Fox Marama: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFox Marama: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8046. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARAMA FOX (Co-Leader—Māori Party): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. I think it is fair to say that it has been no secret that I have been a critic of this whole process. That is not simply because of this bill but the situation that we have had in Australia that has meant that we have had to rush to get something together to try to fix this situation where offenders are coming back to New Zealand and are being largely unmonitored and we have no recourse to be able to do anything about that and in many cases we did not even know that they were here.I talk about the situation in Christchurch where it was found that a man who had been convicted of paedophile offences had been returned on a plane straight out of prison dropped off at the airport in Christchurch and was then recognised and living at the time with a family with young children just down the road from a school. That is when it came to my attention how little we knew—with the information sharing coming from Australia that was non-existent at the time—how little we had done to prepare for this despite the fact that this had been happening in this country for many many many years and how little the Australian Government actually thought of us to do it in the first place.I have been outraged—outraged—that deportees who have committed serious offences have been coming here for a long period of time with no information outraged that when all of this started to come about and some pressure came on the Australian Government that it actually then took those deportees and put them into detention effectively giving them a double jeopardy—as has been mentioned here—and impeding their human rights because to be there in the first place is exactly what that is. I have been outraged that people who have committed no offences are being deported and therefore we come to this situation that we are in today: rushing through a piece of legislation to try to deal with these issues that we have all spoken out against actually from both sides of the House—some more fervently than others but we have all criticised the Australian Government for the place that we find ourselves in now.I actually want to commend the Minister for taking the opportunity to come and speak with us personally. We had a number of issues that we were concerned about when the draft bill came to us—concerns that we were able to have alleviated through those discussions and some minor amendments that were made. Therefore the reason we are supporting it through urgency is that we have had our concerns satisfied that those things have been addressed but as you see a number of people have also picked up other things that may get addressed in the second reading and in the Committee stage.I also want to commend the Minister and the members of the National caucus and the other ministries because we are concerned not just about the law and how it pertains to these people who are coming back from Australia and into New Zealand but about their reintegration about their manaakitanga and the way that we are able to support them so that we do not have new instances of new crimes being perpetrated on a new set of victims in our country. I agree with the New Zealand First member that actually Australia has washed its hands of these people who have grown up in Australia have been criminalised in Australia and have been sent back to us for us to clean up its mess. I do not say that lightly. It is not about the people. We need to make sure we support the people because they need to be able to come back and integrate into our society so that we can ensure the safety of our people. So I do commend the Minister for getting this legislation on the table.I am absolutely appalled that this is a blatant disrespect of our nation from the Australian Government specifically so around the people of questionable character. I have been given assurances that the monitoring system and the regime that will be put in place will not be any more erroneous than it would have been if they had had those conditions placed on them in Australia and that there will not be an extension to that so they will not be further stigmatised in this country after having gone through some horrendous things in their country when they come back here. I am assured by the Minister that that is taken care of.We need to have time to go through it very carefully before the second reading—and that points to the urgency of it—but I want to make sure that something is done. We should have taken the opportunity to speak out against it. We did not. We had the chance and New Zealand should have reconsidered that at the United Nations periodic review and now we are rushing through legislation to deal with the mess that the Australian Government has made. Thank you.