Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm not going to say it's a pleasure to take a call on this the Electoral (Registration of Sentenced Prisoners) Amendment Bill. Just to reflect back my own thoughts to the Minister we came into this Parliament together in 2011. I have no doubts at all that the Minister has got the will and the character and the belief in wanting to reform and make better our criminal justice system and when we came into Opposition with me as the Opposition spokesperson for justice I made it very clear to him that if he brought thoughtful legislation to this House that was going to improve our criminal justice system—and especially the way that victims and members of the public had to try and negotiate their way through it—then we would support that. Even before as a nation we had the coronavirus to deal with we felt very strongly—and the reason why you heard my colleague Brett Hudson making very clear statements about it during the Minister's address—that this is a complete and total waste of this House's time bringing legislation into the House especially at a time now that reinstates the right for prisoner to vote when as a nation we're trying to deal with one of the most serious challenges that we've faced arguably in a generation—Marama Davidson: It's not a time to disregard human rights.Hon MARK MITCHELL: And it's very interesting that I hear Marama Davidson start to try and add her comments to the debate because during that time when Brett Hudson was challenging around the necessity of having this bill in this House it was Marama Davidson that was calling encouragement to the Minister and I think that's very telling. I believe this is a Green Party bill that the Minister has actually had to bring to this House. And in actual fact I don't believe for one minute that he's talking about adhering to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act or the findings of the Waitangi Tribunal. If he's going to be a purist about that then let's go back and have a look at a whole lot of legislation where the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has been questioned in some of it. Sometimes this Parliament does legislate sometimes there is tension between the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but we decide in terms of the public interest that that's the best thing for us to do. That's what drove this decision because to go to prison in New Zealand you have to have been involved in some serious offending. You have to have been involved in creating more victims—victims that will have their lives impacted for the rest of the natural lives. That's why you go to prison in New Zealand. When you go to prison in New Zealand like the Minister said you do give up some rights. You give up those rights of freedom of movement. You often give up the right—or you have a protection order put in place that prevents you communicating or having access to the victim or the victim's families. And actually you give up a right that the rest of the law-abiding community enjoys and that is the right to vote.I do agree with the Minister that when a prisoner comes out of our criminal justice system out of our corrections system—I don't disagree with having them re-enrolled. I do disagree with the fact that he says that they lose the right when they come into either the remand system or our corrections system. In actual fact many of them aren't enrolled. Many of them haven't even actually used or accessed that right that they have to vote. I disagree entirely with saying that we were out of kilter with the rest of the world in terms of our remand system. It's very simple. We decided and the National Party was a big driver of this in Government—we had a tragedy occur in our community and it was Christie Marceau. I don't know if members of this House remember that but Christie was attacked and killed stabbed to death in front of her mother by an offender that was out on remand. And we took a decision as a country that we would tighten our rules around remand because we felt that that risk was better managed inside our remand system inside our corrections system instead of allowing the risk to continue to sit inside the community. Community safety in everything that we do in this House and everything that we do in our criminal justice system must be a priority. I want to acknowledge the Hon Kelvin Davis again a man that I have enormous personal respect for. I'd never challenge his integrity or his belief in what he's trying to achieve inside the corrections system itself. I do challenge the ideology in the approach that's being taken. I know that I attended the justice summit in the first year when the Labour - New Zealand First - Green parties formed Government. I do remember being in the room when there was a patched gang member with a long history of violence who had obviously been inside our criminal justice system and was hailed as being an example of a victim that needed the support wrapped around them. I accept the fact that when they come into our criminal justice system they should be rehabilitated. I'm very proud as a Government that we spent a lot of money and made very heavy investments into our rehabilitation programmes inside our corrections service. I'm proud of that fact. But I can say one thing: there's no way that a patched gang member like that with a long history of violence and intimidation is going to be rehabilitated inside our corrections system unless it comes from here [Indicates the heart] unless he wants to unless he actually wants to make the change in his life. I do believe I 100 percent believe that Bill English—and I know that we use the term social investment. Not everyone entirely understands what that is. It's quite simply this. I just want to give you share with you a very personal experience of when the light bulb came on for me around social investment and that was as a police dog handler working in Gisborne down on the East Coast where we saw massive social issues around gangs and organised crime. As I was called out from home one night a young guy 17 years old had broken into a car had stolen some of the contents and run off. I tracked him with a dog and we caught him. We took him back to the police station; we had him in the charge room. In there there's a charge sheet that you have to fill out a box. Inside the occupation box he put unemployed". I said "But that's not a job." He said "But that's what my Dad does."The light bulb at that minute came on for me as he was a young guy that had been born into a gang household. So his mentor the man that he looked up to in his life was a patched Mongrel Mob gang member. His pathway was quite simply to go on to a Government benefit and to supplement the income off a Government benefit with crime with burglaries with selling drugs with violence intimidation standover tactics. That's what his pathway was. It was already too late when we're standing in that charge room—he's in the criminal justice system. It's much harder then to turn him around and try and get him on to a better track.It's much better for us as a Government and a Parliament to make the investment in his life—maybe when he was a baby with helping his mother with some training with budgeting skills helping his father to try and get out of the gangs and break that cycle. That's what we're talking about. That's what we believe in. Make no mistake we firmly believe in going after the problem. You choose to be a gang member or a member of organised crime and inflict harm on our community and our country—we'll come after you. Make no mistake about that.You'll see a determination of focus if we are re-elected into Government to make sure that we implement those types of policies too. But I can tell you now that bringing this type of legislation into the House and using the time of this House at a time when we are facing one of the biggest challenges that we've had as a nation to give prisoners back the right to vote—something they weren't using themselves first something I think that a victim of that crime would feel very strongly that that's an appropriate sanction to make that that's an appropriate message to send to someone that's already been in the community and already created a lot of harm and created a trail of victims behind them.It is disappointing. It is disappointing to see both Ministers sat in the House today—I believe in what they want to try and achieve. I totally absolutely believe it is misguided that they're going down the wrong track. The reason why I believe that is because we're in the House debating this bill giving prisoners the right to vote.Why aren't we talking to real legislation legislation that does reform our justice system legislation that does make it easier for victims of crime to be able to navigate through it or members of the public to understand it or being able to lower costs to give people better access and more timely access to justice. Why are we not debating issues like that? Why have we—I'm sorry the Waitangi Tribunal. I acknowledge and respect their findings on that. I don't agree with it.The best thing Kelvin that you can do or that Māoridom can do is look at ways that you can get into that young guy's life—the young guy back in Gisborne on the East Coast. How to get into his life with social investment. Invest early to get him off that track to keep him out of the criminal justice system. That's the best thing that you can do. A victimhood approach will leave you trapped—Marama Davidson: Let's listen to what you have to say about what Māori should do.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —and bogged down in exactly the same position that we've seen for decades Marama Davidson. So instead of looking back look forward—look forward. That is the answer to the real issues that we face inside our criminal justice system. I'm sorry I cannot stand and support this bill."