Little Andrew: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19219. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):I rise to take a call on the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill. I follow my colleague Phil Goff in confirming that the whole House is in the situation where we are finding our criminal justice system now dealing with a very small number of offenders whose offending behaviour might be otherwise described as extraordinary certainly unusual and behaviour that our criminal justice code has not found a way to deal with. Particularly when it comes to sexual offending and sexual violation in all its forms there is one thing that must be paramount and that the House must give priority to and that is the safety of our citizens—all citizens.When the criminal justice system comes upon somebody who having been convicted and having served their sentence on any reasonable and objective assessment still constitutes a serious risk to the community then it is absurd that the system whether it is the prison system the Parole Board or any other part of the criminal justice system is powerless to do anything about it. It would be absurd to allow people who meet this description and who have this sort of characteristic to be released back into the community. If we know that the chances of their reoffending and the chances of their seriously harming somebody else whether physically emotionally or psychologically are so great then it seems silly that nothing can be done about it. It is for that reason that we support this legislation.We need to make sure that as we scrutinise it as it goes through the Law and Order Committee process it does properly strike the right balance. The Hon Phil Goff talked about the expectations we are all under when we consider new legislation with regard to how it relates to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Act’s requirement in a sense to ensure freedom liberty and all those sorts of things. But the problem we have in the human institutions we are responsible for here as part of the machinery of government is that we do come across people for whom the old sorts of conventional theories of correction and criminal justice simply do not apply. They are people who go through the system and because of their own psychopathic or sociopathic tendencies simply are not responsive to the measures that are exercised against them or that attempt to correct them and they continue to pose a very serious risk. So we have to be able to do something sensible about that and this bill allows us to do that.As I said before as the bill is scrutinised in the select committee process obviously a number of things will have to be considered such as the thresholds that might apply. I notice that in the list of crimes or “relevant offences” as they are described in clause 6 in the proposed amendment to section 107B of the Parole Act one of the relevant offences is conspiracy to commit various offences. I am not sure that “a conspiracy to commit any offence” which can apply to a broad range of low-level actions on the part of a person would constitute a relevant offence given the type of behaviour we are trying to address here but that is a consideration for the select committee.I think I am reassured later in the bill particularly by clauses 11 and 12 where it sets out the threshold that has to be met before an extended supervision order can be imposed on an offender. They are very high criteria that have to be satisfied. It states that “the offender has or has had a pervasive pattern of serious sexual or violent offending;” and either “there is a high risk that the offender will in future commit a relevant sexual offence:” or “will in future commit a relevant violent offence.” But if a pervasive pattern of serious sexual or violent offending is evident and also as a result of the person having spent time in prison a sensible assessment is made that this person simply is not rehabilitated and their behaviour still poses a high risk then it is right that action is taken to protect the public. I go back to the point that I made which is that the priority for this House in its legislation on these sorts of matters must be to ensure that the paramount principle must be protecting innocent members of the public. Then in clause 12 in new section 107IAA in the bill there is a further set of criteria or matters that the court must be satisfied with when assessing the risk.This bill is very thorough in the steps that a court must go through on receiving an application from the head of corrections before making an order of this nature. It will be for the select committee in its detailed scrutiny to make sure that these provisions amongst others are properly weighed against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act entitlements that we all have but against the background that the paramount objective must be protecting innocent members of the public and preventing the nasty violent and insidious sort of offending that the bill is addressing.It is sad and it is tragic of course that we have citizens in our midst who meet the descriptions and the criteria set out in this legislation. They have become known and they have been reported on in the newspapers and in the media. It is a tragic reality of modern life that people have descended into those sorts of dark areas and dark spaces in their lives but we need to make sure that the State in the management of those people as they have been brought to book is not left in a position where knowing there is a high risk of further harm and danger to people it is powerless to protect innocent citizens. On that note we will give our support to the bill and look forward to the detailed consideration as it goes through the select committee.