O'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8095. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): As I have said in previous speeches New Zealand First does support all of the various parts of this bill for the reasons that I then gave. We do want to see a comprehensive and practical way of dealing with people who are returned especially from Australia in the current circumstances and who perhaps need—in fact definitely need—supervision or monitoring. But there are some parts of the bill that if this had been a select committee process rather than what we have got here tonight—a much more restricted process—I would be seeking to improve or change.One of those would be clause 7(a) and I think Metiria Turei has already pointed out the fact that this is a very very wide provision indeed. It does refer to the “person who has been convicted in an overseas jurisdiction” at any time and for an offence that if it was in New Zealand would be an imprisonable offence. Some quite minor things would fit that description of “imprisonable offence” so we could be talking about very minor things indeed for the purposes of this clause. Then it goes on to refer to “being liable for deportation or removal as a result of that conviction”. How would we know what a person is liable for in Australia or in Iran or in Timbuctoo or wherever? We would not. So this clause I think is problematic. It may well lead to difficulties in the future and if this was a select committee process I would be asking for it to be tightened up and improved for those reasons. That is something perhaps that we will have to tend to when eventually this bill is reviewed.When I turn over the page I see in clause 10(2) that “A constable may detain an offender … only for a period that is no longer than is reasonably necessary …”. What is reasonably necessary for the purpose of getting somebody’s particulars? How long is that? Is that 80 years 8 minutes or what? I guess you could take a practical approach and simply say that what it really means is that the police can hold somebody for as long as they like until they get the information they want. In actual fact what this section should be doing is specifying a specific period of time for which the police can hold a person and no more because it is too open as it is there.Then when I look a bit further in clause 11(a) and (b) I see again that we have this “reasonable” test and the police are to do what is “reasonable”. I do not think that they are well-equipped to do that. What does it really mean when it says that a police officer can “take identifying particulars … but—(a) must do so in a manner that is reasonable in the circumstances”? What is reasonable? Is holding a person’s head underwater for 3 minutes reasonable until they give up the information? I do not know; neither do the police I do not think either. Could we not be a little bit more specific and a little bit more professional in the way that these things are drafted? I am not so concerned about the use of the term “reasonable force” because that is actually defined in other cases and probably in other legislation. The point I am making is that if this was a select committee process we would be getting stuck into some of these terms and some of those provisions because they are really I think pretty sloppy.These faults are not enough for New Zealand First to vote against the bill but I would certainly prefer to see some of those things attended to. Moving over to clause 26 concerning returning prisoners complying with special conditions imposed by the court I think that that is all fine except for one point which is subclause (3)(c) where: “A court may not impose a special condition unless it is designed to—(c) provide for the reasonable concerns of victims of the returning prisoner.” What on earth does that mean? What is a reasonable concern of a victim? I cannot understand how a court will deal with that and it is another part of the bill that really should be improved.Again just over the page in clause 27 where I see that in terms of interim special conditions—and those are the ones that I would have thought that you would need to be particularly careful of because they can be imposed immediately—it says in subclause (3) that this can happen even if the court does not have the complete information available to it or it is still being sought. I do not understand why that is there because one would have thought that a court must be trusted to make a decision only when it has got enough information to make that decision on. It should not be empowered to make decisions where it has not got information—that just does not make sense. That needs attention and that is going to cause problems.Again in clause 27(5): “The application may be made without notice and a court must not require that notice be given.” There is a bit of a problem with that. It should perhaps refer to the possibility that that notice may not be possible in which case that would be reasonable but not just a bland declaration that this can be done without notice. There should be some limiting words on that. In the following subclause (6) I am glad to see that at least the clause expires after 30 working days because that is actually a hell of a long time. It is a month and probably it is too long. I would have liked to discuss that in a select committee and will not get the opportunity to do so.I could go on and on really in scrutinising the bill in this way. The point I am making is that it is a real shame that it is not going to a select committee because we would all have had the opportunity to make some really constructive improvements to this bill to avoid some of the problems that I think we are going to get and that we will now have to wait 2 years for a review for. I would like to express to the Minister my disappointment that we have not had a select committee process because I think that that little bit more extra time would really have resulted in better legislation. I will leave it at that.