O'Rourke Denis: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 05 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16401. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): The Victims of Crime Reform Bill amends and improves the Victims’ Rights Act 2002; the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989; the Parole Act 2002; and the Sentencing Act 2002 to better provide for victims of crime generally; to “broaden the rights of victims of serious offences; provide more opportunities for victims to be involved in criminal justice processes; ensure victims are better informed of their rights; increase responsible government agencies’ accountability and responsiveness to victims”; and to “apply consistent victim rights in adult and youth criminal jurisdictions.” These are very good objectives.The Justice and Electoral Committee has made some sensible amendments to the bill as it affects the Victims’ Rights Act 2002. It has amended the definition of “address” inclause 4(1) to remove the reference to text messaging and that makes sense. It is difficult to confirm that a text message has been sent and received and text messages can be intercepted by other people. Cellphone numbers change frequently and may be reassigned. For all those reasons it is unwise to allow text messaging as an electronic means of sending notices. Clause 10 of the bill is also amended to ensure that reference to all of a victim’s contact details in court would be restricted to ensure their privacy and they will appreciate that. In clause 12 a new section 17 will now require the prosecutor to find out from any victim all relevant information about the victim’s injuries property loss or damage and other effects of the offence so this can be taken into account for the purposes of the Act and in particular under new section 21 inserted by clause 15 for consideration of those matters for sentencing purposes. That is of course as it should be.There are also several worthwhile amendments and improvements to this Act in the requirements for notice to victims where offenders are released from detention abscond are released on bail are recalled are convicted of breaches of bail or die. In clause 21 section 37(2) of the principal Act will now specify that a victim of crime committed by a person or offender who is compulsorily detained in a hospital or facility must be given two notifications about a person’s leave—firstly the first unescorted leave of absence outside the grounds of the hospital or facility and secondly their first unescorted overnight leave of absence. I think that is an important amendment that ensures that victims would be informed when a detainee was reaching the stage where their treatment is involving a transition back into the life of the community. Victims need to be aware of this and should not have to find out through the news media or some other informal source.Moving on to the amendments to the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989 one welcome amendment to that Act is clause 38 which amends section 329 to allow victims and their representatives to bring in “any 1 or more support persons (subject to any limitation on numbers imposed by the Judge)” to Youth Court hearings as of right without having to seek the permission of the judge. Section 329 has been a disincentive to victims having the support they have so often needed and there has been no purpose in the consent of the court having been required so that is a good new provision.Another important change to the Act is the new clauses 38A and 38B. Clause 38A requires victims of offences committed by a child or young person to be notified should that child or young person abscond. Clause 38B requires that victims of offences committed by a child or young person be notified should that person die in a youth residence. Again it would be most unsatisfactory if a victim had to find out about things like that from the news media or some informal source.With regard to the Parole Act 2002 the committee—very necessarily I think—amended Part 3 of the bill to restore the victim’s rights and entitlements that were incorrectly removed by the Parole Amendment Act 2007 so these will be reinstated as to victims’ participation in the parole hearing process. Victims will therefore be informed about the process and how they can participate. They will be informed of their right to be interviewed and so on. All of those I think are very important things to reinstate and it is strange that they were ever deleted in the first place.Lastly amendments to the Sentencing Act 2002 are aimed at improving the restorative justice process. Clause 44 inserts a new section 24A requiring the court to adjourn proceedings to allow an inquiry to determine whether restorative justice is an appropriate thing to do in the circumstances of the case. I agree that it is important that consideration be given to whether a victim wishes to participate in a restorative justice process because they do not always wish to do that. The amendment now explicitlyincludes “the wishes of the victims” among the matters that the inquiry must consider. You would have thought that was common sense to do but it did not used to happen and now it will.Overall New Zealand First sees this bill as another very welcome step forward in the emerging movement to do more to support and to consider the rights and needs of the victims of crime. The one area I think we have possibly not thought about enough is where nobody is convicted of a crime but where there is a victim and where there has certainly been a crime. Perhaps we need to give more thought to how we support people in those circumstances. But at least this bill provides some very welcome and very positive steps forward. The committee received and considered 34 submissions and heard 12 submissions. It has been a good process and this will be a good piece of legislation as a result. For all those reasons New Zealand First unreservedly supports it.