Bakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2015. Volume:706;Page:4226. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National):It is my pleasure to stand in support of the first reading of the Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill. I agree with the Hon Phil Goff in his concluding remarks that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is not that important for offenders because the rights of victims are also to be protected. So it is very important that we have to consider what victims have gone through. Victims should not be allowed to go through the trauma again and I hope that the select committee will be looking into these things and reporting back to the House when required. I would like to thank the Minister of Corrections the Hon Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga for nominating the Law and Order Committee to consider this bill.I would like to begin by outlining the benefits of electronic monitoring and how it can help in improving safety especially for the victims. It is very important that we use the tools that are available nowadays. If that makes it easy for monitoring or looking after the victims they should be used.I remember the first time that I went out for a ride-along with the police. We visited a few houses to check whether the offenders were at home following their bail conditions and their curfew orders. It was a real hassle. That night it was raining. The policemen went to the house in a heavy downpour to check out whether the offender was there. Plus it was also a hassle for the offender. Knocking on their door at midnight was a real challenge and I think that that was an undue hassle for the offender. The police were doing their duty and there was no other way. But now as this new system is available we should make sure that the offenders have this equipment on their bodies so that they can be monitored. One monitoring person can look after many offenders to check whether they are following their bail conditions or not. The electronic monitoring will help to track the whereabouts of the offender. This means that an electronic boundary will be created. If an offender tries to cross the boundary an alert will be sent out through the device attached to the offender which will help in detecting his or her location.We want to improve public safety and this device will help. It will play a crucial role in helping this Government in reaching its goal of reducing reoffending. The Government has a target of reducing reoffending by 25 percent by 2017 and these are the tools we need to provide to the Department of Corrections and the police so that they can reduce reoffending. Electronic monitoring gives the opportunity to intervene in matters swiftly ideally in time to prevent harm to the public or to those who are prime targets of the offenders. The increased likelihood of detection may also deter the offender from committing further offences. Through electronic monitoring the authorities will also receive an alert if an offender tampers with or tries to remove the monitoring equipment giving the authorities a chance to act in a timely manner. This is a very important tool that will help authorities to monitor the offenders.National is working hard to ensure the safety of the New Zealand public and we want to remove any barriers when it comes to monitoring offenders. Under the current legislation electronic monitoring cannot be imposed as a condition of a sentence of supervision a sentence of intensive supervision release from a prison sentence of 2 years or less or release from a sentence of home detention. Electronic monitoring is unavailable for offenders sentenced to imprisonment for or up to 2 years or for offenders sentenced to intensive supervision. The offenders sentenced to imprisonment for up to 2 years have higher rates of reoffending on their release than offenders serving any other sentence. Also offenders sentenced to intensive supervision have higher reconviction rates. Electronic monitoring will thus help in providing the whereabouts and condition of such offenders and will stop the offenders visiting areas where they can easily have an opportunity to reoffend.National is working on preventing people from committing crime and on creating a safer New Zealand society. The main objective of this bill is to use technologies that allow the Department of Corrections to restrict the movement of offenders and prevent them from committing further offences. GPS monitoring will help in improving agencies’ ability to safely manage offenders and also help support our law enforcement agencies. The department can then prevent serious reoffending through timely intervention and through prosecution before reoffending escalates. We have now got tools that help us to monitor offenders electronically. Without electronic monitoring the department’s ability to perform its statutory duties is compromised. National is focused on providing support and rehabilitation services to the offenders who go back to their communities so that they stay away from crime-related activities by providing them with opportunities through which they can take better control of their lives.Last week we visited a prison in Rimutaka and we saw how corrections is trying to help the offenders to go back into society where they can have safe lives and they can go back to their families and spend time with them. They are being trained so that they can have jobs over there. This electronic monitoring is another tool where they can send them out of the gate to work in society and ensure that they have got jobs when they are released from the prison. This tool is very important.The Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Legislation Bill sets out that the offenders must comply with written instructions from a probation officer that are reasonably necessary for the effective administration of electronic monitoring and that the offender may be required to have equipment attached to his or her body. Electronic monitoring will make offenders avoid areas where they are not supposed to be and thus help in improving public safety.This National-led Government is committed to delivering better public services and we are working hard to further bring down the crime rate. There are a lot of prisoners who will be released to the communities and although we have been able to reduce the number of prisoners returning to prison we want to ensure that they do not create still more victims and are instead focused on reshaping their lives through the skills training and education they got during their imprisonment.Section 93(2)(b) of the Sentencing Act 2002 explicitly prevents the courts from imposing electronic monitoring as one of the conditions of release. Removing legislative barriers could help in improving the ability of the department to keep the public safe as offenders serving short sentences will be demotivated to reoffend.Coming back to the technologies safety can definitely be enhanced through the latest technology. Electronic monitoring is delivering one of the most reliable electronic monitoring systems monitoring around 1960 offenders and defendants: 1299 via GPS and 661 via radio frequency. This is more than 50 percent of those who need to be transitioned to the new system. Reoffending is reducing under this National-led Government and it is my privilege to commend this bill to the House.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before I call the next member I am going to remind the member who just spoke and other members of Speaker’s ruling 47/1. I think the member has now been here for nearly 4 years and I think the exemption that is allowed to new members or Ministers introducing technical bills no longer applies to him. He actually spoke for about 3 minutes without reading his speech and then appeared to revert to that. I just want to reinforce the rulings that have been given by other people in this Chair and to remind people to have a look at Speaker’s ruling 47/1.