Tisch Lindsay: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Tisch Lindsay: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:12590] 
LINDSAY TISCH (National—Piako) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity finally to put the case for National that this bill is a complete and an utter nonsense. I say that because during other speeches in the Committee stage it was stated that this bill allows somebody to lie about his or her past. As the previous speaker said honesty is the best policy. The Law Society’s submission stated this: “The bill does not purport to expunge a conviction but rather to provide a framework whereby the existence of a conviction is suppressed. The bill doesn’t purport to remove the fact of a conviction from someone’s record but rather enables the convicted individual not to disclose a conviction and/or precludes particular individuals or entities from requiring or obtaining such disclosure.” To me “clean slate” means exactly that: the record is wiped clean. If the bill were to state that a conviction is wiped clean and is struck from the record as if nothing had ever happened then that would be a different story. But this bill does not do that. It does not expunge the conviction; the conviction is still there. 
The bill allows somebody with a conviction to say lawfully that he or she does not have a conviction and prospective employers will not be able to ask questions in order to ascertain the background of a person they may take on. In fact the bill legalises perjury. That is one thing that the Opposition and National in particular has great difficulty with. We believe that for people to take an honest approach to business is far better than for them to be able to say they do not have a conviction. Let us be open and let us lay the cards on the table. The bill legalises perjury and that is something we find to be offensive. Somebody will be able to hide his or her conviction for a minor dishonesty offence that may have occurred—but remembering that even major offences may have occurred that did not require a custodial sentence. There could be a conviction for assault. It could be that someone had his or her fingers in the till and I gave an example earlier on of an employee I had who wrote out a cheque and tried to embezzle money from me. It could be that a person has committed an assault or a minor theft or whatever the offence is. But at the end of the day a prospective employer should be able to ask about that and to lay on the table exactly what the requirements are. 
Does the employer not have any rights in this business? The Minister may like to answer that question. What about the rights of the employer? This bill states that the employer has absolutely no rights and that all the rights belong to the employee as we see in so many other pieces of legislation. If it is to be the case that an employee can hide his or her past convictions what would occur if someone was to say he or she had a qualification that he or she did not have? If that qualification got the person the job because it made the person’s CV look better than it was if that position were to be found out the person could well get the sack. Contrary to that if a person has a conviction then he or she is able to hide it and as we have said we find that that is completely unacceptable. When we look at the prospects of someone who wants to travel especially to countries like the United States we see there is absolutely no way such countries will let people in who have committed offences. That is an issue for anybody who wishes to travel overseas.