Mackey Moana: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Mackey Moana: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:658;Page:7470] 
MOANA MACKEY (Labour) 
: 
 I am happy to stand in the Committee stage to speak on Part 2 of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill and to perhaps seek some reassurance from the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy regarding this part. As he said in his brief words to the Committee of the whole House this part of the bill dramatically extends the workload of the Institute of Environmental Science and Research. From the Opposition’s perspective I think we would like some reassurance from the Minister that that will come with adequate funding. The bill gives the State far greater power in this respect than it has had before and there is a real danger of a miscarriage of justice if these new powers are not backed up by adequate funding for the police and the Institute of Environmental Science and Research which will be doing the data analysis. 
I hope that the Minister for Research Science and Technology who I think is with us although he does look tired might take a call on adequate funding for the institute. We have to look beyond simply how much a DNA sample costs and multiplying it by a factor of how many more one expects to be doing. The kind of reassurance that we would like to see is that there will be adequate money for the extra reagents for the extra equipment for the extra work area the institute may need to carry out all these extra analyses and for the extra staff. But as I said in the second reading of this bill one of the most important things is that we need to make sure that the administration of this bill is adequately funded. I know that the Government does not like bureaucrats. I know it does not like people who are not front-line staff but the fact is that the chain of custody is just about the most important thing that one can have in a laboratory. If the institute is not adequately funded we are in real danger of seeing a miscarriage of justice. 
I would like to seek reassurance from the Minister in the chair that that will be adequately funded. I assume that he must have had those figures done. I cannot believe that the Government would pass legislation where it has not had advice from officials about what the fiscal impact will be and what the needs of the institute will be in terms of this extra funding. This is particularly so around the administration of samples—where the sample is collected by the police where it is labelled appropriately where it is sent to the Institute of Environmental Science and Research where it is logged in where from then on through the process the correct sample is logged next to the correct results. I do not need to tell the Committee that if that is not done properly—if the institute is put in a position where it is understaffed and under-resourced and where it is having to do all this without adequate funding—then those extra powers suddenly become very dangerous. I am sure the Government has done this work. I would really appreciate the Minister taking a call to let us know what those fiscal costs to the Crown are and giving us the reassurance that that money will be there. 
My colleague Charles Chauvel talked earlier about a review period in the law. That review would have been incredibly important when one considers these extra powers. We need to make sure that the system is working right. If the Institute of Environmental Science and Research or any other Crown agency is not on track to be able to do this work properly then it should not be put in the position of having to do the work. Frankly the cost to the citizens of New Zealand of having an agency in the position of doing the work when it is not ready is too great to even contemplate. So I hope the Minister will take a call. 
This is not an issue that I am trying to be trite about; this is an issue that I am genuinely concerned about having worked for the Institute of Environmental Science and Research and knowing the kinds of pressures that Crown research institutes are under. To be fair I say to the Minister that they now have to provide a 9 percent dividend to the Government and that money will have to come from somewhere. I want to know that these extra powers that we are giving will be properly funded so that we can avoid any kind of suggestion that there may be a miscarriage of justice. 
I note that Labour put up amendments to Part 1 where we wanted people to be able to question the process as well as the actual charge. That is important when one is doing this. I note that when we look at comments from forensics professors from the United Kingdom we see that they said there is a real risk when one moves down this path of opening up the possibility of miscarriages of justice. That risk is from having so many more samples in a DNA databank. It is especially so if institutes are not funded properly and if protections are not put in place for someone to challenge that process and the way that those Crown entities deal with those samples not just the charges that are against them. I hope that the Minister will take a call on this as it is a very very serious issue. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I call Chester Borrows. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Most popular chairperson in Parliament!