Minister should put on the record exactly what he means. If he cannot do that then let us ask some members of the Government to stand up and put on the record what they intend to do in this area. 
This whole area of DNA testing and solving crime goes to the very heart of what New Zealanders expect from a Government. The maintenance of law and order is a core responsibility of Government. I can tell the Minister in the chair Phil Goff that right now there are people all over this country who are afraid. They are afraid of being pushed around by thugs on the street of being burgled in their homes of being victims of home invasions and so on and now they are even more afraid that somebody down the road will get himself or herself high on P and come and do something ridiculous to them—something dangerous and horrible. The Government’s response to what is a major crisis in this country has been absolutely pathetic. [ 
Interruption 
] Mr Tamihere can laugh. He should go into Maori communities where he will find that that possibility is one of their biggest concerns yet all he does is sit there and smirk and laugh. 
To get to the point it is all very well for a Government to pass a law that makes it seem as though it is getting tough on something but this bill is incredibly complicated as other speakers who looked at it during the select committee process have said. It is terribly complicated. It should be simple and it should also be resourced properly. I want the Minister to tell us exactly what he means in terms of resourcing because what we have heard from the Government is a whole lot of wishy-washy stuff that makes it sound as if it is getting tough on crime when actually it is not. If this bill worked properly it would solve hundreds of thousands of crimes in this country. But it is not just a matter of the law; it is the resources and it is having the right number of police in the right place at the right time who are able to do the job—it is a whole raft of things. The Government may think it seems tough by passing a law but that is simply not good enough. It has to make sure that all the bits of the jigsaw puzzle are put in place so that the police can do their job effectively catch criminals and hold them to account and so that we have a sentencing regime that puts people in prison if they deserve it for the whole period of their sentence. Instead we have a hopeless Government that allows criminals to get out of prison after serving only a third of their time. We do not have a proper regime in New Zealand that gets tough on law and order. This bill could be the start of something new but I suspect that it will not be resourced properly and the police will not be able to use it properly because they will not be given the tools. 
I reiterate that DNA is an incredibly important tool. I suspect that if the police were able to go through all unsolved crimes using new DNA technology and matching samples with samples from every single prisoner in prison at the moment and samples from all the other serious offenders who have submitted DNA samples—if the police were given the money to do that—then many many serious crimes would be solved. 
Dr WAYNE MAPP (National—North Shore) 
: 
 I want to take a very brief call to correct what I believe is a mistaken viewpoint put across by the Minister of Justice. Essentially the legislation applies to the taking of DNA samples from people where the charge carries a sentence of 7 years or more. The bulk of offences are in that category. Everyone agrees with that. No one disputes that. That is not the issue. The issue is the taking of samples from all offences subject to imprisonment. The Minister absolutely refuses to answer that question. Will he direct his ministry to examine the proposition that everyone who is charged with an offence who is arrested be required to provide a DNA sample where there is the prospect of a sentence of imprisonment? That is a much wider category of offence than is provided in this bill. 
It comes back to the simple proposition that DNA is the modern fingerprint. We have asked and asked the Minister to address that simple question. Instead he evades it. One can only assume that he evades it because he might be embarrassed by the answer. Alternatively he may be evading it because he is not willing to ask his officials to do the serious work as he knows we are right and he does not want to be shown up. We on this side of the Committee ask the Government to think again take a realistic approach and answer our assertion that it talks tough but acts soft. If the Government does not put that proposition to the ministry then we are entitled to say it is an example of a Government that talks tough but when it comes to the crunch acts soft. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 159 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff be agreed to. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to section 4(3) in clause 7 has been ruled out of order because it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee and the Minister has an amendment to clause 7. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Wayne Mapp to insert new clause 7A be agreed to: 
to insert the following new clause: 
7A 
This Act applies to all offences which can carry a penalty of imprisonment. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 21 be agreed to: 
to insert in new section 39(1) after the word “police” the words “a police officer of or above the rank of sergeant”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to clause 25 be agreed to: 
to amend new section 49A(1) of the principal Act by adding the following new paragraph: 
(c)a police officer who has received appropriate training.  
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to.  
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to schedule 1A be agreed to: 
to insert in Part 1 in the appropriate place the words “Peeping and peering”.  
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Tony Ryall to schedule 1A be agreed to: 
to insert in Part 2 in the appropriate place the words “Peeping and peering”. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 46 
New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 6. 
Noes 70 
New Zealand Labour 52; Green Party 9; United Future 7; Progressive 2. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
Clauses 1 to 40 and schedules as amended agreed to. 
Bill reported with amendment. 
Third Reading 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill be now read a third time 
. This is an important bill and I have no doubt that the ability of the police to fight serious crime including burglary will be greatly enhanced by this legislation. The bill is a comprehensive overhaul of the Criminal Investigations (Blood Samples) Act of 1995. That Act has served the police well and has provided a sound framework for obtaining blood samples for DNA purposes to assist with police investigations. 
However DNA technology has advanced since 1995. It is becoming possible to extract accurate profiles from ever-smaller quantities of material. As the technology has advanced the increasing importance and potential of DNA as a crime-fighting tool has become more broadly recognised and understood. It is important that the law and procedures surrounding the taking and use of DNA samples keep pace with new technology to ensure that the potential of DNA is realised. That is what the bill does. Mouth or buccal samples are now able to provide DNA profiles of the same quality as those that blood samples provide. Buccal swabs are a less invasive and less expensive alternative way of getting DNA. It is time that the law recognised this fact and allowed the police to use such samples for evidential purposes. The bill makes that change by allowing buccal samples to be taken from suspects as an alternative to blood. 
When the original Act was passed the DNA-sampling regime did not apply to burglary suspects. That means that currently the police cannot compel a suspect to provide a DNA profile to match against the burglary scene sample and that has resulted in known burglars escaping punishment. This bill rectifies that situation. Burglary is a serious crime. It is highly invasive and often a precursor to much more serious violent and sexual offending. Labour campaigned on a promise to allow the use of DNA as an investigative tool to cover burglary and this bill delivers on that commitment. The incidence of burglary has already dropped significantly since the Government came into office due largely to the substantial investment in police numbers and the police budget in the last 4 years. Resolution rates are up. There is no doubt that allowing the use of DNA samples from burglary suspects will further improve that situation. 
Similarly the potential of DNA as an investigative tool in a wide range of circumstances is also reflected in a broad extension of the schedule of relevant offences to cover all offences punishable by at least 7 years’ imprisonment and attempts or conspiracies to commit relevant offences. The bill also introduces new procedures into the principal Act that largely reflect the move since 1995 of DNA sampling into the mainstream as an investigative tool. 
Perhaps the most significant of those is the new procedure governing the gaining of compulsory samples for the DNA databank under Part III of the Act. Where previously the police had to apply to a judge for a databank compulsion order under the new regime the police will simply issue a compulsion notice requiring a convicted person to give a sample for the databank. The offender has the safeguard of the notice having to be approved by a commissioned senior police officer and of being able to challenge the notice in the court. The presumption therefore of the new regime is that the police should be able to take databank samples from those convicted of serious offences as standard procedure. This will result in considerable streamlining of procedure and consequently savings in time and in money. 
The bill also contains an important provision that will allow retrospectively those still in prison for serious offences—that is those offences contained in the schedule of the original Act—to have samples taken compulsorily for the databank. Parliament should never enter lightly into retrospectivity of a bill’s application. However in the limited circumstances contained in this bill retrospectivity is justified. The original Act had no retrospective application which means that samples from serious violent and sexual offenders in prison in 1995—many of whom are still there such was the seriousness of their offending—have never been entered into the databank. This retrospective provision which comes within the provisions of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act will cover many of New Zealand’s most serious offenders and it is vitally important that their DNA is recorded. I only wish the National Government had had that foresight when it passed the Act in 1995. 
The bill also places new procedures around the taking of DNA samples from children should a child be suspected of certain indictable offences. The regime is a consent-only regime where the police request with a parent’s consent that a child provides a buccal sample. This will allow the police in appropriate circumstances to use a DNA profile obtained from a child suspect in support of an application for a Family Court declaration that the child is in need of care and protection on a specified ground—that is because of his or her offending. 
A raft of other amendments are made to the principal Act as a result of the bill. These amendments will collectively greatly improve and streamline the operation of the Act. Some people have expressed civil liberties concerns about this bill. It is important that we recognise that the taking and retaining of bodily samples do represent some encroachment on civil rights. But as with all investigative tools it is necessary to balance those rights with the potential to use such samples to solve and prevent crime—to prevent victimisation and protect innocent New Zealanders from the traumatic consequences of others’ offending. I am satisfied that this legislation strikes an appropriate balance. Suspect compulsion and databanking are limited to serious offences. DNA will not be taken and kept from law-abiding New Zealanders or even those who might make a one-off minor transgression. The retrospective application of the bill is limited to those most serious offenders who are still in prison. This is an appropriate balance. 
This legislation represents a comprehensive overhaul of the 1995 Act. It updates the Act to reflect that DNA is now a vital part of mainstream policing and has the potential to solve a great deal more serious crime. One of these serious crimes is burglary—a crime excluded from the suspect provisions in the original 1995 Act. In now extending the Act to cover this crime a pre-election commitment by the Labour Party is fulfilled. This bill cements the place of DNA as a powerful crime-fighting and investigative tool. It greatly streamlines the procedures around the taking and use of DNA. More serious criminals will be convicted more historic crime will be cleared and burglary resolution rates will improve as a result of this bill. I commend the bill to the House. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the third reading of this bill. National of course supports the bill—we made that clear to the Minister at the commencement of the Committee stage. We certainly recognise the advances that have been made in DNA technology in the last 10 years. As I mentioned earlier just prior to going out of Government in 1999 National had already put a considerable amount of work in place to update this area of activity. 
The Minister said that the ability of the police would be greatly enhanced by the provisions of this bill. Of course he is right; we do not dispute that fact. However the very fact that the police wanted more than has been provided suggests that they do not think the bill goes far enough. After all they are in the front line in the fight against violent crime and National would have supported further extensions to this legislation. Those were indicated during the Committee stage as well. 
As I said it is proper that the House supports this legislation. It is of some concern that the Greens do not. In an environment where violent crime is up it baffles belief that there is a party that purports to stand here for the rights of New Zealanders but does not support legislation that enhances the State’s ability to ensure the security and safety of law-abiding New Zealanders. It baffles belief that there is a party in this House that does not support this bill. I would be interested to see Green members trying on a public platform to justify why they do not want to help the police in their fight against violent crime in particular and why they are happy to be associated with a sort of flim-flam approach to justice. Most New Zealanders would be baffled as well. 
This legislation takes account of modern techniques and advances in technology over the last few years. National says that in time DNA technology will replace fingerprinting. We do not really understand why the Government was shy about extending the use of this technology even more. We in Parliament ought to show the public that we are serious about their safety and security and about tackling serious crime. The real test of whether the Minister has achieved what he says he set out to achieve by this piece of legislation will only be known by those who will unfortunately continue to be victims of serious crime and be fearful in their homes at night because of the levels of violence that have escalated in this country over the last few years. They are the people of concern here not whether some political party sounds as if it is smarter than another one—not at all. 
In that context we support this legislation and the Minister has widespread support in the House. But he should have been bolder and shown that he cared about the safety of New Zealanders and over the last 4 years he has had the opportunity to do so. He certainly took the opportunity to update the 1995 legislation but we think he was not bold enough and we are not on our own in that sense—the police and the Police Association sought further extensions still. 
I want to pick up on a theme that was raised by a colleague earlier. This is a Government that talks tough on crime but in the 1996-99 period—when I was first in Parliament and the Minister was in Opposition—he had a lot to say about the approach of the National Government and what he would do when he was the Minister of Justice. This has been his chance and he has not taken the opportunity to show the Government’s seriousness in respect of violent crime. That is the legacy he leaves particularly in the context of the rise in the use of the drug P. Whether the police ever get on top of the problem or not mark my words—we will see a severe escalation in criminal offending because of this dreaded curse. The drug P is everywhere and although the Government has taken steps to address this scourge in our view those measures have not been adequate. Combined with its pussyfooting around with regard to the extension of the DNA technology that is the subject of this bill it is unfortunate that we will witness worse to come. 
 That is an awful thing to have to say because as parliamentarians we come in here hoping to make a difference and it is a shame that when we have the opportunity to do that we are not bolder. It is necessary to strike a balance with civil liberties but the levels of offending in society are such that that balance in my view must shift. There is a level of criminal violent offending that is absolutely ghastly and absolutely not acceptable. I suggest that we will be back here in 2 or 3 years’ time putting in tougher measures—certainly tougher than this Government is prepared to be. 
Although this bill certainly updates the 1995 legislation it does not go far enough. The Minister talks tough but when it comes to the crunch his actions are soft and that is not good enough. The public of New Zealand will judge what sort of record he has in this matter. It certainly does not match the harking and the barking he did when he was in Opposition. He has had the chance to do something really bold and innovative and he has lost that chance. None the less National recognises the importance of the legislation as it is and supports it. 
I would ask the Minister again to seriously consider getting his officials after the Christmas break to consider the amendment proposed by my colleague Dr Wayne Mapp and see whether we can convince the public of New Zealand that as parliamentarians we do care about their safety we do care about their security and we are prepared to treat them in the serious manner they deserve. 
EDWIN PERRY (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First supports this bill. Obviously it was one of the three issues we promoted during the last election and we are proud to be part of the Law and Order Committee. New Zealand First supported the amendments put up by Mr Ryall because our belief was that those amendments would strengthen the bill where necessary. But when we come to a position of power we will no doubt be looking at them again. Expense should not get in the way of good legislation in the fight against the heinous crimes that have been committed and back-tracking on some of these criminals who are already in prison but have yet to be convicted of a crime will be available through the DNA tool. 
Although DNA makes a strong contribution against crime we should not forget to focus on crime prevention. I believe that this tool will prevent criminal activity. Criminals will now know that crime will not be so easy to get away with. New Zealand First would like to think that all criminals would see this bill as a tool to deter any future criminal activity which I mentioned previously. As we have seen DNA has become a vital crime-fighting tool around the world and now it will become an important tool for our own police force. 
The police submitters played a very important role in putting this bill together but I would like to thank the staff who also put this legislation together and who were very helpful to myself as the lone star for New Zealand First on that select committee. I would also like to thank other members across the political divide in helping to shape this very positive bill. New Zealand will be a lot safer now that this bill will be strengthened and it will provide comfort for all New Zealanders in Aotearoa. 
I just want to finish off—because I think everything has been said from New Zealand First—by saying that the public are crying out to feel safe on the streets and in their own homes. Criminals will think twice about their actions when they know that they will be caught. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I rise in this third reading to say that the ACT party is supporting the bill because at least it is a step in the right direction. But it is a pretty pathetic response by this Government to introduce a bill on 28 May 2002 and almost 1½ years later have a 25-page Supplementary Order Paper which had to be tabled during the Committee stage and then admit during the debate that the bill does not go as far as it maybe should because it does not do all the things that it could have done. 
For example the bill deals only with the DNA sampling for people who have a conviction that could result in 7 years in prison. Yet most New Zealanders would say: “Hang on somebody who has committed an offence and ends up in jail should have his or her DNA put on a national DNA database.” That makes sense. So a person would know that if he or she ended up doing something bad and ended up in jail his or her DNA would be taken in the same way as fingerprints are taken. Why is that provision not in this bill? The only reason it is not there is that the Government did not get its act together. Firstly it did not get the bill drafted so that it could do that. Most other countries that have a DNA database do have all prisoners on it. In fact in many countries now everybody who has been arrested for a crime is put on the database. This Government obviously could not get its act together to do that. 
Secondly it said that if it did the Institute of Environmental Science and Research which does the database DNA technology testing could not cope. Well what a pathetic response that is. If a Government department that is meant to test DNA samples is not coping the Government either boosts it up gives it more funding and more staff or contracts it out. In many countries they have found that their Government-run agency could not cope. They have private-public partnerships to do the forensic testing and in some cases they have let it out to the private sector. Now instead of having a 6 month 9 month or 2-year waiting list for crime samples to be tested which we have in this country they have a 2-week turn-round. If police officers listening to this debate knew that other countries have a 2-week turn-round of the DNA samples from criminals so they can get their evidence together to go to court to either get a conviction or have the conviction thrown out or whatever—it all happens within a 2-week window of opportunity—they would think that it was absolutely wonderful. The Government members sitting over there on those benches can do this. It is within their power to actually do this sort of thing and once again they have failed. 
Pita Paraone 
: Why won’t they? 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: Yes why will they not do it? Perhaps Mr Benson-Pope could take a call and tell us why his Government is not doing it. It is up to you— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member is bringing the Speaker into the debate again. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I was calling Mr Benson-Pope. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member should refer to them as the member the Minister or whoever it might be. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: My apologies Mr Chairperson. I did not want to bring you into the debate. The point is that if a Government is concerned about law and order it has to put that concern higher up on its priority list. At the moment this Government has law and order down the bottom of the list. That is why the police are under-resourced under-staffed over-stressed and find it so hard to do their job. That is why violent crime is on the rise and why resolution rates of crime are worse than they used to be in spite of what the Minister has said. All the signs are that crime is getting worse in New Zealand under a Labour Government. 
The sentencing laws are pathetic now. Even the public knows that. They ask why on earth the judges are dishing out such weak-kneed sentences and the answer is because of the laws this Labour - Progressive - United Future - Green Party Government have passed. A law is to be passed that will take a step in the right direction. As we know DNA has replaced fingerprinting as the modern method of forensic crime detection. That means that every single person who should have his or her fingerprints taken should have a DNA sample taken as well. 
I know that during this debate there has been the whole issue about whether a person is innocent and all the rest of it and the civil liberties debate but the point is that if a person is innocent and his or her DNA is taken it will prove that that person is innocent. The best way for a person to get out from suspicion of involvement in a crime is to give a DNA sample so that that person can be proven innocent. That is why it is such a good method of testing. It proves that people who are guilty are guilty and that those who are innocent are innocent. 
Members should cast their minds back to the situation where DNA testing found that Jules Mikus raped and murdered Teresa Cormack in 1987 in Napier. It was DNA testing that pointed to him as the guilty party. He is now safely behind bars. A crime has been solved and the parents of that little girl can now put the whole situation to rest. Every New Zealander thought that that was a great resolution for a terrible crime that had haunted each and every one of us. It was DNA testing that did that. 
If one goes further at the moment a person is awaiting trial for the murder of Maureen McKinnell in 1987 in Arrowtown. That person has been at large for 15 years and is suspected of her murder through DNA testing. Members can just imagine that if the DNA of every single person who was ever involved in a violent crime or was in jail at the present time was on a national database and was tested against all unsolved crimes we would find that hundreds and hundreds of crimes would be solved. The only thing standing in our way to do that is that a Government has to make that its priority and make a commitment to it. At the moment DNA analysis is not given the high priority it deserves. Under this Government there is a backlog in the DNA testing laboratory. Crime samples have been waiting for over a year to be tested. Thousands of them are waiting to be tested. Then there is methamphetamine crime. 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh dear. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: It is all very well for Jill Pettis to say “Oh dear.” but her Government is responsible for that. Methamphetamine crime samples are waiting 2 years to be tested and that is simply not good enough. Britain has prioritised DNA technology. It ring-fenced DNA or funding for setting up a DNA database and that seems a very sensible thing to do. Here the responsibility will be put on the police to set up a national database and that means that police funding will be squeezed even more. 
While I am talking about police funding I put on record that when Labour came into power 2.03 percent of all Government spending went into policing. Now it is 1.94 percent so the Labour Government has squeezed funding since it has been in power and that is one reason the police are under stress. Britain has privatised DNA testing services. It now takes 2 months for the turn-round to happen. Earlier in the debate we heard the Minister say that the Government was going to fix that and it would take only until June 2004. For goodness’ sake that is 8 months away. The Minister is saying that anybody who is suspected of a crime has to wait 8 months to be proven innocent anybody who is guilty will have to wait 8 months to be sentenced and that is simply not good enough. 
In Britain where there is a real emphasis on DNA technology if there is evidence of a crime sample where a DNA test can be done 80 percent of those crimes are now solved. If there is evidence of a person at a crime scene 40 percent of those crimes are solved because of DNA analysis. This Government has gone a step in the right direction but it is certainly not far enough. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 Jules Mikus is a name that would have remained obscure if it had not been for the power of DNA testing to resolve a heinous crime 15 years after it was committed and bring some closure to the family and friends of Teresa Cormack. Without DNA testing that loser would have enjoyed the kinds of liberties that he denied his victims. David Dougherty was a name that was mud for 3½ years and would have been tarnished forever had it not been for the power of DNA testing to clear that man’s name and just as important assist the police to find the real offender. In the United States DNA evidence cleared Earl Washington of a brutal rape and murder after 10 years on death row and within 9 days of his execution. 
This bill attempts to apply the powerful logic of DNA testing to an expanded number of offences and allows for an expanded range of sampling. United Future supports the intent of this bill but as I noted earlier we would like to see those powers extended to an even wider range of offences. It is not as if much doubt remains about the evidential weight of DNA matching. Unlike a fingerprint that can be conclusively linked to a particular individual DNA matching is based on the probability of samples being from the same person. However with increasingly sophisticated testing technology that probability is becoming more and more convincing in respect of passing judgment on the accused. Even a former President of the United States has faced up to the weight of probability as the odds that the genetic traces found on Miss Lewinsky’s dress were not those of Bill Clinton were estimated to be 1 in 7.87 million. The identity of the American Unabomber was assisted by the analysis of saliva left on a letter bomb he sent that did not explode. 
Having said that I point out that several mistakes in the identification of offenders have occurred in overseas jurisdictions but they were all caused by errors in handling the samples as subsequent testing showed. I might add that the committee viewed the operations of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research Ltd laboratory and was satisfied that the integrity of samples was maintained throughout the process even with about 10000 samples to process a year. It must be acknowledged that DNA matching is but one part of a prosecution case and is most useful when placed alongside other evidence such as fingerprints crime-scene investigations and eyewitness accounts. 
We acknowledge the Government’s decision to expand the range of offences to which DNA sampling and matching applies. I am particularly pleased to know that the bill will compel some of the worst criminals still in custody particularly those interned before 1996 to provide a sample. That would include scum like Paul Dally Paul Bailey and Peter Holdem molesters and murderers of Karla Cardno Kylie Smith and Louisa Damodran respectively. Of course in an ideal world those guys would never get out but when and if they do at least the police will have the goods on them. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7 p.m. 
MARC ALEXANDER 
: I was discussing the value of DNA matching and I included a number of individuals—molesters and murderers—who were caught through DNA processes and some of whom were caught a substantial period after their offending. But we do ask if DNA matching is of such value for serious offences why it should not be applied to all those arrested for all crimes. 
Rodney Hide 
: And MPs. 
MARC ALEXANDER 
: My own suspicion is that that restriction should be placed on Rodney Hide for a start! It should be put in place merely to limit the costs of processing samples and I challenge the Minister in the chair Phil Goff to prove me wrong by committing more resources to this work in the next Budget. The emphasis here should be on the resolution of crime and perhaps even the prevention of crime as the knowledge that a criminal’s DNA is on the database would serve to deter that criminal from reoffending. 
Rodney Hide 
: Hear hear! 
MARC ALEXANDER 
: The member should hang on. That process is underlined by Jules Mikus’ interview with the police in which the accused went from confidently protesting his innocence at one moment to a wailing confession of guilt in the next once he was confronted by the news that the DNA matched. But DNA matching is not aimed just at nailing the guilty. It can also speed up an investigation by helping to narrow down a list of suspects and reducing the possibility of following false leads. Using the technology for all crimes would send a message to criminals and victims. It would tell victims that the police were doing as much as they possibly could to catch perpetrators. It would send a message to even the most petty of criminals that any transgression of the law is unacceptable. 
The Government’s justification of the application of DNA testing to burglary is that it is seen as a gateway crime to more serious offences. Invading a person’s property gives burglars the psychological licence to invade a person’s body through some form of violence. Most of us could not even consider entering other people’s property without invitation and rifling through their possessions but even for a first-time burglar there is some preconditioning that allows him or her to undertake such a crime. That may be an offence as seemingly petty as tagging or shoplifting—something so petty that is punished so lightly that the offender knows he or she can live with the consequences. Each time those criminals commit another more serious crime they become more accustomed to the incremental nudge in sentencing. I say that we should treat all crime with the same severity of disapproval and this bill misses an opportunity to do so by not imposing DNA sampling on all suspects. However it is still a major step forward. 
I am sickened when I see that so many Opposition members spend so much time criticising such a major step forward. It is not a perfect bill but no bill is and there is a huge opportunity further down the track for amendments that could tighten and expand it. We acknowledge the initiative of Phil Goff in putting it through and I would also like to thank personally the other members from all the different parties of the Law and Order Committee. There was a great deal of consensus in tightening it up. I also thank the New Zealand Police Association which certainly steered us in the right direction of expanding the number of crimes for which DNA sampling should be applied—which we got thanks to National and New Zealand First as well as United Future. I acknowledge that Labour had the opportunity to accommodate those interests and that Phil Goff saw them through. 
I also thank the Sensible Sentencing Trust for putting forward an incredibly heart-rending story. They brought victims of crime some of whom had first-hand experience of a sense of closure directly related to DNA profiling of perpetrators of crimes that put the buggers away. That is what this bill is intended to do and it will do that. I commend it to the House. 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I have already indicated to the House that the Greens oppose the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. Law and order debates in this Parliament always tell us a lot about the nature of Parliament because inevitably they are an opportunity for the House to reach new lows in terms of hyperbole and political grandstanding. This debate has probably been restrained in that regard. Maybe it is due to the House being under urgency and the desire of members to get out of the House early on Thursday or Friday that the debate has been a bit more restrained than usual. 
Nevertheless we have heard the usual hyperbole and the usual grandstanding. We have heard members carrying on about scumbags and slime—using those words to describe people. I despair of our ability as a Parliament ever to deal seriously with the issues of law and order while we fail to realise that people who commit terrible acts are a peculiarly human problem. 
Hon Jim Sutton 
: Get a haircut. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: That was a very witty rejoinder from Mr Sutton; it is good to see the member is on form. Such language is great for making us feel good and feel superior but it adds nothing to the debate or to our ability to deal with serious offending. It reminds me of the debate on the “boy racer” bill because the same words—scumbags and slime—were used to describe people who drive their cars fast and do wheelspins. One has to wonder about that. That bill was a perfect example of a bad law that was rushed through using an appeal to emotion that did not justify the bill itself. 
This bill does the same thing. Once again we have seen the members of the Law and Order Committee which is the same select committee that scrutinised the “boy racer” bill say that it has heard the civil rights issues but that they do not concern the committee and do not have any interest or merit at all. The select committee said the same thing about the advice that the “boy racer” bill breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I have listened to the Minister Mr Goff talk about the fact that this bill is about preventing violent crime. The Greens were concerned about the bill as it was introduced because it related to taking DNA samples from people suspected of burglary but we thought that we could look at that and work through those issues. We are concerned about the way that the taking of DNA has been extended far beyond what we think is reasonable. 
I heard the Hon Georgina te Heuheu say that this bill is about serious crime and that we are all against serious crime. Of course we are all against serious violent crime but this bill is not primarily about that. Marc Alexander predictably used the same tired old arguments about violent crime and once again as we so often do in these debates we heard the names of Karla Cardno David Dougherty and the victims of Jules Mikus being used by politicians in an exploitative way to argue for legislation that has nothing to do with the kinds of the cases that those examples are about. This bill is not about those kinds of people. There are already powers to take DNA samples from people suspected of such horrendous and outrageous crimes. We approve of the idea that we should extend that in order to make it possible to take buccal samples. We support that. 
But the things that were put into the bill by the select committee are not about serious violent crime. They are not even primarily about violent crime. We would support this bill if it was about taking DNA samples from people who have committed or are suspected of committing violent crimes. This bill targets people who are suspected of a crime that carries a maximum of 7 years or more in prison. I had to look that up. I had to look at the kinds of crimes we are talking about. For example members should look at the theft provisions. Anyone commits theft who dishonestly and without any claim of right takes any property with the intent of permanently depriving the owner of that property including theft of animals and theft from a spouse. 
 The Crimes Act 1961 prior to the Crimes Amendment Act 1986 explicated what the term “animals” meant a little bit more by referring to any mare horse gelding ass mule bull goat cow ox heifer ram ewe or other sheep or any boar sow or any pig or the young of any such animal as aforesaid. That is what we are talking about—people who are suspected of those kinds of offences can have their DNA coercively taken by the police. And people in this Committee are telling us this bill is about preventing serious violent crime. 
Rodney Hide 
: It always starts with stealing a pig. 
NANDOR TANCZOS 
: Maybe that is correct; I do not know. It is really quite bizarre. I have been reading the bill and clearly Mr Alexander has not bothered to do that. 
Section 219(1) of the Crimes Act—until the Crimes Amendment Act of 2003 it was more explicit—provided in terms of the animals that were capable of being stolen that “All tame living creatures whether tame by nature or wild by nature and tamed are capable of being stolen; but tame pigeons are capable of being stolen so long only as they are in a dovecote or on their owner’s land.” So theft could not apply to pigeons that are flying in the air but it may apply to pigeons in a dovecote. That is what we are talking about. So members instead of just talking about generalisations and using these cases which are actually already covered should talk about that. In fact the case of David Dougherty which was brought up by Marc Alexander is probably a very good argument of how the law as it currently stands is totally adequate to deal with that case because it actually picked up that issue. 
There is no doubt that DNA samples are a useful tool in the police tool kit and as I have said the Greens do support this measure where it is about violent offences. But to talk about the offences that I have just read from the Act is bizarre. Members really need to look at what the bill actually does instead of what they think they want it to do. They should deal with the actual bill that it seems we are about to pass into law. The Greens oppose this bill. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill be now read a third time. 
Ayes 101 
New Zealand Labour 52; New Zealand National 24; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 5; United Future 7. 
Noes 9 
Green Party 9. 
Bill read a third time.