Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Peters Winston: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Volume:609;Page:6137] 
8.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
 to the  
Minister of Corrections 
: Does he stand by his reported comments “Public safety is one of the key issues people expect from the Corrections Department and from me”? 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice)  
on behalf of the Minister of Corrections 
: 
 Yes. That is why this Government has dramatically increased the length of sentences for the worst and highest-risk offenders and why this Government has introduced and passed legislation requiring the Parole Board to give paramount consideration in its decision making to public safety. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Does the Government consider those convicted of manslaughter raping a girl aged under 16 aggravated robbery threatening to kill and assaulting a child with a firearm all of whom qualified for home detention not a threat to public safety? What does this Government consider to be a threat therefore to public safety? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: There are two forms of home detention. At the back end serious offenders will do their last 3 months before release in home detention. At the front end in order to be eligible for home detention the requirement under law is that the sentence imposed on the offender is 2 years or less. Therefore a judge has already made a decision that that individual is not likely to constitute a high risk. 
Martin Gallagher 
: What has the Government done to improve the management of offenders in the community? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The Government has done many things in that field but let me highlight just one of them. In the Budget the then Acting Minister of Corrections announced that there would be a 22 percent increase in the number of probation officers which is critical so that they can properly fulfil their role. Just as important she announced an 80 percent increase in the level of training so that those people responsible for supervision have the skills to do so. 
Stephen Franks 
: Does the Minister consider the privacy interests of paroled paedophiles outweighs the rights of parents who want to protect their children safely; if not why does his department supply these perverts with false identities and secrete them into communities innocent of any knowledge of them and then block police from showing photographs of them? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Where the police consider that an individual released from prison constitutes a risk to the community they will do as they did in Palmerston North and advise relevant persons of the presence of that individual in the community. As a broader principle however if the member or any other member of the House is interested in minimising the risk of reoffending the last thing he or she should do is to hound that person away from a safe environment away from a support group make him transient and drive him underground—whereas every expert who has commented on this matter in recent weeks has said that that is the very way to maximise the risk of reoffending and make things worse for potential victims. 
Marc Alexander 
: In the light of today’s revelation that the victims of a paedophile who has been out of prison for 2 years were not informed of his release will the recent announcement to apply extended periods of supervision to those convicted before the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act be complemented by an effort to contact victims to ask whether they wish to be included on the notification register; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I presume that the case the member refers to is that on the front page of the  
Dominion Post 
 today. If the member reads that article he will see that this person was convicted 10 years ago. At that time there was no legal requirement on any Government agency to ensure that the family was registered on the victim notification system. This man was released at two-thirds of his sentence because the old law tolerated for too long said that he had to be. Today the laws have changed in both of those areas. The man if he was a risk would have done his full prison sentence; secondly there is now a legal obligation on the police to notify people eligible for the victim notification register and the inspector of police commenting on this said that unfortunately the system of informing victims of their rights in those days was not as consistent as it should have been but that has now changed. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Why would the Minister expect this House to believe him when a former probation officer Glen Goodman is quoted in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 on 19 May—he helped set up the home detention in the Nelson region and worked for the service for 16 years—as saying that he was disgusted at how the Government was deceiving the public and further that its credibility as a system was being undermined by short-sighted goals based around savings? Who should we believe: this Minister or someone who knows Mr Goodman? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: That individual who served most of his time under the previous Government—including the one that that member was Deputy Prime Minister in—may be making his judgment on the past. It is certainly not a judgment that is relevant to today. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Are we still carrying on with supplementary questions? ACT has finished its questions for today. 
Rodney Hide 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You said earlier—and I have considered the matter and I want to raise it as a point of order—that you had the ability to grant an extra question when you felt that a Minister was trifling with the House in his replies. We have had a situation whereby the Minister of Maori Affairs has walked into this House knowing full well that the date on which he learnt that his answers were incorrect was 9 June. It took three questions from the ACT party and probably six or seven questions in total from Opposition parties to get that date from the Minister through a succession of questions. What that did was burn up the allocation of parties on this side for question time that you oversee. Now the ACT party has burnt up three questions simply to get a date. I ask you Mr Speaker to consider granting the ACT party an extra two questions—or at least one—to compensate for having to burn them up in that way. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No the member can seek leave and I presume he is doing that— 
Rodney Hide 
: No I am not. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: No—well I am not granting it. 
Marc Alexander 
: Is the availability of treatment programmes a primary consideration in deciding where to incarcerate convicted sex offenders; if not why not? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: If it is deemed that a sex offender in prison would benefit from a course such as Kia Marama or Te Piriti then that offender will be transferred to a prison that can make those services available. Those are the most intensive courses. Other courses that would help prevent a person from reoffending are available but people who need the assistance most would be referred to one of those two prisons in Christchurch and Auckland for such treatment. 
Stephen Franks 
: I seek leave for another supplementary question on the primary question. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: Mr Franks seeks leave. Is there any objection? There is. 
Marc Alexander 
: Why has the Government waited as long as this to introduce legislation to strengthen supervision of convicted paedophiles not covered by the sentencing and parole reform legislation when following the disaster surrounding Barry Allan Ryder’s reoffending on parole last year authorities knew that a paedophile with a similar history would also be eligible for release this year? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: The work that needs to be done to ensure that a period of extended supervision is effective and fair is not done overnight. I have had my officials working on that for the best part of 18 months. We are now at the point where that is close to decision making by Cabinet; it will be introduced and it will be introduced approximately 2 years after it was introduced in the United Kingdom which has been one of the front-runners in this area.