Clendon David: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 01 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11617. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): I am pleased to take a brief call on this bill. In part I will reiterate what my colleague Marama Davidson has already said. In respect of this bill the Greens are supporting it. I think repetition is no bad thing. From my teaching days I know that some students are slower than others to absorb information. Although some of our friends on the National benches are charming people they might be in that category on occasion and take a little longer than others to understand evidence.Technology is a wonderful thing as we know. This is an instance I think where legislation is to some extent catching up with technology. The electronic monitoring tools that we have are exactly that—they are tools. The Greens are supporting this bill because it gives another option to parole boards to sentencing justices and to people making decisions about bail. Often it may be the case that electronic monitoring enables a person to not undergo a custodial or a further custodial sentence. So in that sense it makes sense to use technology in this way.But we ought not to confuse this management tool with a long-term solution because that it is not; that point was made very strongly by Kim Workman in his as ever reliably excellent submission. May I just divert for a moment to acknowledge and put on the record in this House the Green Party’s congratulations to Mr Workman on the award of an honorary doctorate recently. That is something I am sure that even those who might disagree on occasion with Mr Workman would acknowledge is a well-deserved honour and one he merits very strongly. The point is made that although this is a management tool it is not a long-term solution for offending.I am very reluctant to politicise a tragedy but the sad and tragic business of Blessie Gotingco’s very preventable death has been raised in this debate. I would make the point that the person who perpetrated that wretched crime had been monitored. I also make the point that he was 8 years in custody. For 8 years his every movement was controlled by the State. In those 8 years we are given to understand that he had seven sessions of psychological counselling. At the completion of those seven sessions the psychiatrist said that he ought to be given time to reflect to demonstrate that he had absorbed something and that his behaviour was moving and then a more intensive programme of counselling of whatever it took to change that man’s attitude to change his thinking and to change his perception could be undertaken. That follow-up never occurred and I think all of us collectively need to take responsibility for that.That is a clear and obvious failing of the in-prison rehabilitation. If such a serious high-risk offender is not getting adequate or even barely adequate attention while he is serving that long 8-year sentence then we need to look very hard at what is happening inside our prisons. We cannot simply point the finger and say: “Well the bracelet should have been the solution.” It clearly was not and it cannot be in any case.The bill makes some useful contributions as I have said. I sat on the Law and Order Committee. One of the decisions of the select committee was to insert a statement of purpose into this bill so it was very clear what the point of it was. It is an obvious thing to do but it is something that we saw was lacking in the bill as it was originally drafted so that was put in there. The bill enables as I said decisions to be made. For example inmates might be allowed to be released from prison be it for humanitarian reasons to attend funerals or important family functions or importantly for Release to Work. Unfortunately one of the overreactions to the case of Phillip Smith’s unauthorised expedition to South America is that Release to Work has almost ceased despite the incredible value to the offenders the very observable and observed improvement in behaviours and the likelihood of them not reoffending. Release to Work was a very successful programme that has been largely abandoned by the Department of Corrections or at least a much higher bar is set. That is unfortunate.I think we need to if need be use the electronic monitoring to enable a return to a much more widespread use of the Release to Work programmes because they are a means of reintegrating people to give them just a little bit of freedom—a little bit of opportunity to earn the trust of the community and to make some useful contribution while they are doing that. If technology can assist that that is a good thing; the Greens will support it. Kia ora.