Clendon David: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16399. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to take I think my first call on this Victims of Crime Reform Bill. This bill has lingered a while. The dates of the previous speaker Carol Beaumont were quite correct according to my records as well. I did not sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee but it is a bill the Greens will be supporting because it does some good but only some. I would not go so far as to say it also does some harm but there are provisions in this legislation that will be at least problematic particularly around victim impact statements and I will say some more about that later.Essentially the bill is a very incremental approach. It is a bitser approach. It adds a little here; it takes away a little there. It is not the comprehensive look at victims’ rights and improving our justice system generally that is really what is wanted and I am afraid I cannot share Mr Simpson’s glowing opinion of our justice system. In international terms yes it is very robust and it has some excellent qualities but it is far from ideal. There is a great deal more we could be doing and indeed should be doing.I was pleased to hear Mr Little say that the Labour Party is committed to a comprehensive review of all of the issues around victims and indeed the dispensation of justice. I will hold Mr Little to that when we have a new Government next year. I recall in 2005 the passing of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act which the Greens supported with a sunset clause on the reassurance that it would lead to a comprehensive overview of victims’ rights. Sadly that did not occur and still has not occurred. So we look forward to the time when we will be able to initiate that to have a clean-sheet look at how we can do better in terms of dealing with offenders and ensuring that victims are given the best possible treatment.This legislation talks a lot about victims’ impact statements—giving people the right to say their piece in court to express their views and their feelings and to address the offender directly and speak to them in terms of what the offending has meant to that person who is the victim of that offending. On the face of it that is a good thing and for many people it will be cathartic. But it can also be quite a frustrating and also quite a limiting experience. If a person is there delivering their statement looking at an offender who might be giggling pulling faces or clearly not in the least bit moved or concerned about the statement that will not be helpful for the well-being of the victim. So the impact statements although at one level at a superficial level are a good thing they are somewhat more complex perhaps than this bill would have us believe or indeed than is reflected in the text in the provisions of the bill.I note that there was some concern from the judges or from some elements of the judiciary about the original drafting of the bill which almost seemed to indicate that the judge should listen carefully and respond to the victims’ comments about sentencing. Of course it is up to the judges to the judiciary to make sentencing decisions and the judges were very nervous about the idea that somehow the victim might believe that they have an opportunity to influence the judge’s sentencing.On that note I think some of the commentary we got at the time that was given to the committee by Kim Workman from the Rethinking Crime and Punishment organisation was quite helpful and quite insightful as ever. In that contribution there is a reference to an assumption—what Mr Workman calls a flawed assumption—that there is an imbalance between offenders’ rights and victims’ rights and that in order to restore the balance between victims’ and offenders’ rights it is necessary to reduce offenders’ rights. That is a very muddled set of thinking but that thinking is very prevalent and we see it constantly and dare I say it we saw it today at the committee hearing commentary from some of the submitters. The correct move of course is to advance the rights of victims and do all we can for them. It is not a trade-off. We do not have to be so-called tougher on crime or tougher on offenders in order to ensure that victims get a good outcome and a fairer outcome.There is a lot of reference in this bill to the rights of victims to do such things as be informed about sentencing and about the potential release on parole of an offender. If an offender absconds or indeed dies in prison or is about to be released the victim has a right to know that according to this legislation. That is a good thing. There is also reference to a code for victims so that we can be assured that victims are told their rights and legal processes. But somehow a lot of that feels like events have overtaken the legislation. Most of that is common practice now and one wonders almost at the necessity for this legislation. Perhaps it simply codifies best practice or current practice. I am not really sure on that. But it does seem to have been overtaken by events a little bit.I guess one of my concerns about this legislation is that to some extent it almost seeks to define the victim as a victim rather than as a person who has been offended against. There is a difference in that. We do not want people to be trapped into this self-awareness or this perception that they are a victim and will remain so for ever and ever. Yes people are victimised by crime but it is important that that does not become the defining characteristic of their self-identity. I think some of the—well-intentioned perhaps—provisions in this bill actually take us down that road. I am fortunate; I have never been the victim of a serious crime. Probably the nastiest thing that has happened to me is that I had a motorcycle stolen that I had invested quite a lot of time and money into. I was seriously concerned about it for an afternoon. Capital punishment for motorcycle thieves just briefly seemed not a bad idea. But I got over that; I was not defined by that crime against me. In all seriousness even for people who do suffer and who are victims of very serious offences they ought not to have that as their defining characteristic of them as people.I referred to Mr Kim Workman’s contribution and I am a great fan of Rethinking Crime and Punishment. It talks about restorative justice and this is at the heart of the Greens’ approach to justice and justice processes: to seek to restore both the offender and the victim because working with both together in the context of a community is likely to generate much better outcomes and longer-term outcomes and restorative justice processes are proven everywhere in the world to reduce recidivism often by as much as 20 percent. I am sure we all agree that that would be a positive move here.I think we need to move away as much as we can from the adversarial system. The Minister of Justice when introducing the bill did make the obvious comment and affirm that we have an adversarial system and I think that is something in the longer term that we need to think through. Is that the best way? But in terms of resolving these issues to the extent that they are adversarial there is always a winner and a loser and I think we need to move away from that. The heart of restorative justice is about the offender taking responsibility for their offending feeling a degree of shame and contrition and committing to doing better in the future and to not reoffend. It isimportant that the victim of the crime feels that they have been somehow redeemed and that they have an acknowledgment because again the research tells us that people typically are not looking for compensation in a material sense; they just want somebody to take responsibility and to recognise that people have done some harm and then they can move on and get on with their lives hopefully in a context where they are unlikely to be revictimised either by another offender or indeed by the judicial system. That is a very real danger. The justice system can actually have the effect of revictimising people if we are not very careful about how we do that.Finally I quote Mr Workman and his submission at the time. Talking about the belief that decisions in relation to conviction and sentencing should be determined more upon an objective view of offending than a subjective view of the victim he said it is unwise to allow victims in the heat of the moment to make law. That is our task. It must be objective it must be done with integrity and I look forward to a time when we can have a comprehensive look at victims’ rights and get it right. Kia ora.