Wall Louisa: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wall Louisa: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 28 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3518. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Speaker. Thank you very much. This is the first opportunity I have had to contribute to this debate so in this third reading of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill I want to highlight that my colleagues Charles Chauvel and the Hon Lianne Dalziel were members of the Justice and Electoral Committee and I thank them for the work they did. 
I want to highlight points in three areas. The first is about the importance of striking a balance between victims’ and offenders’ rights. What we do know is that the bill is before the House because the Department of Corrections in its recent history implemented an offender management system that was shown to be in breach of inmates’ human rights and New Zealand’s international obligations regarding our treatment of inmates and offenders. We are also debating this issue because a judicial decision concerning the award of compensation to an inmate struck a chord of unease with politicians decision makers members of the general public and more important victims of criminal behaviours. 
The second theme area that I want to highlight in this third reading is about addressing the concerns of victims and public perception. At the heart of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act 2005 was the concern that inmates some of whom had committed terrible offences would receive large monetary compensation for abuse of their rights. But the Supreme Court decision in the  
Taunoa 
 case largely addressed this issue and I want to highlight that my colleague Charles Chauvel spoke about this earlier. There was also a very real and valid concern that the victims of offences by some of those inmates who were and are carrying lifelong sentences themselves—lifelong scars that no monetary compensation could fix—were struggling to obtain compensation from the inmates who had offended against them. 
Thirdly I want to highlight that there were questions of trust and fairness about that system. The only other point I want to make is about the piecemeal approach to criminal justice legislation that I think this bill highlights. 
Today we are addressing two issues. Firstly we are setting out the circumstances in which the judiciary can award inmates compensation for any breach of their rights while they are incarcerated. And secondly we are trying to strike the balance between victims’ and offenders’ rights by setting out a process where if an inmate does receive compensation the victims of those inmates can claim against any money they may be owed by those inmates. This is a very important issue that we are trying to fix and Labour is supporting this piece of legislation but we should highlight that this issue could have been resolved 3½ years ago. That is all I want to say. 
My final point is to support the comments made by my Labour colleagues during the first and second readings of this bill on the need to think about the wider implication of offending by people who are not incarcerated in our prisons whose victims are struggling to cope with the outcomes of the offences committed against them and to receive compensation from the offenders. And secondly we need to consider the question of whether it is fair and appropriate that other forms of offenders’ monetary or financial benefit should also be considered as an avenue to address compensation issues for the victims. Kia ora.