Goff Phil: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Goff Phil: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:506] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 I begin by picking up a couple of comments from Chester Borrows. The reason this side reacted as it did to Melissa Lee was that she arrogantly assumed that nobody on this side of the House could empathise with victims. I have had relations killed by people acting illegally. I can empathise and I do not need to be told by one of the member’s colleagues that I do not understand how a victim feels or how the family of that victim feels. 
We had this speech from Melissa Lee. It was straight off the campaign trail and it was exactly what she had told the people of New Zealand: tomorrow—with a National Government—these things will never happen again! The rhetoric was: “We will never again have to see a case like Navtej Singh.” As a former police officer Chester Borrows knows that that is rubbish. Chester Borrows knows that the laws we pass in this country do not determine when a homicide will happen. I tell Ms Lee to use the empty rhetoric for as long as she as a member feels that that is appropriate but to know that if she has been telling her constituency that they will hold her to the expectation that all of these crimes will disappear tomorrow. 
The member knows—if she knows anything at all and maybe she does not yet—that the Bail Amendment Bill will do not one jot to protect a single New Zealander from homicide committed by a person on bail. The member Chester Borrows knows and the Minister himself knows that this legislation will have the most marginal effect of anything that happens in terms of protecting the community from crime. It provides for 10 extra remand beds in the next year. Each year 15000 people are remanded in custody on bail and at any one time there are 1800 people. This will affect 10 of them. The 10 people if that figure is indeed correct will be those whose level of risk is the most marginal. That is what this bill is about is it not I ask Mr Power. It is about those grey areas the marginal areas the areas where we really cannot tell whether the person will be a risk. That does not include alleged homicide offenders. That does not include people who have committed serious crimes. 
Let me ask the Minister another question. We are supporting this legislation—or we are not opposing it—because it does not make any real difference. It actually reinstates the legislation that I passed in 2000. After 2000 the Court of Appeal decided that the word “risk” without any qualification was a little vague. Therefore the court decided that it would interpret what the law said. Mr Power as a lawyer knows that when we pass law the impact that that law has depends on the interpretation of the court. 
This is what the Court of Appeal said in 2002 in the Hines case: “… to amount to just cause for continued detention the risk that a defendant may interfere with a witness”—but it could also apply to committing another crime—“should be more than nebulous and insignificant and should be a real and significant risk.” So what the Government is doing in the House today is taking the law back to my law. The interpretation of my law is that of the Court of Appeal in  
R v Hines 
 and therefore we have exactly what we have now—that the interpretation of the court is that it cannot be a nebulous risk; it has to be a real one. 
I ask which member of this House would say that we should make a decision to put a person in custody based on a nebulous risk—one that we cannot determine. The Minister in charge of this bill who is a lawyer would stand proudly behind the view that people are innocent until proven guilty but we qualify that by saying that we must protect the safety of the community. That is what I did with the legislation in 2000. In fact Mr Power knows that I reversed what his colleague Mr Ryall put in the legislation. I said that we judge a person’s risk on what his or her track record has been. I stated in the legislation in 2000 that if a person has been a hard-core and repeat offender then the onus of proof should change. It should change I say to Chester Borrows from the police having to prove to the court that it is not safe to have that person in the community to that person having to prove to the court that he or she is safe to be in the community. That is what made the difference. That is the really important law on bail in this country. That is what saw 2000 more people being held in custody while they were awaiting trial. That was the hard legislation I say to Mr Garrett. That was the tough legislation not this flimflam that we have in front of the House today that does not change things one iota. 
I say to Mr Power that this bill is simply window dressing—the accusation made against Mr Power by the pre-eminent expert on sentencing and criminal law at Otago University Professor Geoff Hall. It is window dressing. Why are we sitting here under urgency passing legislation that is simply window dressing? If the Minister wants to do something then why does he not go to the Governor-General today—this afternoon—and say that he has the Bail Amendment Act 2007 which states that anybody serving a short-term sentence will have to serve that sentence in full and that anyone serving more than 2 years will have to as a minimum do two-thirds of the sentence? That will be tough. That will put a few more hundred maybe a few more thousand into prison I say to Mr Power. His Government can do that right now. If the Minister really thinks he wants to be tough then why has he and his Government not taken that action rather than coming into the House saying that the Bail Amendment Bill is his top priority? This bill will not make any difference. It does not change the law. It might put 10 marginal people or 10 beds into the remand system out of the 15000 who go through it. Why is the Minister wasting the time of the House? I will answer that question because the Minister has his head down—he knows the answer. This is all for show. He is the show pony of the House today. He is there to persuade Melissa Lee and his other colleagues that he is tough. He is tough on something that makes no difference. 
I turn my attention to ACT for a moment. I went through the election campaign and the ACT hoardings—all over Botany all over Auckland and all over the country—that were saying “zero tolerance for crime”. The ACT Party told us: “Three strikes and you’re out—25 years without parole.” and everybody said: “By God they are tough. Gee they will really sock it to the criminals.” Then the day after the election I was listening to Radio New Zealand National and heard David Garrett speaking. He was asked whether this policy would have a horrendous impact on the prisons. “Oh no” he said “because it is not retrospective. It does not come into effect for 20 years.” I wondered what I was hearing. This is electoral fraud like the country has never seen before. The ACT Party was saying how tough it would be and the day after the election admitting that its tough law would have no impact for 20 years. 
Mr Garrett has thought about this a bit further because I later read in one of the newspapers that it is not 20 years—that was a mistake—it is 15 years! There will be no impact for 15 years. Here we have a Government supported by a tough law and order party that has just committed the greatest electoral fraud this country has ever seen. The greatest electoral fraud this country has ever seen—the promise was “three strikes and you’re out” but the day after the election that all changed. There was not a word from Mr Garrett when we were on a panel together debating the issue during the campaign and not a word before the election but after the election he admitted that his law would have no impact for 15 years. 
I ask Melissa Lee whether her constituents would want to wait 15 years before this measure has any impact. Now that she has heard the argument does she understand that this failed bill is nothing more than flimflam nothing more than window dressing? 
I am serious about protecting the safety of New Zealanders. My track record can be seen—the Bail Act the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. They were opposed by Mr Power’s party. And when I raised the matter of the Bail Bill Tony Ryall said it was too tough. So those members opposed it and they opposed the Sentencing Bill and the Parole Bill. 
This Government was elected on a lie—that it would make a difference that it had a plan. It had no plan; it still has no plan. That is obvious from this legislation and the sentencing legislation—it is all a fraud.