Dalziel Lianne: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Policing (Storage of Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee 
[Sitting date: 16 August 2011. Volume:675;Page:20866. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to put on the record the conclusion of the regulatory impact statement. Nobody in this House will be surprised to find that I have studied it in depth. “The Policing (Youth Identifying Particulars) Amendment Bill will make no substantial change to the Policing Act 2008. The Policing Act 2008 will be amended (most probably section 34) in order to reinstate the scope for the retention and use of youth IP”—identifying particulars—“provided for in the Police Act 1958 and that was intended to apply to the 2008 Act. There is no evidence of a policy decision during the development of the Policing Act 2008 to reduce the circumstances under which Police could retain youth IP. Sections 32 to 34 of the 2008 Act aimed to allow Police to collect a range of personal information from suspected offenders for the primary purpose of identification prior to charge or summons. This information is to be destroyed unless a conviction is secured following criminal proceedings or the offender’s guilt is otherwise established. The legislation was drafted in this way to ensure that Police did not have the ability to build up personal information on people who were detained but who were later established not to have committed an offence. The amendment sought is consistent with the original intention of the Policing Act 2008 in that it seeks to retain the youth IP once the charge against the young person has been proved. As such there does not appear to be any specific reasons for not reinstating the provisions of the Police Act 1958.” 
When we look at what the bill does we see that it does what the regulatory impact statement asks it to do which is to address sections 34 and 34A of the principal Act. When we look at the principal Act we find that they sit within a part of the Act called “Powers operations and offences” and it specifically talks about identification of people detained by police. Unless somebody was an incredible technical expert there is no way that one would know from the face of the words in this statute that it did not allow the police to retain the information for people who had been convicted. Certainly on the face of it it says that the information cannot be retained for those who have been detained but are subsequently released. On the face of it there is no way that anyone would know that was the case. 
That is backed up by the  
Hansard 
 of the debate on the Policing Bill on 26 August 2008. In fact the debate on Part 3 traversed two dates—7 August then it was picked up again on 26 August. There were only two speakers on that part: the Hon Annette King who was obviously speaking as the Minister to introduce the part in the Committee stage and one Chester Borrows who took two calls on the part to show the National Opposition’s support for bringing the current policing regime “into the modern era” to quote him. It was a very brief but obviously meaningful contribution to the debate. 
What I think is extraordinary given the debate we have had in this House today from both the Green Party and the Maori Party is they said nothing about the part at all. They did not even contribute to the debate on it. In fact the amendments were agreed to and Part 3 as amended was agreed to without a party vote being called. So there was no focus on this part whatsoever. I would have thought that if it was such a point of principle it would have been dealt with then. On the face of it the bill as it then was looked like it was doing what we are making it do now. If it was such a big issue why was it not raised at the time? I myself would probably take advantage of an opportunity to have a go if I felt really strongly about something. If the Government was bringing back an employment relations amendment or something else that I felt particularly passionate about then I guess I would have a go even though I felt that it would be taking advantage of a technical error that people had not realised at the time was being made. We would have had a field day with it absolutely. 
But that is not the case here. This is a case where the whole of Parliament understood completely what it was doing and the technical writing of the law did not deliver on that understanding. That is all that we are dealing with here. It is just a technical error. It is a draftsperson error. We are a Parliament made up of human beings. We are not all legal professionals with the technical skill of the draftsperson. I certainly would not pretend to even begin to have that skill. I always took great care with the wording of legislation but even I did not always get it right as we can see if we look at the financial advisers legislation which our select committee virtually had to completely rewrite when it came back to the House under this Government. 
There are occasions when people get it wrong and if they do get it wrong then Parliament has to be able to front up and make those amendments. I do not think it is an opportunity to relitigate any of the issues that may be outstanding from the previous bill even though I have just admitted that I would be hypocritical and do that if I got the opportunity on an issue I felt passionate about. But I just do not think this legislation fits the bill. What this bill today does is correct a technical drafting error that prevented the intention of Parliament being expressed. That is all it does. I do not think it is appropriate for the opportunity to be taken to relitigate and certainly not to cast aspersions by saying the bill is being dealt with on a particular day in order to avoid the full scrutiny of this House. The full scrutiny of this House has been applied to this part. It was applied on 7 August 2008 and again on 26 August 2008. It had substantial consideration prior to the original bill even being introduced as evidenced by the fact that that legislation had overwhelming support. We do not often get legislation on which there is such unanimity across the House. I feel that on this occasion it is important that this bill proceeds under urgency through all of its stages so that we can correct a technical error and right a wrong.