Cosgrove Clayton: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Cosgrove Clayton: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10493] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 I say from the outset that given that the previous Labour Government drafted and passed the original legislation we will support the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. It is in essence a technical amendment to further extend and to bridge for some 2 years the provisions of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act to as the Minister of Justice said ensure that current claims will continue to be covered by the legislation. 
I suspect even the most hardened souls in this Parliament although I wait in anticipation would acknowledge that two wrongs do not make a right. I do not think that anybody in this House thinks that a prisoner should be assaulted; nor would anybody agree that a prison officer or anybody else should be assaulted or experience inappropriate behaviour towards them. That in no way of course negates the gravity of what a prisoner had done to the primary victim—the victim in the community who may well have been raped assaulted or worse. We are in danger as politicians in this Parliament of sometimes pontificating at people. I am one person in this Parliament who has to acknowledge that I have never been a victim of a crime. It is easy for me to be as it were less emotional and possibly more logical because I have not had a loved one who has been dealt to by an individual. I always acknowledge that and am mindful of that as we have these debates. I suspect that had I or a member of my family been dealt to in tragic circumstances such as we have read about in the papers over the last year or two I would probably be rather more animated and probably less tolerant in respect of my response to that crime. That being said as I have said before I do not think anybody would tolerate a wrong being done to a member of the community; likewise it serves no just purpose for a wrong to be done to somebody who is incarcerated. 
However in my view it also serves no just purpose that a person who has wronged a member of our community gains compensation for a wrong done against them. That is not appropriate and that compensation should be put up for the original victim of the crime to access. That was the intent if you will of this legislation. I quote from Mark Burton in 2004: “The reason that Parliament passed the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act was precisely to recognise that victims have the right to make a claim against any such compensation and to simplify the procedure for doing so.” The Minister is correct that there have been some difficulties with that legislation. Its intent I think was absolutely clear. Despite some political comments that I am sure will be made by people other than the Minister the legislation showed that the previous Government’s intent was to deny those who had done wrong the opportunity to be compensated—and also that that compensation was a sanction imposed on those who had offended against that person in incarceration—and equally to allow the victim in the community to take advantage and to gain some of the money or resources in respect of that compensation. 
The Minister was right when he said that the easy way to fix this was to stop breaches against prisoners’ rights. However I note in passing the Government’s measures to cut the budgets of our correctional institutions and organisations like the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society a 132-year-old institution which I call a protector of victims’ rights. Some would say that that is rehabilitation which does not work so they are against it. I say that that organisation is actually a protector of our community because it tries to change the behaviour of people who have committed wrongs inside our prisons in the hope that they do not offend again and create further victims future victims in our community. The Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society is actually a victim protection organisation a community protection organisation yet this Government has chosen to cut the resources to it. 
It is interesting also that the Minister talked of victims’ rights and I support him in his comments. Despite all the political rhetoric we heard before the election from some minor party now represented in this House I wager that not one member on any side would say that he or she was not prepared to stand by and support victims. I wager that not one member on any side of this Parliament would say that we should not have victim support but that it is a right for victims to be supported whether that is by having a shoulder to cry on or whether it is counselling support or monetary resource. 
I note that victims of sexual crime—some of the most heinous and disgraceful crimes against innocent members of our community whether children young women young men or elderly folk—had been eligible for accident compensation and counselling and for psychiatric assistance. They have been through physical torture and then go through mental torture for the rest of their lives. Yet as we debate a victims’ rights bill and a victims’ support bill—this is germane I tell the House—this Government has told the Accident Compensation Corporation to cut costs. Now victims of heinous sexual crime who are tortured mentally every day of their lives are being denied basic counselling services. I am told—and I am not trying to be grotesque about this—that a number of those victims have taken their own lives recently. That is sad; that is a tragedy. That is a responsibility that will be visited upon those who denied them that assistance. 
I say that this bill is appropriate. It is a technical bill and we will support it. But when we come to talk of victims’ rights I am waiting for the ACT Party to get up and give us its view on the denial of counselling services to victims of sexual abuse and sexual assault. It is interesting that during the debate on the accident compensation aspects of the bill where victims are now being denied those basic services as they go through life there was not a whimper not a word of protest from the ACT Party or Mr Garrett who purported to be the only person—I think he once said—who stood by victims. I wait with great interest as we debate this technical bill that has bipartisan support at least for Mr Garrett and his ilk from the ACT Party to tell us whether they support the Government decision to deny those who have been assaulted or worse through sexual crime the basic counselling services they need to get through their lives. That is what is happening every day in our community. I would wager that in every electorate office around this country whether those offices are Labour or National Green or ACT women and men have come into our offices after tragic circumstances who cannot in any way now access those services through ACC. 
There are those in our community and some commentators who say “Hang on that is not an accident. That’s not something ACC should cover.” Well I ask them who should cover it if they were the victims. I do not care who covers it. I say that the State should cover it and I say that the State has a responsibility to be the shoulder that that victim can cry on and the agency that provides the services counselling and support that the victim needs. The State has a responsibility. 
Labour will support this legislation—we wrote it and we passed it. I acknowledge as the Minister has said that it has had some difficulties. I look forward to some of the learned professionals who claim to be the ones who stand by victims who claim to have victims’ rights at the heart of their political policy and who say they have stood by victims in other places outside this House to get up and address that issue. I know of no other issue that is more important than that. We have men and women in our communities who have no support apart from their whanau or loved ones if they have them. They have no professional counselling because that has been denied to them. If we are really serious about victims’ rights I say that that along with this legislation is something that fundamentally we must and should address.