Adams Amy: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Adams Amy: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:652;Page:1294] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I am pleased to rise tonight to take a call in support of the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill which will set up the victims compensation scheme that this country has been looking for for some time. This scheme is intended to help victims with one-off expenses that are not already covered for them such as travelling to and from court additional counselling and the sorts of things members have heard my colleague Mr Bridges talk about in his excellent speech. It helps victims and it supports them. 
I ask this House why offenders should not be held accountable for the extra costs that they put on victims. Why should they not be held accountable? It is a general principle in our law that if a person causes someone cost or does someone harm it is up to that person to put it right. Why should we as a Government not demand that offenders contribute to and be held accountable for the extra costs that they put on their victims? We are not prepared as a Government to sit back and let that cost sit with victims who have had no hand in causing it while the offenders keep that money. We will make the offenders stand up and take some more accountability for that. We are sick of hearing the all too frequent horror stories of when victims are further traumatised by having to deal with this extra cost. Members have heard that this scheme has already been endorsed by many of the significant victims’ rights bodies. These people know what will help victims and they are endorsing it. This mirrors what already happens in many overseas jurisdictions; we are hardly out on a limb here. 
I suggest that members who are listening to people in their electorates—as I have done in Selwyn—will know that law and order is a massive issue for the people in our communities. I know that it is a massive issue in Selwyn. After the economy it is the single-biggest issue and the single-biggest concern that people in our communities have. This National Government is listening to them and we are focused on helping them. If law and order is concerning them then it is concerning us. We are a Government that gets things done; we do not just pay lip-service. We will not spend 9 years paying lip-service to victims’ rights; we will get things done. This is yet another example of us doing exactly what we said we would do when we were out on the streets talking to people. 
We are prioritising law and order bills in the early part of this parliamentary term for that reason—because we know that this is what New Zealanders are looking for. They have not had it and we will give it to them. All our law and order policies are part of a wider strategy to make sure that we can reduce the number of victims that we have in New Zealand. We want there to be fewer victims. It is not a radical concept but it is about time somebody stood up and said so. We want there to be fewer victims and we want to help victims deal with the impact of crime on them. We want to lessen that impact. I wish that we could take the impact away from victims. I wish we could. We cannot but what we can do is to assist them with some of those additional financial costs that currently fall on their shoulders. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: 50 bucks eh? 
AMY ADAMS 
: Fifty bucks is more than the zero bucks they are getting at the moment. We have already heard that under the victims’ compensation scheme there will not be hardship waivers. I think that is a good thing because it is a clear signal by the National Government that victims’ rights are more important than offenders’ rights. It is pretty simple: victims’ rights are more important than offenders’ rights. It will not in any way reduce or lessen the sentence those offenders have to serve or the reparations or fines they have to pay. We are here to put victims first which is why this levy will be paid before court costs or fines. 
You see we do not think that bureaucracy is more important than victims; we think that looking after victims is more important than bureaucracy. That might be a hard concept for the members on the other side of the House to deal with but we think that victims should get their money before court costs are paid. That is why in this victims’ compensation scheme we have taken funding from two underperforming bureaucracies. We have funding of $5.8 million coming from the disbanded Sentencing Council and the $90000 it costs to run the Criminal Justice Advisory Board. The National Government has said: less bureaucracy more help for victims. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: How much will this cost to administer? How much? 
Phil Twyford 
: How many bureaucrats will it take? 
AMY ADAMS 
: I know bureaucracy is a matter dear to Mr Cosgrove’s heart and I know he would like to see more bureaucracy but we would rather help victims and we make no apology to him for that. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not think I have sat down. 
Interestingly enough victims have been promised compensation schemes for more than a decade by the Labour Government and the Labour Party. By my reckoning for close to 15 years Labour has been talking about having a victim compensation scheme. We have not seen it. Nothing has been delivered. It was 1994 when Helen Clark stated: “Labour also intends to consult widely on an appropriate victim compensation scheme.” Well we know how much Mr Cosgrove loves due process but is 15 years enough consultation for him? In 2005 the Labour Party election manifesto once again stated: “Labour will inquire into the level of immediate financial support available to the victims of serious crime especially homicide.” 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Did they do it? 
AMY ADAMS 
: No and Labour was going to examine the options for providing more support—lip-service! Labour members are prepared to talk about it they are prepared to look into it but have they done anything? No they have not. 
I stand here as the representative of the people of Selwyn and I know that the people of Selwyn are looking for a Government that gets in behind victims that helps victims that says victims are more important than offenders and that says to victims that it will hold those offenders accountable and make them contribute to compensating for the harm they have caused victims. We put victims first. We recognise that more needs to be done to support them. The psychological impacts of crime are bad enough. As I have said we wish we could do more to help victims with those impacts but what we can do is to help them financially. We will give them more money than they ever got under the previous Labour Government and I am very proud that we are doing it. It has not taken us 15 years of talking about it; it has not taken us long at all. We said we would do this over the campaign period because we listened to our people. We listened to the people and we know that putting victims first and saying that victims are more important than offenders is what New Zealand is asking for. Rather than just talking about it we are going to do it. Thank you.