Collins Judith: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12787] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I rise to speak against this bill. I was heartened to hear the chief Government whip confess to the House that as a 14-year-old girl she stole a lipstick. I did not know that Labour women were interested in a bit of lipstick. I was very heartened by that and I say to her: “Good on you.” I see that a lot of the Labour ranks are laughing too. Good on her for confessing that. 
Such a confession is one of the things that we in the House are about. We are very pro people telling the truth confessing and being absolved of their sins—to take a slightly United Future view of the world. In the minority report that the National members of the Justice and Electoral Committee put together we said: “There is a case for legislation to contain provision for true ‘clean slate’ applications to be made to the Court in individual cases and not on the blanket basis of concealment of convictions which is the essence of the present bill.” National says that because as the Hon Taito Phillip Field just mentioned there are some individual cases of such distress that we see a need for that. But National does not think that the open slather nature of the bill addresses that situation. 
The bill does not create a clean slate—again that is a deceptive title. This is actually a “concealment of records” bill and that is what it should be called. Anybody with an ounce of decency and compassion who looked at some of the silly instances such as the one Jill Pettis confessed to us this afternoon would say that clearly that was not a situation that should necessarily rule her out of employment in later life—probably her more recent employment with the Labour Party would do that! So National is saying there is a need for compassion but there is no need for stupidity and lying which is what this bill is all about. Clause 11 provides that it is just fine—it is OK—to lie and say that one has no convictions or criminal record. It states quite clearly: “An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” That is a big fat lie and that is what this bill is all about. It is all about gilding the lily and saying something that is not really true. 
We have heard about people who commit indiscretions—in fact crimes—at various stages of their life and in particular in their youth. Those are the people to whom this bill has been touted as applying. It is to do with the youthful stupidity that occasionally affects people overtaken by their hormones. The fact is this bill says nothing about youthful crimes; it applies to any crime other than sexual crimes or those that cause custodial sentences to be imposed. It can apply to cases of dishonesty by people in their 40s—not just to a 15-year-old stealing a lipstick from a chemist shop. It can apply to someone stealing money out of someone else’s trust account or to somebody else simply stealing a car—anything for which a custodial sentence would not be applied. 
I think that under this legislation the police in their prosecutorial role would be far stronger in asking for custodial sentences. The police will know that without a custodial sentence in 7 years’ time as long as people do not get caught again they will have a clean slate. 
I heard comments from the Government benches regarding people who have not committed an offence for 7 years. That is just twaddle. It is about people not being caught in 7 years and not being caught is significantly different from not having committed an offence. There are many people who have committed offences—certainly on the road—but never been caught and convicted for them. The point is that someone does not only need to be caught; he or she has to be convicted. That is why this is so ridiculous. We lawyers all know that many people who are found not guilty would with the benefit of hindsight and with the jury knowing what their previous convictions were have been found guilty. The reality is that this is a “soft on crime” bill from the Government. 
The Government says it is appealing to the elderly and the people who feel they cannot travel. This bill will not help people who are trying to get visas for other countries because it does not extend to that yet the name of the bill will make them feel that it does. It will make them feel that they can honestly fill out a statutory declaration saying that they have no criminal convictions but when that other country does some checking or finds out the truth those people will in fact be guilty of an offence in that country. Yet another lie will have been perpetrated. Those people will say that that is not fair as the Government had told them they could do so. 
One of the concerns I have is for employers. It is very concerning that this bill has a penalty of up to $10000 for disclosing someone’s criminal record 7 years after the event. As a former employer if I am phoned up about a former employee and asked to give a verbal reference and if that person had stolen money had acted otherwise dishonestly or had been convicted of some criminal offence that I was aware of I should be able to say that I would not employ that person unless I was sure that he or she had overcome this particular issue. I think that any employer needs to be able to know whether there are previous convictions. 
The Government went through its last term making employment law even harder for employers. It is very difficult to end the employment of an employee—even for just cause. The penalties on employers are extremely high. When we consider that most employers in this country employ five people or fewer we see that there is a huge onus on them to get these things right. What will happen is they will start using profiling based on the age of the person and on his or her race and gender. We will find that prejudice is used against the most vulnerable people in this country because so many employers will say that they cannot rely on any declaration on anything given in writing to say that someone has no criminal record or on anything that the prospective employee says about this matter. Instead employers will take one look at that person—a point made very well by the ACT speaker—and decide that that person could be dishonest. That will be very very unfair for the most vulnerable people in our society—the people whom we really do want to get off the 330000-strong list of beneficiaries and back into the workforce. 
How will Australia see this? There are already many Australians who view New Zealanders as a pack of criminals who go to their country to commit crimes and live off the welfare system. 
Darren Hughes 
: Australia has a regime. Do your research. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: That silly little member says that Australia already has such a regime. It has for Australians but not for New Zealanders. What Australia in fact does is often have a prejudiced view of New Zealanders who go to live in various parts of Australia and do a bit of OE. Some never come back. I think Australians will view this very very dimly because they think there is a different standard for their home-grown people than for immigrants—just like people here think there should be a different standard for home-grown people as opposed to immigrants. I believe that this is a situation that Australia could well use to look at its open access for New Zealanders. I would be very interested to see whether in the next few years such a situation does occur—wrongly for everyone else but there is a lot of pressure in Australia and on Australian politicians to stop the free access for New Zealanders. I think this bill would be a prime example of an instance of legislation that could be used to do that. 
In conclusion this is a bill that has very nice intentions. It is however a very stupid bill brought about by a Government desperate for any votes at all.