Parker David: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8146. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour): Can I begin by responding to Marama Fox’s contribution the vast majority of which I agreed with. Thank you for that contribution Marama Fox. But there was one mistake made I think and that was—if I understood your contribution correctly—when you said that if someone has been in a detention centre for 6 months following their imprisonment they will not be caught by the returning prisoner provisions of this bill. Actually that is not correct. The bill at clause 17(2) says that that 6-month period runs from the release of custody and release of custody means “if a person is detained in an immigration or other facility following release from prison”. The date is from the release from the immigration or other facility not the release from prison. I am pretty sure—in fact I am sure—that I am right about that. I have just read from the relevant subclause of the bill.I do not say that to criticise the member but to highlight the problems that we have in Parliament when we pass legislation under urgency. It is understandable that members who make contributions to this debate cannot be expected to get their heads around all of the finer details and indeed around the effect of important provisions like that one. I take it from your comment you would think that that is going too far in respect of this legislation and that underscores the fact that maybe we are. I have also pointed out other examples of where we might be going too far and I have pointed out other examples where we are not going far enough to protect the interests of New Zealanders.If I could re-traverse the issue that we had discussions with the Minister in the chair about earlier—about whether you can get the required information from someone who has returned to New Zealand having had a conviction overseas that is not necessarily known to the New Zealand authorities which I think is an appropriate thing that the New Zealand authorities should be able to learn from the offender if they have not learnt it from Interpol or some other country. This bill does not allow the police at some later stage to require someone who was convicted and has served a sentence for a serious offence overseas to have to tell the New Zealand authorities about it if they ask them about it. The Minister said that that will never be a problem because they can get that information from overseas authorities. I am sorry—that is naive and untrue. It is just not right. Take for example someone who was in Syria. Do we really think that we could get proper information from Syria about what convictions a returning New Zealander might have had whilst in Syria some years ago? It is fanciful. It is laughable. It is also true in respect of various other African and Asian regimes. It is just not believable.We still have the possibility of people returning from those jurisdictions to New Zealand and there is no record in the New Zealand system of those persons offendingoverseas—and these will not be common occurrences but none the less they are things that we can think of that could occur and that we should have a legislative fix for. What happens when for example someone is investigated following a crime that they are alleged to be involved with in New Zealand? These are distasteful examples that we do not like to talk about and I do not want to ramp them up because I do not like trying to spawn fear in society and I am not trying to do so here but it is true that some sex offenders against children have a recurrent problem. It is actually one of the reasons why the likes of Australia want to get rid of them out of there and send them back here. If they have come from another country not like Australia where you could get that information I would want there to be a duty upon the person to say: “Well yes I was in Syria. I lived there for 20 years and that’s why there’s no record of me being in New Zealand because I’ve been overseas for 20 years.” That person should have a duty to disclose their convictions.We cannot have those discussions at select committee; neither can we have the submissions that we would get from the Law Society or from Rape Crisis or even from the Sensible Sentencing Trust which as an organisation I generally abhor for its hypocrisy and for its wrongheadedness—its hypocrisy being shown by events with David Garrett when he was here having backed him for a discharge without conviction and name suppression after he had been found to have stolen the identity of a dead baby as part of his passport fraud when it generally opposes both for criminals. That sort of hypocrisy annoys me but none the less I respect its right in a civil society to make submissions on legislation. I would defend even the right of the Sensible Sentencing Trust to come along and say that this legislation does not go far enough—if that was its view. We have heard from Marama Fox and others about how People at Risk Solutions—and I would say the Howard League for Penal Reformalso—has got a relevant interest in these things. It might not be directly in respect of this legislation because this is about management and information but if there is no parallel process elsewhere in Government dealing with the need to help these people reintegrate and minimise the risk that they will reoffend that is actually something that would be highlighted by those submissions to select committee. That is one of the reasons we have these processes.I want to say why all of these things go to the underlying principle of why it was that the Labour Party suggested we have a parallel process with a sunset clause for this legislation. It was a very simple process we were suggesting. It would not have elongated this process in the House. We could have had two bills being considered at the same time. The parties of Parliament would have agreed to that through the Business Committee. One of the bills would have been taken through all three stages under urgency and it would have had a sunset clause or an end date of a year say—we were flexible as to the date—and then the second form of the bill would have passed only its first reading and would have commenced at the end date of the first version of the bill and it would have gone to select committee. Through that process we could have advertised tomorrow we could have heard from submitters and we could have taken the time to actually get this legislation right.I do not think we have fixed even the grammatical error that is in clause 7 of the bill. It was pointed out to me by David Shearer and raised by me in the first reading debate. It says “Who is returning offender”; it means “Who is a returning offender”—they have missed out an “a”. That sort of error should be fixed. There will be other mistakes in this bill that could be of import as to what the legislation actually means. We have not had the time to deal with that. It would have been fixed at select committee if the Government had chosen the process that we suggested. The idea that a review via an established select committee is the answer—I do notthink that is right. Select committees do not have to hear submissions. The select committee is controlled by the Government. This select committee will have a majority of Government members. They can just say if this is too much of an embarrassment or if they do not want this particular item coming up—they can actually cause that inquiry to be very short. They do not need to hear submissions from the public. They do not need to do a proper job. If it is too embarrassing they probably will not. Governments often act like that.The reason that we have multiple stages of processes—there is the Committee stage some time after a select committee has looked at the legislation—is actually to make it better legislation. We have offered the Government a practical way to achieve that and it has thumbed its nose at us. I think it actually shows what scant regard the Government including the Minister Amy Adams has for proper processes and for getting the balance right between individual civil liberties and protecting the rights of the public both of which are relevant on this occasion.Finally can I end by saying that I am pretty fed up with the position that the Australian Government is taking in respect of New Zealanders living there. As others have said earlier in this debate it is true that we deport some serious criminals back to Australia but it is also true that if people live in the country from close after their birth then they are effectively Australians. Why is it that we are not ensuring that those people in Australia have all the rights of Australians including the right to live in their country after they are convicted of less serious offences? Why is it that they cannot get proper social support? They pay for social insurance like disability insurance. They actually pay and they do not get it—they are excluded from the scheme even though they pay for it. They cannot get decent support as students. Women who break up with their partners and have children in the country cannot take their children out of the country and back to New Zealand because of the Hague convention yet they cannot get the support that they need in order to maintain themselves and their children while they are there. Those things should be addressed properly by the Government. They are not—we do not hear the Government standing up for the rights of New Zealanders in that regard.Final point—I am still offended by the Prime Minister’s comments last week about our supporting rapists. It was a low point in this House a low point for the Prime Minister and particularly galling given that clearance and conviction rates in respect of rapes that occur in New Zealand are decreasing under the Police department under his watch.