Brownlee Gerry: Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Prisoners' and Victims' Claims Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:626;Page:20934] 
GERRY BROWNLEE (Deputy Leader—National) 
: 
 If ever a bill before the House showed just how out of touch the Labour Party is with ordinary New Zealanders this would be it. Ordinary New Zealanders have expressed outrage at the idea that someone in a prison who gets in a tangle with the authorities responsible for his or her incarceration should somehow be able to go to a court and get a monetary payment for hurt feelings or for other damage. It is just abhorrent. I point out to the Minister that we live in a country where sadly a violent crime is committed every 9 minutes. So why are we taking the time of the Parliament to look after the interests of prisoners who might get on the wrong side of their keepers when we are doing nothing for the victims of crime? That is the outrage that New Zealanders will be expressing when they hear what this bill is about. It does not surprise me that the Greens are supporting the bill. The Greens of course are a very confused group of people as evidenced by the performance of their leader earlier this week and the claim today that they are campaigning to get the votes of prisoners—who of course cannot cast a vote! 
I want to read out something from the commentary on the bill because it is worth listening to under the heading: “The place of victims in the criminal justice system—the need for further inquiry”. It states: “Many of the submissions”—to the select committee—“focused on the effect on victims and their families of very serious violent crime. The focus of victims who submitted on this bill was largely on ensuring the outcome reflected the hurt done to them which they argued was not necessarily achieved by monetary compensation. At the same time a number of submitters referred to overseas models of government-funded compensation that did not require the victims to take any direct action against the offender.” So having heard all of this from victims the select committee went on to state: “We have concluded that further work needs to be done and we consider it is appropriate to think about the next stage in the agenda that included the Victims’ Rights Act 2002.”—at some future time. So here is a bill to sort out the rights of criminals! If ever there was an example of getting the boot on the wrong foot this bill is it. 
I challenge the Minister about the outrageous statement he made earlier about New Zealand having to comply with international conventions. It is a load of rubbish. There are international conventions all over the place that this country does not comply with. So why on earth do we have to comply in this case? Why do we have to say that our system has to line up against many countries that we would not want to compare ourselves with? 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Oh Australia? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The Minister says: “Oh Australia?”. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: Canada? 
GERRY BROWNLEE 
: He can name all these countries but there will be dozens in that list that are absolute shockers. We have seen plenty of pictures of conditions in Bali jails on our television screens in recent days. 
I want him to tell us exactly what the legal advice was because the committee report does not talk about it in a specific way. It simply states that it would “likely be inconsistent”; it “could be inconsistent”; it “might be inconsistent”. Well where is this compelling legal advice that is making the Government act on behalf of criminals before victims? I remind the Minister that from time to time courts get things wrong courts make mistakes. It is the job of Parliament to fix those mistakes to correct the court’s view of things according to the way the citizens of this country see it. This bill does not do that. This bill is upholding the decision made by a judge and is then simply setting a few little things around the edges of it that determine how the judge’s decision is to be implemented. It completely denies the fact that the victims of violent crime carry the scars of those attacks those violations and those other wrongdoings for the rest of their lives. We have time taken up tonight urgency taken in Parliament to make sure that some prisoner who has hurt feelings gets his dollars.