Bakshi Kanwaljit SinghKANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the first reading of the Enhancing Identity Verification and Border Processes Legislation Bill. Before I speak regarding the bill I would like to greet you in Mandarin and say ni hao because this is Chinese Language Week. I would also like to greet you in Hindi because this week is also being celebrated as Hindi Language Week—so namaste for that. I would like to congratulate Satya Dutt the President and Praveena Prasad the Secretary of the Hindi Language and Culture Trust of New Zealand who have been very passionately working on this and celebrating Hindi Language Week for many years.I would like to congratulate the Minister of Justice on her leadership in bringing this bill to the House. I hope that it will have widespread support from all the parties.As the previous speaker Kelvin Davis mentioned Labour is supporting this bill because technology is changing and we need to upgrade our technology as well as our by-laws so that we can take advantage of it. An example given by Kelvin Davis was that previously names were kept in a register to identify whether someone was required under some offending but now the technology has changed and people can be identified with biometrics and fingerprints.Ever since this Government came into power it has continuously focused on the areas that the public has got concerns with. We have put in place legislation based on need or as soon as we have realised that amendments to the current process are needed to strengthen our system. This bill in the name of the Hon Amy Adams is another example of needs-based legislation. The purpose of this legislation is to strengthen the power of our front-line staff so that they can identify offenders and provide this information to agencies so that they can avoid any risk to the general public. This legislation like many other pieces we have introduced earlier is part of our promise to deliver better public services.The need for this bill arose from this Government's inquiry into the matter concerning the escape of Phillip John Smith from prison. Mr Smith was in jail serving a life sentence for murder child sex offending extortion and kidnapping. Due to the lack of information sharing between agencies at that time Mr Smith managed to plan his escape from prison. Without doubt this shows that we need to improve our existing legislation. We need to improve on our failings around adequate information-sharing between agencies along with operational practices so that dangerous offenders like Mr Smith do not succeed in escaping from prison.The main focus of this bill is to authorise specific agencies to access and use identity information including biometrics information to verify the identity of individuals within the justice system as well as at the border. It is very important to understand that these agencies need to share this information so that a good support system can be provided. Clarifying the ability of the Customs Service to collect use and disclose biometric information about persons arriving or departing from New Zealand is another important factor. Authorising the sharing of birth death marriage civil union and name-changing information with a specified agency for law enforcement purposes is again important so that we can upgrade the information on a particular person. The last point that I would like to emphasise is that this means that this bill will help mental health patients held in the criminal justice system under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act who may not leave their hospitals or New Zealand without permission because it can be dangerous to the safety of the public.With these words I commend this bill to the House.