Clendon David: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8142. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): Some years ago Sir Geoffrey Palmer made the comment that this legislature this Parliament contains the fastest lawmakers in the West and unfortunately the experience of the last 24 hours or so demonstrates that I think we can still lay claim to that rather dubious distinction. In less than 21 hours by my count since this bill landed on the Table we have had about 8 to 8½ hours of debate on a very substantive matter. This is not a trivial piece of legislation. We agree that on occasion there is need for haste. There are occasions when urgency is necessary and important.We do not accept that this is a case of such compelling urgency that in a 10 or 11 - month process—by the Minister’s admission at least 10 or 11 months of work have gone into this. Could we not squeeze out 1 week when we could invite members of the public the community voluntary sector the legal fraternity and the judiciary to come and have an opinion about this bill? Even in the course of yesterday evening the Opposition parties were able to add value and to make this a better bill on the basis of very little information with very little time for analysis and that indicates how much better this bill could have been had even a very truncated select committee process been allowed.I particularly feel for the community voluntary sector. The success or failure of rehabilitating and reintegrating the people who do return to New Zealand once they have been registered supervised monitored etc.—a lot of the hard work of bringing those people back into our communities will be done by people in the community voluntary sector some of whom are partially Government funded but who to a large extent rely on voluntary time. They are people who give up their time their energy and their experience to try to bring people back into the fold. I think we should acknowledge that and I think it is somewhat disrespectful of this Parliament not to have included that community sector in the preparation of this policy which it will have a considerable part in implementing.I must take a moment to acknowledge PARS the Auckland-based group which was formerly the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society and now I think it has rebranded as People at Risk Solutions. At least since the beginning of this year it has been sending people to the airport to meet offenders who have been deported—to meet deportees—and to endeavour to assist them. Two middle-aged women women in the prime of life—or else there was one senior kaumātua who would go alone—would go out to the airport not really knowing what they were dealing with; knowing that they were meeting deportees who may have been confused or angry who may have had major alcohol and substance abuse problems. Out of that their courage is extraordinary—courage to actually put themselves personally at risk in order to go to the airport meet these people and bring them back and endeavour to get them at least a roof for the night and to link them in to whatever social services were available. They have been ignored and I think that is very very unfortunate and disrespectful of those people.I will not dwell on the fact that the Minister of Justice sort of indicated she has been carrying the burden alone for this year. Actually we put our hands up to be part of that. My colleague Metiria Turei made comment on that; I will not dwell on it.The Greens are not opposing this bill. We are absolutely opposing the process; we are not opposing the bill because we acknowledge there is a problem.Hon Craig Foss: Are you voting for it or against it?DAVID CLENDON: No listen carefully. We are not opposing this bill nor are we supporting it; we are abstaining for the simple reason—Hon Craig Foss: You’re paid to be in here to vote.DAVID CLENDON: We are voting. We are not opposing this bill because we understand there is a problem. We agree with the principle of aligning the treatment of returning offenders with what happens to people domestically. We understand the information-sharing issues. We think parole is a good thing. There was research put out earlier this year by Anne Opie indicating that longer periods on parole are an indicator of less reoffending and that is a good thing. So we have no problem with the principles of this bill.We could have supported it had it been a better bill and had we had a better process and it is unfortunate we have not seen that. We have heard reassurances that the support mechanisms will be put in place to ensure these people who are returned have some sort of a fighting chance of keeping out of trouble keeping out of the justice system—of not reoffending. We will be looking to see that. We will be looking hard to ensure that the organisations both Government and non-governmental organisations that actually do that work are being properly resourced and properly funded because without that this legislation will have been a waste of time. It is not sufficient to supervise and monitor. We need support mechanisms. We will be looking to see they are in place. Thank you.