Shaw James: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShaw James: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 04 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1173. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAMES SHAW (Green):I rise to speak on the third reading of the Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill. I am going to restrict my comments to that bill which we will not be supporting rather than speak on the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill which we will be supporting. I just wanted to start by responding to some of the comments from the New Zealand First member Mr O’Rourke in comparing people who are under public protection orders with prisoners of war as a justification that this is not punishment but is detention. I suspect that the prisoners of war who built the bridge over the River Kwai would argue with the point that while they were being detained they were not being punished. I suspect the same would be true of those who are still in detention in Guantánamo Bay. But l know that this legislation does contain a number of safeguards that are designed to ensure that these detainees these people who are subject to these orders do not suffer the kinds of punishments that those prisoners of war did. It is good to know that people who are subject to these orders will not be waterboarded.I do accept that these individuals do exist. I accept that they pose an extremely serious risk. I also want to respond to some of the things that Phil Goff said in his comments both in his speech this time and also in the second reading where he talked about the conflict of rights. I just want to acknowledge that I appreciate that that has been seriously considered and that they considered their position made that choice having seriously considered the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. But as my colleague David Clendon said we do believe that the public protection orders bill is a step too far.I mentioned the bridge over the River Kwai. Another movie that I will refer to is called Minority Report—a Tom Cruise film set in the science fiction world in which psychics were able to tell of crimes before they occurred and lived in this fantastic kind of crime-free society where the cops would raid people who were about to commit crimes because this particular group of psychics were able to detect that they were heading in a crime-erring direction and so were able to make an early intervention and take them to prison before the crime was committed. This of course was an ideal scenario except that it raised the argument that if a crime has not been committed should people be locked up? This is obviously not that kind of extreme but the principle stands. In our system of justice as we have it when you do the crime you do the time and when you have done the time you are released. You are a free person—at least in theory.The reason I am curious about the public protection orders bill is because I wonder how necessary it is that we introduce an additional piece of legislation in addition to all of the pieces of legislation that we already have when the Law Society itself has said that it is unnecessary; when you consider that we are designing a piece of legislation to deal with perhaps one person a year; and when we have the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act and we are about to pass the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. By definition these people who pose this kind of risk have severe dysfunction. That is written into this bill. Surely if they are that mentally impaired they are already covered by one of the other three or four pieces of legislation that we have.I just wanted to echo a theme that Mr Clendon made in his comments which is that there is pressure on lawmakers to be seen to be doing something in a media-driven society. My sense is that this bill is one of those pieces of legislation. Because the Law Society has said it is unnecessary because these people are covered by existing legislation and because it transgresses the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the international convention on human rights it is a step too far. It is erring in the direction of populist law and order rather than a proper justice system. With that thank you very much.