Prosser Richard: Bail Amendment Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeProsser Richard: Bail Amendment Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:12890. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]RICHARD PROSSER (NZ First): I am pleased to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to the final reading of the Bail Amendment Bill. New Zealand First has supported this bill from the outset and we continue to do so. I do not intend to impose too greatly upon the time of the House simply to go over old ground yet again. As I have stated several times throughout these debates New Zealand First’s only quibble with the bill is that in some respects we do not believe that it goes far enough.This we have attempted to address through the introduction of Supplementary Order Papers 334 and 335 and by restating several times that we hope that the Government will not regard the culmination of this process of lawmaking as being the end of the problem. Rather we hope and trust that the Government will come back to this issue once again as soon as it is practical to do so to apply the lessons that have been learnt through the process of this bill to incorporate the information that submitters have brought to the knowledge of the Law and Order Committee and to address the concerns of all those very fine people who signed and were involved in the petition initiated by the tragic and avoidable case of ChristieMarceau.The passage of this law has been a moving process for the select committee members. Under the very able chairpersonship of Jacqui Dean we listened to a number of very impassioned submitters some of whom had experiences to recount that I am sure no member here would want to repeat. The commission of crimes against the person crimes of violence crimes against property sexual crimes and others are particularly obnoxious and the stories that were told bore that out. There is raw emotion connected to this subject and people have an expectation and I believe a right to expect that the Government will pay it adequate regard and will craft laws that will protect innocent people from the actions and the degradations of criminals.The commission of crimes by offenders who are on bail is particularly difficult for ordinary people to stomach and I believe it behoves this House the Government and all of us here to do our very utmost to ensure that the risk to the public is minimised. No system can be absolutely perfect of course. This we know and to a large degree we regret that fact. But laws can always be made better when there is will on the part of parliamentarians and when all parties and members from across the House resolve to work together for the common good put aside petty differences and work in the best interests of public safety.When this House next addresses the issue of bail—and I hope it will be sooner rather than later—I look forward to working constructively with the Government and with members of other parties to ensure that as much as is humanly possible is done to ensure that those offenders who pose a danger to other people are removed from theopportunity to express that danger. It is a balancing act; we accept this. Against the need to ensure public safety we must measure the right of those who stand accused to the presumption of innocence. Somewhere in between those two competing priorities a value judgment—an informed judgment—must be made by those who are learned in the ways of criminals the criminal mind and the likelihood of criminal behaviour. It falls to this House to provide those learned judges with the very best of tools—with the direction and the guidance and the ability to set bail or refuse it based on an accurate and informed assessment of the likelihood of further offending.We hope and trust that this bill will be a stepping stone on the way to that situation being resolved. New Zealand First supports this bill.