McKelvie Ian: Bail Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcKelvie Ian: Bail Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12891. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]IANMcKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): It is a pleasure to speak in support of this bill the Bail Amendment Bill in its third reading. I was a little concerned I suppose or I thought that it was unfortunate during the Committee stage yesterday when I heard a speaker refer to this piece of legislation as populist. I do not really think that “populist” is a term that I would apply to it. I think it is a very structured piece of legislation that moves the bail system with the times and I think it is really important that we do that. It is going to make quite a lot of difference to the way the system works. This bill is one of a suite of legislation introduced by National in a comprehensive programme of law and order reform that is unquestionably working and I will touch on a little bit of that shortly. It is achieving much better results that one could have hoped for.This bill improves the integrity of the bail process. It gives the police the ability to make positive decisions in respect of people who fail to answer to police bail it tightens significantly the bail arrangements for defendants under 20 years of age and it reverses the onus on those people to prove that they are capable and worthy of release on bail.Again we heard from the Greens. Unfortunately it was from a member of the Greens who was never at any stage present during the submission process. I think that if one had been present during the submission process one would take a very different view of this. When someone has proved that they cannot be trusted surely the onus must go back on to them to prove that they can be trusted and I think that is the simplest way of looking at the reverse burden of proof. It is really putting people who have proved in the past that they cannot be trusted in the position of having to prove they can be trusted before they can in this case receive bail. I do not think that is unreasonable or unjustifiable and I certainly do not think it breaches people’s rights. I think that once you have breached that trust the onus is on you to sort yourself out.Phil Goff during the debate on this bill has mentioned a number of times the 50 more beds required as a result of this bill. That figure takes no account of the great results that this Government’s policies are achieving in reducing both reoffending and youth crime. We are seeing youth crime rates significantly down. Of course youth crime is the area that applies particularly to this bill and particularly where we might have seen the significant increase in bed use because that is the part of the bill that has the most impact—the area of the younger people.At the conclusion of the select committee process we had the opportunity to visit the courts to get a better understanding of how the bail system works in practice. I was both surprised and impressed at the efficiency and have a much better understanding of the pressures on both police and judges. I also understand the need for speed in the bail system. Information processes are essential to an effective efficient bail system through our courts. Although there are always going to be issues with bail and the way it is granted—there is certainly always going to be pressure on the courts because of the need for speed—I think this bill has followed a really good process. It achieves a good position given the situation that we are in and given the need to protect people’s rights.I want to congratulate the chair on what at times was a very difficult process. The chair Jacqui Dean and deputy chair Mark Mitchell have both appropriately acknowledged theMarceau family and other families who contributed to the submission process on this bill. It was a pretty testing time for many of them. So I have great pleasure in supporting this bill as it passes through the House.