Turei Metiria: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTurei Metiria: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8138. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green): I suspect that this debate has actually been at heart one of furious agreement—to be frank—about the need for legislation to manage the issues for those who have been deported from Australia and elsewhere who need some kind of monitoring for some reason or the recording of their details with the Police. The content of the bill reflects that comparatively well.I think the Government has made a mistake in not acknowledging its process failures as effectively as it should have. It would not be difficult to do to acknowledge that it could have done a better job of consulting other MPs from across the House. I would note that Amy Adams did say that she is the only one who has been working on this issue. Well my colleague David Clendon asked her for a meeting to talk about exactly this in July and was refused. So that is inaccurate and it is unfair in the sense that if this had been from the start a collaborative effort across the political spectrum and with some of the critical external agencies—like the Human Rights Commission the Law Commission and the Law Society—we would have got a better-quality piece of legislation.The Government has a tendency to keep its cards far too close to its chest and to not understand that there are real opportunities for cross-party engagement on these serious issues where we all agree. We all agree we need legislation to deal with the deportees. We all agree that the Australian legislation is disgraceful and is a breach of human rights; everybody thinks that what it is doing is wrong. So why not choose to work on those areas of common ground as opposed to this manufacturing of huge drama in the House over the detail—detail that could have been properly worked out with a decent process?It has been an interesting debate over the last 24 hours or so and as a result of the debate we have made changes to the legislation. My own conversations with Amy Adams led to a constraining of the information that is going to be required of returning offenders. I am pleased for that. I am pleased that she was seriously considering that at the time. The House has agreed to change the time frame for the review of the law from 2 years to 18 months. That at least gives us a chance of getting a review completed and all changes made before the next election. Again that is good.No doubt better changes could have been made with more time and with even a short select committee process by which we could have got some external analysis and external review of the legislation. That is what the Greens have asked for. Even a day’s worth of select committee would have been beneficial to find ways to improve the legislation. There is no Government department that knows everything and sometimes you need the practitioners—the people who will put this law into practice every day—to give us their analysis of it and how it will actually affect their work so we can make it the best possible legislation. Overall I think that is why the Greens are abstaining on this legislation. We understand the need for it. There is broad agreement on the basic purpose. But the details—the law itself—could have been much better if the process had been more collaborative. It is an example to the Government that it really needs to be rethinking its strategy on some of these big issues.I would say that the other area that is now left open and could benefit from a more collaborative approach from the Government is the rehabilitation for offenders. As the Government’s own paper on this bill the regulatory impact statement has said there is a critical connection between reducing the chance of recidivism—further offending—and the quality of the support that wraps around an offender. Those two things cannot be separated from each other. In this debate over this bill which is about the monitoring but not the rehabilitation there has been very little from the Government—the Minister or other Government MPs—about the importance of it about what they are going to do to increase services and how they are going to better engage with communities. Kelvin Davis suggested funding for marae to do this work. It is great idea. The fact is we know that agencies are already saying that they are well over their capacity to deal with returning offenders as we speak and are desperately looking for more support. Often some of those agencies are too afraid to speak out and to ask for more support because of their concerns about being punished politically.We now actually have this opportunity to set aside the politics around the issue and to have a cross-party working party or it is a chance to have a conversation directly with the relevant Ministers—including the Minister for Social Development and the Minister for Building and Housing as well as the Minister of Justice—to find out how we can best support the best possible support services and rehabilitation for those who are returning. If there is one way to stop reoffending it is making sure that offenders have genuine options for making a decent life for themselves when they get back here.We have heard a lot about—particularly from Kelvin Davis and I do want to acknowledge his efforts in debate in this House; I think he has made some amazing contributions about the stories of the people who will be affected by this bill. He is quite right that there are people coming who have absolutely nowhere to go when they arrive here. They know no one. There is nobody here for them. What can we possibly expect for them but the worst outcomes if we do not immediately put in place intervention when they arrive? Not a punitive intervention—one that respects their dignity gives them choices and provides them with the support they need to take the next steps to build a new life here.That is something that again we all agree on. We all agree that should happen we all agree how important it is and we all agree that it is critical for public safety so let us find a way of working together on this. The Government’s—I am not sure how to describe it—block about working with the Opposition means that it makes mistakes and it makes mistakes that those members do not suffer. It is not anybody on the Government benches who is going to—Chris Bishop: Listen to the Greens. Oh!METIRIA TUREI: This is an example of exactly what I am talking about. They are not listening to a contribution about how we can best work together; they are deciding to just shout. This is just a fact: they are not the ones who are going to be affected. It is the offenders—Chris Bishop: It does not actually mean collaborate; it means just do what you want.METIRIA TUREI: Here we go again. They are just shouting for no good reason. It is the offenders who will be affected. It is their victims who will be affected. So we need to make sure that when we are making law about other people we recognise how far away we are from those lived experiences and how little we know about what really happens and therefore make an additional commitment to those people who are directly affected that we will act in their best interests by putting aside the political arguments and shouting and actually work on what is the best and most decent policy for New Zealanders. That is why we are in this business; that is why we are in the Chamber. Let us see if we can improve on that after this example. Thank you.