Tanczos Nandor: Clean Slate Bill — Second Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Clean Slate Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13089] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I move  
That the Clean Slate Bill be now read a second time 
. The Clean Slate Bill was first introduced into this House in March 2001. It was quite some time ago—during the last session of Parliament. I think it is fair to say that this bill has played an important role in spurring the Government into action. As a result last week we saw the enactment of the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill. It is fair to say that I take some pride that an issue that has been under discussion in this country and even in this Parliament for a number of decades has finally been dealt with by this House and resolved at least partly in response to this member’s bill. 
When I turn to the first reading of the Clean Slate Bill I recall that the bill was supported by the Green Party of course and by the Labour Party the Alliance and United Future which at the time consisted of only Mr Dunne. I have here a media statement from the Hon Peter Dunne. At the time when the vote was taken his proxy vote was cast by the National Party against the Clean Slate Bill. So Peter Dunne put out a press statement and moved a point of order to amend his vote so as to be in favour of the bill. At the time he said: “While my vote alone does not affect the outcome of last evening’s bill United Future has supported the quashing of convictions for certain minor offences and it is an important plank of our law and order and justice policy. While I may propose some amendments at a later stage United Future remains strongly committed to the intention and spirit of this bill which will go some considerable way towards promoting meaningful rehabilitation and ensuring people do not have to carry the burden of past mistakes for the rest of their lives.” I think that is probably the last time that Peter Dunne has mentioned my name—I will not say it was mentioned with approval because I do not think it was with that exactly—without an effusion of toxic bile spewing either from his mouth or from his computer keyboard. 
It is a shame that those sentiments—Peter Dunne’s strong commitment to the intention and spirit of the bill—somehow became translated in the hands of the United Future representative on the Justice and Electoral Committee Murray Smith into opposition both to my bill and to the Government’s weaker version. We can put that down to the principle that Mr Dunne seems now to have adopted: that if the Greens are for something he is against it. I think that maxim must have prevailed. It is a shame. It is hard to find a description of that. I do not want to be personal or to fall into making personal attacks but that seems to me to be a singularly childish way of deciding policy. 
So what does this bill actually do? It differs from the Government bill in a number of ways. The general thrust is the same but there are a number of differences. My bill states that all convictions of a person become spent convictions after the period specified in clause 7 whichis 7 years except where the conviction attracted a prison sentence of more than 6 months or a fine exceeding $2000 or was a conviction for sexual offences or was a conviction imposed against a body corporate. So a clean slate was to have applied after 7 years. I also made a distinction in my bill between convictions attaching to adults and to young people although I recognise that the status of convictions in the Youth Court is different from other convictions. There was also a difference in the way that I approached dealing with information. My bill stated that no person would be required to disclose any information relating to a spent conviction and no person could ask questions concerning a spent conviction. It made it an offence to try to force someone to reveal a spent conviction or to subject someone to unlawful discrimination. In the end the exclusions were somewhat broader than those in the Government bill. I think that is right because my bill applied to some convictions that had attracted a prison sentence whereas the Government’s Act applies only to non-custodial sentences. So it is quite right that the exclusions in it should be somewhat narrower. 
At the time of the first reading I recognised that this bill was not perfect. I said that we would probably support amendments during the select committee process. But I am still convinced that broadly the bill is right. If we look at some of the convictions that have resulted in prison sentences of less than 6 months we can see many of them are extremely minor offences and are the kinds of offences that should rightly be captured by the clean slate legislation. There are things like careless driving offences under the tax legislation trespassing disorderly behaviour and offensive or insulting language. It is amazing to me that those offences have actually incurred a prison sentence but that is the fact. Other examples are breaches of community service unlawful assembly and of course possession or use of cannabis. Those are the kinds of things that this bill was very much intended to capture. As far as those kinds of offences are concerned we would say that if people have not been reconvicted after 7 years they should rightly be able to put their past behind them and be treated as though they do not have those convictions. 
When Mr Goff said he would be introducing a bill that applied to convictions that incurred a sentence of 3 months or less I welcomed that. I thought it was a reasonable compromise. But in the end the Government bill applied only to non-custodial sentences. I have to wonder where the change came from. I did not really see any substantial evidence presented to the Justice and Electoral Committee as to why the legislation should not apply to any custodial sentences at all. That came about I suspect because at the time Mr Mapp indicated National might support the Clean Slate Bill if it applied to only non-custodial sentences. I have reminded him about that fact—[ 
Interruption 
]—and I think he is quite hurt to be reminded about the speech he made at that time. But it seems to me that what may have happened is that Mr Goff introduced a bill that did not include any custodial sentences perhaps in the hope that it might actually attract a consensus in the House and cross-party support. I think that was a good intention. If the bill had attracted cross-party support that would have been a good thing. Unfortunately the National Party’s final position was inconsistent with its original indication and therefore I think the possibility opened that the Government could have included some custodial sentences. I regret that Mr Goff was never able to see his way clear to supporting that. 
I think it is a shame that the Government did not support my bill but chose to introduce its own bill in place of it. Mr Goff made the point that my bill was not very well drafted but of course the resources available to a member go nowhere near to competing with the resources available to the Government. But I have sat on select committees and I have seen them gut bills and rewrite them. I think it is quite feasible that the Justice and Electoral Committee could have done that in this case. I say that not so much for myself because at the end of the day I am truly of the opinion that it does not matter whose name is on a bill when the fact is that this Parliament is doing something worthwhile that has been needed for some time. But I do think that in general Governments of any persuasion should look at supporting a member’s bill when they support the bill’s intentions rather than introducing almost identical legislation. I think it is good practice for members to be able to see their members’ bills through the House and passed into law. 
This bill was welcomed all around the country when it was introduced. I have already pointed out that I received a stack of emails and letters. The folder I am holding now contains letters relating to the Clean Slate Bill so members can see I received a substantial number of them. I think people welcome the fact that something like this bill has actually been passed into legislation. The intentions of my bill live on in what is now the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act. Although I accept that my bill will now be lost to history I do take pride in my role in getting clean slate legislation finally passed into law in this country.