Garrett David: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Garrett David: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:523] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 The Opposition is actually largely right: this measure will not reduce homicide by 50 percent or even 10 percent. 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Or even 1 percent. 
DAVID GARRETT 
: Or even perhaps 1 percent—that is right. I think I could even agree that the test was made a little bit more liberal; I can even accept that. 
I would like to give the Committee a few figures. Twenty-five percent of violent offenders reoffend while on bail. They do not necessarily kill anyone; probably almost none of them do. The reoffending rate for those whose previous major offence was rape unlawful sexual connection or attempted sexual violation is even higher: 27.4 percent 30.4 percent and 31.2 percent respectively. I am not a great numbers man—I do not have to be—but that means that out of every 100 people released on bail 20 to 30 reoffend depending on their offence or their past. If we can prevent even one of those who is released—who would otherwise not have been released as a result of the stricter risk test rather than the “real and significant risk” test—from killing someone or even raping someone is that not worth doing? 
Members should look at the case of Dean Wickliffe. He was a long-time loser. He was locked up in 1972 for murder. Later on retrial the crime was found to be manslaughter but significantly the court never let him out—the life sentence remained. Life sentences are available for manslaughter but are almost never used. Wickliffe finally got out in 1987 but within a very short time he was back again: a year later he was convicted of murder. He spent years and years arguing that he had been wrongfully convicted of murder in 1972. Finally the parole board said that he was right. One year later he killed someone. Sorry I should say that he was retried and acquitted. But as the Hon Phil Goff said quite correctly no one gets found innocent in this country. Acquittal is quite a different thing. 
Now Wickliffe is out again. He is out again “to care for his terminally-ill partner”. He is certainly not a nurse. He is not a hospice worker. Even his people in Maketu in the Bay of Plenty are “ambivalent about Wickliffe’s pending return. One said the community had done a lot to help Wickliffe settle into life outside prison but he had turned his back on them. ‘He likes to be a big hot-shot.’ ” I believe he is known as the “Big man” although he is about 5 feet tall. I hope I am wrong—I absolutely hope I am wrong. But Wickliffe is out there now and that frightens me. He is out there now on bail. If this proposed tightening of the test meant that some judge somewhere said “Well no—there’s a slight risk there; you’ve got to stay there.” I would feel a lot happier. So even if this measure reduced violent offending by a little bit—even by 1 or 2 percent—it would be a change worth making. 
But the Opposition is correct: in itself this measure will not reduce violent offending by a huge amount. It is very difficult to measure how much this will reduce it at all. A negative cannot be measured—it is very hard. But I would be much happier if Mr Dean Wickliffe was behind bars rather than in the community and if this change achieves that for others like him then it will have done something positive.