Dalziel Lianne: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Dalziel Lianne: Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
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Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 My colleague Clayton Cosgrove has made some very good points about the nature of the title of this bill. Describing it as the Sentencing (Offender Levy) Amendment Bill is designed I guess for National to send the message that it has delivered on its 100 days of action at the beginning of its term in office and that this measure is part of that. But unfortunately—and this is what really bothers me about this bill—it will not really achieve any of the objectives that the Government has set for it and ultimately victims will feel let down. That is the last thing that we want to do at this time when we are all trying to address the needs of victims. 
Alongside the point that was made by the ACT Party member David Garrett I would have thought that one of the things that would be the most effective way to address the needs of victims would be to take steps to ensure there were fewer victims in our society by trying to reduce the levels of crime that are being committed. The point that I would make is to do with the fact that I attended the Drivers of Crime summit 6 months ago here in this building at Parliament and the member David Garrett attended it as well. The Minister in the chair the Hon Simon Power was also at the summit. The summit had some very fine objectives and after that particular meeting I went away and did a lot of study on the issues that had been raised. I met a number of people who participated in that meeting. I worked long and hard on a considered paper on the subject which I took to our Labour caucus. Our caucus went through a very careful and deliberative process around the drivers of crime and wanted to show willingness in terms of working collaboratively with the Government in order to make some real difference over time. 
Have we had a positive response from the Government? No and that was 6 months ago. I wrote to the Government 5 months ago because I think I took about a month to do the work I wanted to do and the response I got was essentially that the Government would be considering the matters that I had raised at some stage in the near future. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Just wait just wait. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well I hear the Minister say that I should just wait but it would be quite nice to hear something a little more than “just wait”. If we are going to talk genuinely about something collaborative then it would be quite nice to actually sit down and talk about something collaborative but I will not let that get in the way of the issue we are dealing with here. I am saying that if we could do something to address the potential for fewer future victims of crime to be created then we would be doing so much more as a Parliament than we are doing by simply passing a $50 offender levy regardless of the type of offence that the individual has been convicted of and also regardless of the sentence that has been handed down. 
I know that this legislation says that the levy is not part of the sentence but the bottom line—and I think David Garrett from the ACT Party agrees with me—is that the only people who have any chance of actually paying it are those who do not go to jail. They are the only people who will have an ongoing income at the point at which they are convicted of the offence. I am not disagreeing with the member’s solution for how to get the levy out of the individual at the point of sale as it were—you know like an EFTPOS system for offender levies. I am actually not disagreeing with him; I am just saying that when the person goes to jail the chances of getting the $50 offender levy out of anyone else associated with that individual will be kind of like waiting until hell freezes over. Not only will the tariff be the same regardless of the level of offence but also the payment will depend on the type of sentence that the individual gets. The more serious the offence and the more serious the sentence that is imposed on the offender the less likely it will be that they will be called upon to pay the offender levy. To me that just smacks of hypocrisy. I am worried that we have unsuccessful legislation here. 
My colleague Clayton Cosgrove came up with the “National Party Hype Bill” the “Letting Victims Down Bill” and the “Tugging on the Heart Strings of Victims Bill”. I think I would add the “Give with One Hand and Take with the Other Bill”.