Goff Phil: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1900. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 The Labour Party certainly supports this bill the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill and can I welcome the measured way in which members have actually contributed to this bill starting with the Minister of Justice and going through my own colleagues and other colleagues around the House.  
I had a lot to do with the initial legislation and it is important that the House knows why the legislation was initially put into effect. It followed a range of wrongful actions by the Department of Corrections that led under longstanding New Zealand and international law to those inmates who had been treated wrongfully getting compensation for the wrongful actions by the State against them. The difficulty with that is that the wrongful action should never have happened. The Department of Corrections was at fault and the best way of dealing with this problem of course is not to have wrongful action against prisoners and therefore not to be awarding compensation. But mistakes were made compensation was awarded and the nature of many of the people who received compensation was that they actually had done some pretty awful things to other people. I felt along with a lot of other New Zealanders and members in the House at the time that if compensation should be given for the wrong done to the inmate in prison then surely compensation should also be available for the wrong done by that inmate to that inmate’s victims. That was what motivated it. I mean it was not about baying for blood David Clendon with respect; it was trying to address this problem. If you are going to give compensation to the inmate surely the victims of that inmate are entitled to get their share of that compensation. That sounded right in justice terms to me.  
I knew that this would be particularly hard to do and for that reason among others we put a sunset clause into it: let us do this let us do what we think is right and let us see how it works. I think the most important comment today was made by my colleague Charles Chauvel who said that it has been going for 6 years now and only one case has been taken. That suggests to me that our concerns at the beginning of the process that “We think we are doing the right thing but is this going to be effective? Therefore we need to review it.”—and there should have been a review. I regret the fact that that review did not take place in a timely way but I understand now from the Minister that it will take place and therefore it is sensible to continue this legislation until we find out a better way of addressing the problem.  
But I said before that I was pleased about the measured way in which this debate was taking place. Let me quote from the debate in 2005: “The National Party in Opposition is opposed to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill. We believe that payments to prisoners should be blocked stopped and wiped out. We do not believe that New Zealand should be constrained by the figment of what the United Nations may or may not state in various conventions.” These were conventions that we had respected for 50 years under respective Governments. Who made that comment? Tony Ryall now our Minister of Health. You know I have just got to say that the current Minister in Government is taking a different attitude from the then National Opposition spokesperson when National was in Opposition.  
I have got to welcome the comments from New Zealand First from Denis O’Rourke because this is what your predecessor said Denis: “The result of the Labour Government’s legislation will be that scumbags murderers and vicious criminals on long-term sentences will harass and taunt prison officers purposely to such an extent that if there is even minor retaliation they will be entitled to compensation.” That was just so much rubbish and from time to time in this House people do speak rubbish for the wrong reason. What I welcome today is that we will have a proper debate about this. We will review it. There is a sense of justice that if somebody who has harmed others gets compensation then that person’s victims should be entitled to compensation. I do not think anybody opposes that principle. The real question that we face in this review is how to find a way in which we can allow that just outcome to occur. It seems to me that if this legislation has been used so seldom then such a review is necessary. So I welcome the fact that—I welcome the fact that I was told to speak for 2 minutes and now I have been told to speak for 10!  
The background to this I think is really important. We want a justice system that treats victims fairly. We want a corrections system where people who have committed even horrible crimes nevertheless are treated under law and according to law and where their position is not abused either. I was not prepared as Minister of Justice in 2005 and I am not prepared now to say that basic human rights conventions passed by the international community should be ignored by this country which is what the National Party in Opposition was saying then. I mean it was unthinkable. Not the United States not Australia not the United Kingdom and not any civilised country in the world actually ever said or put into its legislation that people whose rights are abused even prisoners should not be entitled to be treated under law and not be entitled to redress when their rights were abused. So I think and I hope in the House today 6 years later there is a level of maturity and principle that means that that will be accepted as a bottom line.  
But let us have a review of how the system works. Let us find out whether it was an aberration that the Department of Corrections was abusing those prisoners’ rights in terms of the requirements on it under law in the way it should treat inmates. You know I am not soft on inmates but I do believe that everybody is entitled to humane treatment in this country even those who have broken the law and have committed horrendous acts. I believe they should be locked up and kept locked up for a long long time if they are a danger to the community too but I do not believe in any system that says that people who are subject to the control of the State can be abused and have no rights of redress against that abuse.  
Let us try to do this on a bipartisan basis. Let us not make political capital out of it as my quotes from the past have suggested. Let us be mature about it. Let us find a system that works for the victims because the rights of the victim—the rights to reparation—I think are fundamental. You know I believe in a system of restorative justice. If your rights are abused by somebody who offends against you you should be able to get proper compensation from that person. If somebody steals my property yes they might need to be locked up if they keep doing it but actually what I would really like to see is them having to pay compensation for the wrong that they have done and I apply that right across society. More reparations a restorative system of justice would be a very positive development for this country to take.  
So Minister I hope that the review will be set up early so that there is full time for it to happen thoroughly that that review will consider the rights of victims and indeed that it will consider the obligations that New Zealand operates under in terms of international conventions. If we can do this without making this House a farce because people are playing silly populist games we have got a better chance of getting a good outcome—an outcome fair to victims and an outcome that upholds the rule of law even when it applies to those in custody.