Beaumont Carol: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19225. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour):There have been some very good contributions already on this bill the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill and as my colleagues have said Labour supports this bill. There are some very important and difficult issues that the Law and Order Committee in considering it will need to consider.Before I talk about the bill specifically I do want just to acknowledge the work of my colleague the Hon Phil Goff. Phil outlined a little of the work that he has done in this space but as he was leaving the Chamber earlier he referred to the fact that he at times prior to the earlier legislation had lain awake at night worrying about what might happen with some of the individuals who are covered now by these extended supervision orders that were not at that stage in place. That was because the crimes that those individuals were likely to commit were of such a horrific nature. As a very responsible member of Parliament he was very concerned and troubled by that. He obviously has put in a lot of work in this area over many years and I just think that it is worth putting on the record the work of the Hon Phil Goff. As I say this bill flows on from the work that Phil Goff has undertaken. We do have some concerns around some of the matters in this bill particularly in regard to the definitions used for violent crime but that will be no doubt considered in the select committee.As has been already outlined the bill amends the Parole Act in as far as it relates to extended supervision orders which are used at the moment to manage a small number of child sex offenders who pose a high risk of causing serious harm after being released from prison at the end of their sentence. This bill will enable orders to be renewed as often as they are needed. Certainly my understanding is that in one particular case a person covered by one of these extended supervision orders understands enough that he himself is a risk to the community when his current order expires and he would seek to make a submission to that effect to the select committee.The bill also changes the legislation to the extent that it also then moves on to include higher-risk sex offenders against adults and we are talking about a small number apparently of very high-risk violent offenders. That is the area we have flagged. As the Hon Phil Goff has said there are some concerns that will need to be looked at in the select committee.This bill is part of the area of how we manage particularly high-risk offenders. I was interested to read in the regulatory impact statement about the highest-risk offenders—there are three main areas—and how we as a country try to manage that very very difficult situation. There is preventive detention which is effectively a lifetime sentence. There is the current extended supervision order which this bill seeks to amend. There are going to be public protection orders as well. They all play slightly different roles but they all have in common a primary purpose of protecting the public from further serious sexual and/or violent offending. So that is the common thread throughout them. This bill really is looking at a gap where somebody who has been on an extended supervision order post-release is coming to the end of the current period and at the need to be able to further put orders in place.As my colleague Andrew Little said there are some provisions in the bill to try to get the balance right. One of the difficulties we face as legislators is the fact that the Attorney-General under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has indicated that this bill is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. He says so because of the imposition of retroactive penalties and double jeopardy. These are serious matters so this will mean the select committee will need to look very very carefully at the provisions in this bill and get it right. As others have said we have traversed this ground previously and I am confident that it is not beyond the ability of this House in this particular circumstance to get it right and to do what is in the best interests of the public and in particular of children in New Zealand.I do just want to take the opportunity at a more general level to talk about the issue of violence and particularly sexual and domestic violence. There is no doubt that we have a significant problem in this country. It is one that is currently under quite a lot of scrutiny. We have had the Glenn Inquiry report into domestic violence. We have had the Family Violence Death Review Committee report just last week. We have had some announcements from the Government just this week and certainly Labour will be making some significant announcements in this area. There is a serious problem with a violent culture and although the bill that we are talking about covers very severe situations and offenders who are at extreme risk of causing damage to the public particularly children the context in which that happens is interesting and I cannot help but wonder whether some of those people are part of what we know to be that intergenerational cycle of abuse.The damage that is done to our children is not only by abuse of them directly but also as witnesses of violence in their families. Seventy-two children were in their homes—in the period that the Family Violence Death Review Committee was reporting on which was a 3-year period from 2009 to 2012—when either a sibling or a parent was killed by another member of their family. You can only begin—sorry not you sir. Members in this House can only begin to imagine the damage that that would do to a child and all of the evidence says that in fact that damage is probably worse than the damage of the physical violence and the psychological damage to that child themselves which is quite interesting. I just say that and note that it is overwhelmingly women and children who are the victims of domestic and sexual violence in this country. We do need to make sure that we take that matter and finally start to address it.We need to be world leading in this area and our statistics are appallingly bad. To be frank one death or one rape is one too many. We need to look at issues around prevention and issues around how we provide support and services to those who have been victims of violent crime particularly sexual and domestic violence and how we hold the perpetrators of that violence to account. But we cannot do any of those things in isolation from the others and certainly the announcements this week by the Government seemed to focus very much on the criminal justice end and not so much on the prevention end. It seems obvious does it not that we should actually try to stop the crime rather than being the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff and dealing with the consequences of the crime—either dealing with the consequences to the victim or dealing with the perpetrator of the crime.So I just say that we need to be much more aware of what we can do to change the violent culture that we have in this country and to prevent sexual and domestic violence from occurring. It is a human behaviour so we should be able to change it—maybe not ever completely eliminate it but certainly seriously reduce the incidents that we currently have in this country. So it has got those three elements. It needs real leadership and it needs real commitment. This is not something we can do overnight but it is something that as a Parliament we need to address.