Power Simon: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Power Simon: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 24 July 2007. Volume:640;Page:10634. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 We come to what is the last stretch for this legislation. Frankly the delivery of this legislation to its third reading in the House can be described only as a bit of a shambles. We saw at the Justice and Electoral Committee the removal of the Government’s desire to see prisoners’ compensation extended until 2010. The select committee said to the Government that it did not agree with the Government on that provision and that it would remove it. The Government then had to reinsert that provision into the legislation in the Committee stage with the assistance of some of the other political parties that agreed to the reinsertion of that clause and we now find that it is back in the legislation. Then we had the debacle over the ability of victims to appear before Parole Board panels that was played out last Thursday and we saw the Government yet again defeated by a body of Parliament—in that case it was the Committee of the whole House.  
Hon Mark Burton 
: It was unanimous for goodness’ sake! 
SIMON POWER 
: The Minister is quick to now rewrite history about what occurred last Thursday but the reality is that— 
Darren Hughes 
: We were there. 
SIMON POWER 
: The Minister might have been there in one sense but he certainly was not seeing it in the way that everybody else in the House did until he took off his socks and did the numbers. The point is that this has not been an easy path for such fundamental changes to our criminal justice system. One of the crucial reasons for National’s seeking of leave to have the vote divided into five questions so that each of these bills can be considered on a separate vote is that National agreed with some things in the original Criminal Justice Reform Bill. One of those things was the changes to parole. The fact that parole would be seen as a privilege not a right was an important statement to make in legislation. The fact that eligibility for parole had been returned to two-thirds of a sentence and not the stupid one-third of a sentence that the Government introduced in 2002 is something that National agrees with.  
Further as a party we were quick to support the Government’s original Supplementary Order Paper around confidentiality orders and around matters being brought before the Parole Board that may not have been proven but may have gone to behavioural aspects of that particular inmate at a crucial time when that inmate came before the Parole Board.  
Of course the ability to have a warden or the head prison officer on that Parole Board panel was removed in 2002. That was an error but let us hope that this legislation will go some way towards giving all the information to the Parole Board that it needs. I agree with the Government’s view that this is quite a large power and that it should be used only in exceptional circumstances but it would have prevented the Parole Board from not having information relating to Graeme Burton’s behaviour whilst he was incarcerated put before it. That is a positive step so National will support the Parole Amendment Bill (No 2).  
 National members will not support the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Amendment Bill and have made lengthy speeches in this House as to why that is the case. We are concerned that all this bill does is to make victims relive—relive—the pain of the offence that was committed against victims in a situation where compensation has been awarded to prisoners because victims have to reapply to get a share of that compensation which is otherwise held in a trust account on behalf of offenders.  
Other avenues are open to an offender or an inmate who believes that he or she has been wronged in a prison—the criminal justice system leaps to mind the Human Rights Commission leaps to mind—and those are avenues that National believes should be explored by prisoners rather than our having a bill that requires victims to have to relive crimes committed against them in any application to access that compensation that otherwise might have been awarded.  
The Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 3) which introduces the stand-alone sentence of home detention is something that is to be—tentatively—welcomed. I believe that the ability for the right offender to be able to access this particular sentence is worth looking at. I am concerned of course that public safety remains the No. 1 consideration and like the matters around parole home detention as a separate sentence should be limited only to those minor non-violent and non-repeat offenders. National will be watching carefully as I know that Mr Mark from New Zealand First will be to see exactly how this new sentence is applied.  
This particular bill the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 3) was a bit more difficult for us because part of the sentencing guidelines was included in it. We in National are opposed to the Sentencing Council and we will be opposing the Sentencing Council Bill today. I will come to that in one moment. We will be watching with interest to see how the sentences of community detention and the electronic monitoring of those sentences play out but we acknowledge that intense supervision in both these cases where the risk of reoffending is low and the risk of victims to crime is low is worth some—and I emphasise some—consideration. So we will be voting for the Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 3).  
We do not believe that the Bail Amendment Bill in many respects does a whole lot and we will be watching with interest if it passes to see how matters progress on that. I have done too much work over the last 18 months on the issue of bail to be convinced that it is being applied in anything other than a random and haphazard way. National will oppose the bail amendment portion of this legislation.  
That brings me to the Sentencing Council Bill itself. My colleague Chris Finlayson— 
Hon Pete Hodgson 
: Yawn! 
SIMON POWER 
: Well Minister Hodgson might want to yawn in the House when we are dealing with matters of the criminal justice system and sentencing. One of the issues that this Government has been consumed with has been reducing the prison population. I thought the issue was dear to its members’ hearts but it is obviously boring one of its senior ministers. I apologise if that is the case I tell the Minister but I say that this is actually pretty serious legislation.  
The Sentencing Council Bill which brings about the establishment of the Sentencing Council and the membership of the new Sentencing Council will be opposed by National. National members have said on many occasions that we believe that the Sentencing Council will do one of three things. Firstly it will provide a buffer between Parliament and the public on issues of sentencing. A fundamental role for the Government or executive of the day is to allow citizens to feel safe at the time that an offender has a sentence passed down. We object to the concept of a buffer being put between the people and the accountability of Parliament when it comes to the delivery of that sentence.  
I have said all the way through the progress of this bill and I will say it again now that the Sentencing Council will become the district health board of the justice sector. When an issue of sentencing concerns the public the Minister of the day will be able to stand on his or her feet in this House and say that it has nothing to do with the Government; it is all to do with the Sentencing Council. And that worries me deeply as does any impingement on the independence of the judiciary and the way in which the council could be formed differently—matters that Christopher Finlayson will go into in some detail in his contribution.  
One thing the Minister did not cover in his third reading speech and one thing I will be monitoring very closely— 
Hon Members 
: Oh!  
SIMON POWER 
:—well we have taken lesser scalps than those of the members opposite—is that if we see the length of sentences being reduced to accommodate the changes in the provisions around parole and the sentencing guidelines members can rest assured that the Government will be held to account by the Opposition for that particular manoeuvre. The length of sentences is not something the Minister has addressed in his third reading speech or at the Committee stage and we are yet to be convinced that this Sentencing Council will do anything other than separate the people from Parliament on such an important issue in our criminal justice system as sentencing.