SpeechTONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party to support the Parole Amendment Bill. Being the Corrections spokesperson I have had the pleasure of visiting a rehabilitation programme such as mentioned in this bill where the parolees are on release into the care of this programme and they are getting a rehabilitation programme while residing at this residence. This bill came in because of a High Court judgment that it wasn't clear enough whether or not these parolees under daytime supervision could be in a rehabilitation programme as well as stay in the same location overnight. However once you have been to one of these programmes you see how well they do try to work with these people to try to rehabilitate them. As we know we are only talking about 26 in this; however the programme that I visited dealt with other people as well whom they do try to integrate very well back into society.However these 26 are not so easy to rehabilitate and reintegrate back into society. As has been stated before they are high-risk offenders with sexual and violent tendencies. It's a sad reality that we do have these types of people still in our communities that we have to take care of and make sure have whatever little rehabilitation we can give them and monitoring to make sure that they and the public are being looked after. Because we still realise that yes they are humans; yes there is possibly something wrong with them; and we have to make sure that we do not override the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. However the safety of the New Zealand public must come first. So in general we are supportive of this bill because we feel that New Zealand safety has to come first. I understand that out there we still need a lot more work done in the rehabilitation field with many of our prisoners in New Zealand in general. I would also like to thank our Corrections staff who put themselves on the line daily to keep New Zealand safe—and also all the people that are involved with rehabilitation programmes which I've also met in the course of being ACT's Corrections spokesperson and visiting several of our prisons. The work and the mahi that they do is huge especially to try to help rehabilitate people where they can.But with this bill as we state it was a court case that was brought to the High Court and it was that section 107K(3)(bb)(ii) of the Parole Act that wasn't clear enough. It showed that there was a loophole here—that if a good lawyer had seen this these 26 people may not be residing at the residence where they are also getting a rehabilitation programme. Now again National can argue How long did it take for them to find out that this was going on?" But like anything that's not the case. This is a case of: we know there's a problem we know it has to be fixed so let's get it fixed today. This is what to me urgency or extended sittings are all about: when we find something that isn't right and it has to be corrected as soon as possible. This is where I agree that we needed to get this through all stages.Also the thing is like the Hon Judith Collins was saying about releasing people into your area well we all don't want anybody in our area. However we do know that these people have the right to be able to live—however still with the proviso of people's safety. The public's safety has to come first. I know in Christchurch there was a facility that they wanted to build for sex offenders. The community came together and said "Please not in my area." However when you looked at that area you could understand why they said no because there were many schools very close to where this facility was. So you know there is a balance that has to be held: one for public safety and one for these offenders and getting their lives back on track.Also the other factor is for these offenders if they are fortunate to have caring family that still want to be part of their lives being able to be released somewhere where they may be able to have a positive family around them as well—that is a very large thing for the rehabilitation of any prisoner: to have some form of family there. But also we know when you have these high-risk sexual and violent offenders that's not always the case because a lot of the family members do want to cut ties with them because of their offending. That's very sad that we still have that. But the thing is when we have a very large country there are lots of spaces that we need to put people in but the thing is that one we've still got to make sure that the public is aware and that they feel comfortable that these people aren't going to be walking loose within their community and two we also have the bill of rights to make sure that these Corrections parolee people are also being well treated and looked after. From what I've seen from some several of these residential programmes they are indeed and also the people that work there do a lot of work to make sure that our community is safe. So with that Mr Speaker I would like to commend this bill to the House."