Ardern Jacinda: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeArdern Jacinda: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8120. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour): It is my pleasure as it were to take a call on the title and commencement provisions within this bill. Obviously the commencement date in particular has been the source of robust debate in this Committee and I will again reiterate Labour’s position on that but I want to start with first a very short reference to the title clause. Obviously this bill—and there are a few iterations that I have seen during the quite rushed drafting of this bill but the title that we are working to now is the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill.The notion of the word “returning” implies a distinct connection between the individual whom this bill covers and their connection to New Zealand and I think this comes to the heart of one of the debates one of the issues that my colleague Kelvin Davis has been battling for many many weeks now. That is the notion that yes we are happy as a Labour Party to support a bill that monitors offenders who are legitimately being returned to New Zealand as New Zealand citizens. They are for all intents and purposes New Zealanders. They were born here they have connection here they have whānau here—they are New Zealanders.We are happy to support the monitoring of those individuals for offences that they have committed overseas and for their legitimate return to New Zealand. We do the same to other countries—let us be clear. If we have someone who has come into New Zealand and committed a crime we will try them in New Zealand we will have them serve their time in New Zealand and then we will deport them to the place from which they have originally come where they reside—the place where their citizenship exists and lies.But we must be absolutely clear that at this stage this bill is covering more than those people. This bill will also be covering individuals who by Australia’s determination are not Australians and we refute that at the moment the place where it has chosen to draw that line is fair. If you said to any individual “Is it fair that a person who was moved to a country like Australia when they were a baby has been raised in that country has worked their entire life in that country has married a person from that country has had children who were then raised in that country”—is it fair to determine that because their first 7 months of life were spent in New Zealand they are a New Zealand citizen when they do not even identify themselves in that way? Our law books may define them in that manner but if that individual does not even define themselves in that manner is that fair?Secondly where does the threshold sit for when you can therefore define that that person should be deported? We know that—we have had lots of discussion in this House as to whether or not it has been fair or not to say to the Government that it should have moved more quickly. We maintain absolutely that it should have because the difference between the last 12 months and say the last 10 years is that last year the Australians changed their law. They changed their immigration Act which allowed them to move the threshold for deportation. It is usually up here—a bar around the types of offences you had to commit before you were deported. They moved the bar so low that we now have people with very very very minor offending in the category for which they will be deported. On top of that—minor offending—there is also the fact that these people do not even see themselves as New Zealanders.So that is why I think that the title of this bill which is a title that talks about returning; the act of coming home—for some of these offenders that will be true. They will have whānau here they will have community here they will for all intents and purposes be New Zealanders. But for a large chunk of individuals they are not returning home. They are being moved to an entirely new country and that makes the job for New Zealand that much more difficult because the key to reintegrating an offender is their connection to community their connection to a place to reside their ability to work and so on. So I dispute the use of the word “Returning” in the title and I would argue that “Overseas Offenders (Management and Information) Bill” would be a better reference.On to the commencement clause—this has actually become a cornerstone of the debate in this Committee. Yes we have said from the beginning that we agree with the need for this provision—this Act—to come in rapidly and as this commencement clause states it provides that the bill “comes into force on the day on which it receives the Royal assent.” For those listening that basically means that as soon as we are done here debating it and the Queen’s representative in New Zealand gives it a signature it becomes law. It then is in force. So that will be pretty quickly—that is about as quick as we ever make anything law in New Zealand. There is a good reason we do things slowly usually—Jami-Lee Ross: Thanks for “Parliament 101”.JACINDA ARDERN: —and that is to get things right. That is to get things right. But the issue here—Hon Ruth Dyson: What was that grand contribution Jami-Lee?Jami-Lee Ross: I said thank you for the “Parliament 101”.JACINDA ARDERN: Jami-Lee Ross I am speaking under the assumption that there are people out there beyond this Chamber who are watching who might be interested in the way that we usually do things in this Parliament. Usually—usually—we would debate it first in this Chamber. Then we would send it to a select committee and a select committee would ask the public to come and give its views.That is not happening in this case. We are using a shortened period because the Government says we need this law to be in place very very quickly. We agree we need something in now. What we dispute is that we should have started this process a year ago. Had we started it a year ago we could have given the public a say on this piece of law. We could have made sure that we did not have errors in it—and we have identified a number of drafting errors through this debate.So what would we do as an alternative given that we are here at this crossroads right now? No. 1 we would keep this commencement clause and allow this legislation to start immediately. But at the same time we would have taken a duplicate of this bill and at the same time that we would have passed one into law we would have sent an exact copy of it to select committee for it to be reviewed properly—for it to be scrutinised properly. Then we would have made sure that this version expired after a year and the version of this bill that had had proper consideration would then replace it. We proposed that to the Minister of Justice. We thought it was a really elegant solution but unfortunately that has been declined.What is our next option? Our next option is to look at when we review this piece of legislation. I absolutely accept the intent of the Minister when she set out that she wanted the bill to be reviewed after 2 years. She did not want it overlapping with the election period; she wanted it to be clear of that for us to give proper consideration. I absolutely accept her rationale. Our view is that that is therefore an argument to make it even earlier. Give it a year. In 12 months’ time in next December let us kick off a select committee review with urgency. Make it over the same time period that you would usually receive submissions on a bill so nice and tight. Receive submissions collect your data and evidence review the operation of the legislation—we could have it all done and dusted back in Parliament by say March the following year well within any election period.So 12 months we would say would be the optimum but if the Government does not want to go with 12 months then we would also support 18 months. Generally we want a shorter time period for review so we will be supporting both of the Green Party’s amendments which would bring that review period earlier than the 2 years that have been stipulated. On this I would acknowledge the Minister’s absolute goodwill in engaging with other parties in trying to set an appropriate time line for review but I see no argument against 12 months.At the moment we are receiving 25 offenders on average—and that is increasing—per month. We will have had hundreds inevitably based on the statistics we are seeing coming out of Australia by the time we come to review this in 12 months. We will know how it is operating. In fact I would wager that if one case hits the headlines—if one monitoring case goes wrong and hits the headlines—we will be reviewing this legislation straight away. So why not make it 12 months? Labour will be supporting those amendments. I encourage the Committee to make the review period 12 months. In lieu of that I encourage it to make it 18 months. Either way we have got to do something to make sure that this legislation is operating properly because it has been rushed.