Goff Phil: Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 26 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:2024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): The purpose of this bill is to ensure that those who are out in our community either on parole or on bail and who are subject to conditions of non-use of alcohol and drugs imposed either by the court in the case of bailees or by the Parole Board in relation to those on parole actually comply with those conditions. Most New Zealanders would be surprised to know that legislation of this nature is actually required for that to happen. All of us would have assumed that if there is a court-imposed condition or a Parole Board - imposed condition that you do not use drugs and alcohol when you are in the community at the discretion of that authority then there would be proper checks on compliance with those conditions. What we read in this bill and in the regulatory impact statement is that the authorities are telling us very belatedly that there is no legislative mandate to ensure compliance with court or Parole Board - imposed conditions. I find that quite amazing.You imagine that when a condition is imposed there is a way of monitoring compliance and that in cases where there is the highest risk there is some testing to ensure that compliance is taking place. The fact that we now learn that that is not the case I think indicates that the authorities have been rather lax in reporting back to this House that something that all of us would assume was necessary was not actually in place. I have to ask the question. If the court or the Parole Board has the power to require testing of compliance with the conditions—and the court can apparently order that—why has the court not been doing it? We read from this bill that the court has not been.This is a concern because there are some 20000 people out in our community at any one time who are subject to conditions of non-drug or non-alcohol use—5000 on community sentences and 15000 on bail—yet the police say that they very rarely test people on bail to see whether they are actually complying with the non-use of drugs or alcohol. By comparison in countries that we would normally relate to in terms of our justice system the United States Australia and the United Kingdom testing is commonplace. So somewhat belatedly this bill comes to the House.I am curious that 3 years ago measures were moved to require beneficiaries to be tested for drug or alcohol use and yet there was no comparable provision for people who have been proven to have committed crimes and been sentenced for them or for people who are on bail for allegedly committing a crime. There was no such provision for these people. Somehow beneficiaries came under the big stick before those who were either convicted criminals or alleged to be criminals. I am surprised therefore that we got this the wrong way about and that this legislation had not come in earlier but it is here and it is good that it is here. I believe that it makes sense. Labour will be supporting it but we will be asking questions in the select committee to ensure that this is the best and the most cost-effective way of ensuring the safety of the community.There are two fundamental reasons why we need this legislation. The first one is public safety. If a person is subject to conditions they are not meeting and they have a track record of offending while being influenced by drugs or alcohol they constitute a threat to the community and we need to deal with that situation immediately. So there is a need to have legislation of this sort.What the bill also does is that it sets out the methods and procedures for monitoring and testing. Well actually it does not spell out those in detail but rather it sets the principles that will govern the rules and procedures that will be set by the chief executive officer of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police. This House is rightly careful about delegating authority to subordinate legislation—to regulations—about what is done and how it is done but in this case I am glad that at least the principles are set down by which the police commissioner or the head of the department will set the rules. They are common-sense things: that the drug testing and monitoring be no more intrusive than necessary that they be no more often than necessary and that they give as much privacy to the person being tested as is reasonable given all of the circumstances of the case.The bill also sets out the consequences of non-compliance because it is not just a case of testing and finding people who are breaking the rules; it is about making sure that those who are subject to the conditions believe that if they actually do not meet the conditions there is a good chance they are going to be caught. That is the critical thing about this bill.We have seen that in the United States. The United States which has similar provisions to this found that it could reduce drunk-driving by repeat offenders from around 36 percent down to nil if those most at risk of drunk-driving felt that there was a high likelihood that their breach of the conditions would be detected. I think that those statistics are persuasive.Secondly in Australia the experience has been pretty much that you do not do it to everybody. We are talking about 20000 people who are subject to conditions. If we were to regularly monitor and test 20000 people the cost would be astronomical. We would be talking about tens of millions of dollars and a huge use of resources. So practicality suggests that what you do is test those at most risk of reoffending and those who if they reoffend are at most risk of committing a serious offence such as a violent offence. From reading the regulatory impact statement that appears to be the way in which the department and the police will go about implementing a testing regime and I think that that is very appropriate.Why do we need to do all of this? Well what we know about drugs and alcohol is that they are both major drivers of crime. I think that during the time when I was working in the justice system nearly half of all of those arrested reported that at the time of arrest they had been using drugs or alcohol—48 percent. If that is relying on them to report it you can assume that it is not over-reported—it is more likely to be under-reported. So for nearly half of all of those arrested their behaviour at the time they are arrested is influenced by the misuse of drugs or alcohol or addiction to drugs or alcohol.It is even greater when you come to looking at those who are on home detention on extended supervision or supervision orders. Of those who come into those categories 68 percent are found to have behavioural problems caused by drug and alcohol abuse and addiction—68 percent. So whatever we can do in this area is really important. We will end up testing somewhat fewer than 500 out of the 20000 people who have conditions imposed on them but if we target the people who are most at risk then we are going to have the biggest impact in the most cost-effective way.The cost is reported as being about $2 million to $3 million a year. That is a substantial amount of money and a substantial amount of work on the part of the department and the police but if this is effective—and I believe that it should be effective—then I believe that that is a good investment of the taxpayer dollar.What we are trying to do here to sum up is to ensure compliance. There is no good purpose in imposing conditions about non-use of alcohol and drugs unless you have a means of checking to see that those conditions are being followed. If there is a breach of those conditions then there will be some sanctions. The sanctions will involve either fines or imprisonment and they will probably increase the need for prison capacity by a modest amount—by about 10 beds a year. So I believe that this legislation does have the potential to improve public safety and the Labour Party will be supporting it on that basis.