McKee NicoleNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Madam Speaker. I stand to speak on behalf of the ACT Party to the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Amendment Bill in its second reading. A second reading usually occurs after a select committee process has been undertaken but we've not had this process because this bill is being heard through all of its stages under urgency. So I stand here delivering the speech with what should have been informed and developed information learned from a considered select committee their officials and of course submitters. While we understand the urgency and the reasoning we can never support doing away with good lawmaking and democratic processes such as hearing from the people. They the people are already telling us that they're not being listened to and when two laws go through in one afternoon you cannot blame them. At least ACT is listening to them. We hear you.When researching information on this bill I found what I thought was interesting commentary about this legislation. If we had had a select committee process I expect some of the things I'm about to mention would have been brought to the attention of the presiding select committee. And I think these things are still relevant. The original returning offenders Act was also brought to the House under urgency by the National Government in 2015. The then Minister of Justice the Hon Amy Adams said she first became aware of a potential issue of 501s being returned from Australia in February of 2015. We were receiving around five deportees a month but it had risen to 25 deportees a month. In October 2015 the regulatory impact statement prepared for the original Act stated that 25 returnees per month could actually increase to as many as 300-plus per month. The regulatory impact statement also stated that of the 60 to 80 deportations which is what they were currently receiving each year around 80 percent of them were from Australia. The regulatory impact statement also went on to note that 70 percent of offenders who had returned to New Zealand since 2013 had been convicted of violence or burglary offences on our soil and that re-conviction rates between the years 2000 and 2002 were sitting at 48 percent. That's 48 percent committing crimes once they came back to New Zealand and within a two-year period. When you hear stats like that it is easy to see why the majority of this House supported the original legislation going through under urgency. And because it went through under urgency there were considerations made such as that in Part 2 subpart 4 at clause 37 where a review was legislated to take place 18 months after the commencement of the Act. The justice select committee did do that review which looked at the operation of the Act. The justice select committee of the day considered papers from submitters especially that which received from the New Zealand Law Society. The Law Society made four proposals for amendment and the justice select committee had suggested one change. The Law Society suggested that a small percentage of returning prisoners were made subject to more restrictive special conditions with—and it was at that time—2.6 percent being subject to curfew conditions. Another 2.6 percent had conditions on them relating to electronic device use for child pornography and only 5.2 percent had been subject to driving-related conditions. Their submissions suggested that Instead of this wide use of special conditions applications should only be made based on individualised assessments of the risk posed by each offender." and "When the Act was drafted legislators expected special conditions to be used only in circumstances where a person poses increased risks." It would appear that this was not happening although the justice select committee of the day found no issue with that because they were assured by Corrections that they will assess the situation of special conditions as the Act is implemented over its following years.The select committee heard from the Law Society that conditions should be removed if a conviction is quashed or pardoned but were assured that there were no convictions to date that had been quashed or pardoned and say in their select committee report: "We were told that the police would revoke a determination if this situation arose."Yet new section 3A(1) inserted by clause 4 of this amendment bill states that these provisions apply even if as in paragraph (h) "the person's conviction for oversight for the overseas jurisdiction offence being overturned."Nor does the bill being heard under urgency today reflect any of the recommendations made by the New Zealand Law Society or the justice select committee. I read the New Zealand Criminal Law Review dated in December 2018 on this Act and a number of other issues were raised under the heading of "The process of challenge". The review states: "The provisions give the police a power to obtain information rather than mandating it this conveys a public law discretion that might be open to challenge via judicial review in relation to the outcome of that determination made pursuant to the statute or the process following and considering its application. The fact that the language does not direct police to obtain the relevant information suggests that there are circumstances in which it might not be proper to obtain the information. In this context the obvious starting point is that a general discretion should have the limit imposed on it that the discretion should be used for the purpose for which it has been conferred." That's a good point.Another consideration in the review is around the word "removal" and whether these people who are deported because they have had their visas cancelled following a conviction of any offence are captured in this Act. They have left them "with no option but to leave" the country they are in if their visa has been revoked and they are removed. The review goes on to say that the Act "does not require that there has been a custodial sentence" for those people and yet the conditions or need for them should be questioned. And that's another good point. Finally the review questioned what we do with mental disorders and they gave an example: "If the person has a mental disorder and would not have been convicted in New Zealand but the overseas system has a more stringent insanity or unfitness to stand trial procedure is such a person covered by the definition of a returning offender?"So there are a number of layers to the provisions being introduced in this bill under new sections 3A and 3B. And while it's intended to capture those already in the system that were convicted pre November 2015 as well as those that are still to come here there are layers that do not address the recommendations or questions made to this House post the review of the Act. That is disappointing because regardless of the urgency if we're able to make robust law the first thing we should do is hear from the people. And when we do we should take note because that is our job here as representatives.However the immediate problem here is another one that runs us into urgency because a situation is before us right now that can have frightening consequences for our society should we lose the ability to manage rehabilitate and reintegrate deportees into our society. For that reason we are continuing to support this bill.However I do note that an aspect of this bill is the repeal of the section of the Act that ordered the review and I guess it was because it's already been done. But ACT suggests that with this new bill and additional clauses being added the past reviews and recommendations for change from New Zealand Criminal Law Review the New Zealand Law Society and the justice committee that a further review be maintained so that we can clearly ascertain whether we've gone too far in controlling the lives of all that are deported back to New Zealand or whether we have captured those that are determined to be a risk to our communities. Thank you Madam Speaker."