Goff Phil: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Goff Phil: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:521] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 There are a number of questions I would like to put to the Minister in the chair the Hon Simon Power. The Minister ought to be quite well informed in this area; he shadowed it for 9 years or something close to that. So I presume that unlike his predecessor in the chair the Hon Kate Wilkinson he will actually take calls. 
My first question to the Minister is whether anything in this bill would have had any prospect at all of influencing the outcome of any of the cases raised by Melissa Lee. Were any of the cases raised by Melissa Lee ones that involved people on serious charges who were out in the community on bail where the marginal impact of this bill would have made a difference? I think that question is important because we are talking about this bill. I do appreciate the need for any New Zealander to feel safe in his or her home. A home invasion is a terrifying thing and I have sympathy for anyone who has gone through that experience. I am not knocking the previous speaker’s experience; I am just pointing out that her saying none of us knows what it feels like to be a victim is presumptuous arrogant and patronising. All of those things are fair criticisms. 
Secondly can the Minister explain why this bill is a priority? Yes New Zealanders are concerned about law and order but why does this bill need to be rushed through without a select committee hearing? Is the bill a priority because it will have an immediate and important influence on making the community safer? If that is the Minister’s argument can he explain to the Committee and the country how this will happen when the advice given to my colleague Annette King just a matter of months ago—by the same Ministry of Justice officials who are sitting at the front of the Chamber now—was that this might involve about 10 remand beds over the next year. Will this be really significant if as the law states at the moment the people whose cases might be influenced are those that involve less clear and significant risk than nebulous and insignificant risk? So is the nature of the people whom we are talking about—those who may be remanded into custody—such that a reasonably clear risk would be presented to New Zealanders and if he believes that can he provide the House with some evidence to sustain that argument? 
Does the Minister accept that the impact of this bill will be to take the law on bail back to where it was before the 2007 amendment? If so the case law that applied under the previous law will apply now. Does he therefore accept that that case law is set out clearly in  
R v Hines 
 in the Court of Appeal? That judgment says that the risk that the defendant may interfere with the witness should be “more than nebulous and insignificant and should be a real and significant risk.” If that is the case how will the law now change in its interpretation from what it was before given that this bill will take us back to exactly the same law that we had and presumably the same case law? 
Were the Ministry of Justice people actually being really generous when they suggested that this change might involve the need for another 10 remand beds? And are 10 remand beds very significant when the number of people remanded into custody at any one time is over 1800? We are talking about well over 15000 people each year being circulated through the system and remanded into custody. 
Given that the bill states that the Law Society said the changes have made it easier for defendants to get bail can the Minister explain why this remark is not qualified by what the Law Society actually said. I think it was on the  
Close Up 
 programme that Jonathan Krebs who is the convener of the Law Society’s criminal matters committee said: “the threshold of the bail test has been reduced a little bit.”—a little bit. 
Hon Simon Power 
: So it has been reduced. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: A little bit. I am happy to take my seat if Mr Power indicates a willingness to answer all or even any of those questions. That would make a change from the other Minister who was in the chair. 
On the bill the Minister says that High Court judges have said these changes made it easier but he actually quoted very selectively. Justice Priestley—hardly a Labour-oriented judge given his background as an office holder in the National Party as the Minister in the chair will be aware—said it is clear that the threshold criteria when considering section 8(1) have not changed significantly. However of course Justice Heath said it “does not seem to me to put the test any higher than was under the previous legislation”. So there we go. A couple of High Court judges say there is not much change and those who say there is change say that there has been a little bit. 
Will the Minister acknowledge to the Committee that he is into window dressing rather than reality as he has been accused of by a professor at Otago University? Given that this legislation is patently window dressing will he acknowledge that it really does not change things? The Minister knows that in his heart; he will probably not admit it in the Chamber today but he knows that is the case. Why did he choose this legislation—as he said in the  
New Zealand Herald 
—as his top priority? 
I ask the Minister to explain something to the Committee—and to Melissa Lee because she will want to know this. The Minister has the immediate power through Order in Council to bring in legislation that has already been passed—after having gone through a select committee process—and that makes the minimum period before parole can be considered for any serious sentence at least two-thirds of that sentence. That means that people serving short sentences will have to serve the whole time so if he was going to be tough and really make a difference—actually this is a question that Mr Garrett should be asking him and maybe he will—why has he not chosen that as his priority? I say to Mr Power that it is sitting on the statute book now waiting to come into effect. Mr Power has said that this is really important and that the law is too lenient. I ask him why he has not done that as his priority. Secondly if that is not his priority I ask when he is considering doing that and what the reason is for his delay. 
I think members would agree those are all legitimate questions. I am happy to resume my seat and listen to the Minister’s answers on those questions. 
I emphasise that as this bill is not going to a select committee the only accountability the Committee actually has is what the Minister answers in the Chamber to questions legitimately put. I think members would agree that none of the questions I have asked are frivolous that all are pertinent to the impact of this legislation on the country and on community safety and that the Minister should be able to justify how this will make a difference to community safety. He has said that publicly but we know from his briefings that it will have a very marginal impact and a marginal impact on cases that were themselves very marginal. So if there was any real risk that would already be covered by the legislation. So we are talking about perhaps nebulous and insignificant risk as set out by Justice Heath. 
Why is this legislation the priority? Is the Minister misleading the country in suggesting that it will make the community safer? Were any of the cases raised by Melissa Lee relevant to the legislation passing through the House right now? I would really appreciate the Minister having the conviction to stand up and answer those questions. I give him now the opportunity to take the call.