Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) — Consideration of Report of Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) — Consideration of Report of Health Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9511] 
Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) 
Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of the report of the Health Committee on the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7). 
 The bill reforms Part 7 of the Criminal Justice Act which deals with mentally impaired persons who come before the courts charged with criminal offences. The provisions of Part 7 have remained largely unchanged since the 1950s despite the significant changes that have occurred in the treatment of people with mental illness over that period. Part 7 covers three situations. Firstly when a trial cannot proceed because the defendant is unfit to stand trial due to his or her mental condition; secondly when a defendant is acquitted of an offence on the grounds of insanity; and thirdly when the court considers that an offender convicted of an imprisonable offence would be better detained in a psychiatric hospital or a care facility than in a prison.  
The most important changes made by the bill relate to those who are intellectually disabled. The Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act generally excludes from its ambit those whose mental impairment is solely due to an intellectual disability. This recognises that the intellectually disabled need different types of care than the mentally disordered. The exclusion of the intellectually disabled from the 1992 Act however was not followed with legislation that specifically provided for offenders with intellectual disabilities. Limited options have therefore been available to the courts in dealing with these offenders. As a result they have often been inappropriately sent to prisons or to psychiatric hospitals. The bill along with the related provisions in the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill makes specific orders available to the courts for the intellectually disabled who are charged with criminal offences. 
The bill also contains a significant new safeguard for defendants who are unfit to stand trial. Current legislation allows the detention of people found unfit to stand trial without any inquiry into their actual responsibility for the offence. This creates a risk that people may be detained in circumstances where they did not commit the offence with which they are charged. The bill includes a new provision so that people cannot be detained following a finding of unfitness to stand trial unless there is sufficient evidence on the balance of probabilities that they are responsible for the offence. 
The new Part 7 also contains a number of other important changes. Firstly there is a new procedure for entering a verdict of not guilty on the grounds of insanity where both the prosecution and the defence agree on the basis of expert evidence that it is the only reasonable verdict. This removes the need for a jury trial in situations where the defendant’s mental condition at the time of the offence is not in doubt. It will alleviate unnecessary stress and trauma for mentally impaired defendants as well as victims and witnesses. 
Secondly courts are specifically empowered to hear evidence from a wide range of health professionals in determining the appropriate disposition of a mentally impaired offender. As recommended by the select committee health professionals preparing assessment reports must also consult where practicable with the person’s family or whanau and as appropriate with parents guardians or caregivers. 
Thirdly courts will have the ability to order that a convicted offender receive treatment or care in a psychiatric hospital or secure facility while also being subject to a prison sentence. As the select committee pointed out this will allow the court to ensure the offender does receive treatment or care rather than joining the backlog of people in penal institutions awaiting transfer for treatment. 
I commend the select committee for the detailed attention it has paid to the bill. The committee has recommended amendments that improve the workability of the bill and ensure that the rights of the mentally impaired are protected. 
Since the committee considered the bill there have been changes in the criminal justice law including the passage of the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Victims’ Rights Act. The passage of these Acts means that some amendments are now required to the bill which I propose to do by way of a Supplementary Order Paper. 
Firstly I propose that an amendment be made to turn the bill into a stand-alone Act and that the title of this Act be the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act. Apart from Part 7 most of the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act have either been repealed by the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act or will be repealed by the Corrections Bill. It is now appropriate to remove Part 7 from an Act with criminal justice in its title to avoid the misleading impression that those whose mental state make them non-culpable are subject to criminal sanctions. Amendments required to take account of the Sentencing Act the Parole Act and the Victims’ Rights Act include the removal of amendments that were to be made by the bill which have since been made or superseded by the Sentencing Act or the Parole Act. Amendments must also be made so that the three Acts apply to the intellectually disabled in the same way that they apply to the mentally disordered. 
I also intend to propose three other amendments to address issues that have been identified since the bill was reported back. Firstly an example in clause 4 of the proposed Supplementary Order Paper of when a person will be found unfit to stand trial will be removed because it does not assist in clarifying what the law sets out. This example relates to a defendant’s ability to make an informed decision about giving evidence. 
Secondly an amendment will be made to clause 23 to provide the court with discretion to remand a person who has been found unfit to stand trial or not guilty by reason of insanity in a hospital secure facility or on bail while inquiries are made about the most suitable method for dealing with him or her. In deciding whether to grant bail clause 23 will specify that the need to protect the public is the paramount consideration. 
Thirdly an amendment will be made to allow access to assessment reports for providers who have offenders subsequently transferred into their care from the facility to which they were first sent under an order of the court. 
This bill along with the proposed Supplementary Order Paper updates and modernises the law. It provides a regime to ensure the appropriate care of the mentally impaired while at the same time providing safeguards for the protection of the public. I commend this bill to the House. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I am one of the members who was on the Health Committee that originally heard this bill. It was introduced by the Rt Hon Wyatt Creech in response to some serious cases. One was a lad called Stephens whose parents had tried to care and look after him. This young lad grew into a rather large adult who was very difficult to contain. He had an intellectual disability. But as Mr Goff said at the time the mental health legislation was changed intellectual disability was quite correctly removed from the definition of a mental illness. A person with an intellectual disability is quite different from a person with a mental illness. So we saw that there was a gap in the law and because of that gap this legislation has come forward. It provides the ability for a defendant who on the grounds of either mental illness or intellectual disability is unfit to plead to be put into different forms of care rather than prison. 
For someone who has an intellectual disability going to prison is a very serious event. Those people are vulnerable and are abused in a prison situation. I myself know of cases from when I was a geriatrician. I was seeing an elderly couple who were caring for their son. The mother had a stroke and the father who was in his 90s died suddenly. This man who was in his 40s all of a sudden had all his supports removed. His behaviour deteriorated markedly. Once his behaviour had deteriorated he started committing offences and he ended up in prison. It was a very unacceptable situation for such a vulnerable person. Under this bill when such a person is found guilty he or she can be cared for in an appropriate facility that cares for people with an intellectual disability and gives 24-hour cover and care. 
However I have to say I am staggered that the Hon Phil Goff has tabled a Supplementary Order Paper that is 44 pages long and has pretty substantial amendments. We have not had time to look at those. There is no select committee process for them. This legislation is a serious issue. It talks about what is happening with people’s lives—the ability to incarcerate them to take away their rights—about protecting society and about looking at how the mental health system works. Supplementary Order Paper 161 should not have been dropped on us at this stage. I ask the Minister of Justice how many years he has had to get these amendments before us. He has had 4 years to get these amendments before us so that we could look at them and so that the select committee could process them. But that has not happened. The Minister has just tabled these amendments. 
Members should look at the first amendment. It states: “To omit from  
subclause (1) 
 the words ‘Criminal Justice Amendment Act (No 70 1999’ … and substitute the words ‘Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act 2003’.” What does that mean? Does the Minister actually understand the definitions? 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Yes I do understand. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I do not think the Minister does understand them. Does “mentally impaired persons” mean somebody with an intellectual disability or does it mean someone who has a psychiatric illness? The whole point of this bill—of everything we did in the select committee—was to ensure that those two definitions were never together because those who have a mental illness are totally different from those who have a mental disability. The Minister lumps them back together because he does not understand the issues. That is just an example of what happens when one tables a Supplementary Order Paper like this. I think it is absolutely unacceptable. 
We are talking about mental illness and people going into forensic care—not going to prison but going into forensic care because they have been found not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Let us look at the Paul Ellis case which was reported back today. This Government is totally failing New Zealanders in mental health—absolutely totally failing New Zealanders and their families. There were massive problems with the care of Paul Ellis whose family suffered the price. His father died because he was not listened to. Paul Ellis was released within 72 hours of his having been put under a compulsory assessment and treatment order. That should not have happened. I have a member’s bill that would have stopped that. It provides that people will be detained for 72 hours for assessment which allows time for the families to be involved in their care. Families know a great deal about people with mental illness. If they were listened to we would not have tragedies such as Mark Burton killing his mother Paddy. If Trevor Burton his father had been listened to that would not have happened. 
In 1997 National moved an amendment to require that families be consulted but that is not happening. It did not happen in the Burton case. It did not happen in the Ellis case. It is time that this Government took mental illness and mental health seriously. The fact that a Supplementary Order Paper is tabled just before an urgency motion just before we are about to debate the bill and after the Government has had 4 years to introduce those amendments shows what little respect the Government has for the needs of those with a mental illness and their families. 
When Paul Ellis was admitted to hospital the psychiatrist did not have time to assess him. He sought judicial review and the case came before a judge. The facts about his mental illness were not available to be placed before the judge. He was released and his father suffered the price. I think every New Zealander has huge sympathy for that case. These families are suffering. There have been nine cases like this in the last few years. 
We know that people with a mental illness generally are no more dangerous than anybody else. They have an illness. But there is a group of young men generally under 30 and often with drug and alcohol problems who do pose more of a risk. They must be identified and they must be able to be held by forensic services. It is no good our waiting when this bill becomes an Act of Parliament till they come before the justice system because by that time the public—generally it is the families—will have paid the price through murder and attack. That is why we must see some changes to the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act. 
The Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) that we have before us was differentiated from the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill. At the select committee—and I do not know whether my colleague Paul Hutchison who was on the committee with me remembers this—the Government tried to do something very sneaky. The Government tried to have suspended sentences of imprisonment abolished altogether from the bill. It tried to sneak that in. Does the member remember that? 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: I do yes. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: We talked about Carla Cardno and her stepfather who had threatened to attack the killer of Carla Cardno if he was released. The stepfather was given a suspended sentence. This Government tried to abolish that form of sentence without putting that amendment through due process. Once again it tried to sneak something through without due process—without those who are involved those who understand being able to look at and scrutinise the legislation and have their say through the select committee process. It was a very poor way to treat the select committee process. 
We will be supporting the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) because it was part of a National Government bill that looked at correcting many of the problems that occurred due to the fact that when intellectual disability was taken out of the jurisdiction of the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act there was no further legislation to enable somebody with an intellectual disability to be put into a secure facility that was not a prison but provided care and rehabilitation for that person. Because of that we will support this bill. But this whole procedure of changing this bill with a huge Supplementary Order Paper is not acceptable. I would like the Minister to take a call and tell us why he did that and why he did not consult. 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It is a bittersweet pill seeing the bill on the floor today. I guess it is sweet because finally the House can say that something is being done to address the anomalies in the way in which mentally ill people and people with intellectual disabilities are handled once they become criminals. 
We have to rewind the clock go right back and answer a couple of simple questions. Why are we passing legislation such as this? The answer is that we have created a situation where mentally unwell people are put in situations where they cannot help but become criminals. In Parliament Labour started the nonsense. It would not listen to people in the industry who had been caring for mentally unwell people for generations. No in the years of cost cutting and finding a corporate manner in which to deal with health services Labour amended the mental health and disability legislation led by that astounding Minister of Health whose greatest claim to fame is closing 29 hospitals. She has now been surpassed; her Minister of Education is about to close 200 or so schools. Those guys will have their names chiselled on a granite headstone because that is where they deserve to be for the pain they have inflicted upon the New Zealand public. 
Members should cast their minds back to Sunday night and the three families shown on the television programme  
Sunday 
. [ 
Interruption 
] Now it is hurting; up come the chickens squawking. That party is responsible for much of the pain in our communities that has resulted from the changes brought about by the deinstitutionalisation led by Helen Clark and supported by her entire Cabinet then picked up by Jenny Shipley and supported by people like Ruth Richardson. 
I remember when I was a new fledgling member of the Labour Party trying to talk to our Minister of Health about reviewing her commitment to deinstitutionalisation. I had spent days and months listening to the Templeton parents association which predicted that those changes would end up criminalising their children and family members who had intellectual disabilities because they knew no better; by being put into the community that is the very sort of thing they would be exposed to. The parents’ big concern was the lack of support for their children once they were in the community because we know how that works. The association predicted those things. I came back from the Middle East and it was telling us that in 1990. 
I fronted up to Helen Clark at a meeting in Shirley at a community hall where she was supporting David Caygill in an election campaign. I had had a chat with Mike Moore who was the leader at the time. He had told me to talk to Helen Clark and had said that if she changed her mind then Labour would change the policy and go with her. I had told him that as Labour’s candidate I would not advocate Labour’s policy on deinstitutionalisation. I spoke to that woman and her answer was absolutely dismissive. Her answers to staff and nurses who stood up at that same meeting and asked her whether she would keep the Templeton Centre open were an absolute dismissal of their professional concerns. 
Where are we today? When people like Marc Alexander and the Law and Order Committee go to Auckland to visit the remand prison and talk about inmates there who have disabilities and mental problems the prison tells them that anything between 12 and 23 percent of its inmates have mental disabilities. The staff members tell us those people should not even be in our prisons. Where are we today? When we visit police stations and talk to bobbies who patrol our streets they tell us they are sick and tired of picking up the pieces of a failed deinstitutionalisation policy led by politicians who have no care concern or heart for the victims of those horrendous crimes or their families. 
What do we read today in the paper? I will take a simple press release. The Ministry of Health says it accepts an inquiry’s findings that no one is to blame for serious failings in the south Auckland mental health service 2 years ago. That is becoming a hallmark of the Labour Government. Nobody is to blame for anything unless National is in Government and Christine Rankin is involved. With finding after finding and inquiry after inquiry we can talk about the “goon squad” and about mental health failings till the cows come home but nobody is to blame. I will tell members who is to blame. Helen Clark is to blame for a myopic idealistic focus on deinstitutionalisation that has resulted in murder and homicide victims from one end of this country to the other. The Government accepts no blame. Well the public does not think so. 
The only thing I can say about this debate we are having now is that it is good we finally have this bill after 4 years of the Government sitting on its backside and doing nothing. We rammed through a sherry tax in the dead of night in a 24-hour session to get it through but when it comes to an issue such as this where families have had members murdered where a woman was stabbed through the chest with a chisel and had her head cut off and her daughters found her in the bath it can wait for a jolly sherry tax. Well hip hip hooray; the Government certainly has its priorities totally stuffed up. 
One thing I will not let that party get away with is that it totally rejected every concern raised by nurses clinical professionals and people who had worked in the mental health services for years in pursuit of its ideology. Today we are picking up the pieces and the tragedy is they are human pieces. They are pieces of someone’s family. If Government members think this is the end of it I am sorry to say to them that it is not because the fundamental problem has not been resolved. The Government will close Kimberley and it will not listen to anybody. It has this view of institutions. It opposed the construction of Brackenridge Estate which New Zealand First got as a concession from the National – New Zealand First coalition Government. It works well. The parents are happy and the families are happy. The question we have for that lot over there is why could the same facility not be built up north in Auckland Palmerston North and other places where families do not want— 
Hon Roger Sowry 
: In Levin. 
RON MARK 
: And Levin. Families do not want their children or their loved ones who have mental disabilities and intellectual disabilities criminalised because they are let out into a “care less in the community” programme where time after time they are failed. It is so ironic that the Labour Party which champions itself as the heart conscience and mind of New Zealand cares so little about the victims of the crimes committed by those people. 
The nonsense is that the patient is a victim as well. We should talk to the families who have suffered the heartache of seeing their loved one dragged before a court to face charges for something that would never have happened had he or she been held in care in an institution. But we must not use that word; it is a dirty word. We will call it an asylum a sanctuary or what one will. If that party thinks that care in the community in a community house with one-eighth of an acre of land around it is better than the facilities that there used to be at Kimberley and Templeton it is absolutely nuts. At least those people could roam over grass expanses. At least they had the swimming pool the church and other facilities. All that we had to do was to bulldoze the old facilities and replace them with something modern and efficient but oh no the Labour Party will adhere to its blind ideology despite the fact that the British Labour Party has since recognised the error of its ways and has reversed its policy. 
Deinstitutionalisation is not a bad policy. What is bad is the blind myopic view of total deinstitutionalisation the belief that there is not room for a place for people who need constant 24/7 care because they are fragile. Those people are not able to operate in the community because they will be victimised by normal people who take advantage of them. I have only to mention Mr Truscott to make my point. 
SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 I rise briefly to indicate that the Green Party will be supporting the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) which saw its genesis long ago under National in 1999. It is astonishing that we are now dealing with it under urgency in October 2003. Nevertheless it is high time we plugged the gap in legislation in terms of dealing with major criminal offenders who are also intellectually impaired. As others have pointed out there has been a real problem in that since 1992 there has not been a legal means by which judges and courts can deal properly with intellectually disabled offenders. Because such people were removed from coverage by the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act they were also excluded from section 7 of the Criminal Justice Act leaving a gaping hole in terms of procedures for dealing with them. 
Although of course the Green Party has no problem at all with the fact that this group was left out of the mental health legislation for the very good reason that intellectual disability is not a mental illness—a fact apparently not realised by the previous speaker—it has been most unfortunate that a small number of people have ended up being inappropriately placed in mainstream prisons or detained as special patients in mental health units. Even now we continue to hear all too often of prison cells becoming a dumping-ground for people for whom there is simply no other place to go and it is an indictment on our society that we have allowed that to continue into the 21st century. 
Our one main concern about this bill and the accompanying bill which we are about to deal with is the level of resourcing and the preparedness of the infrastructure to support adequately the accommodation needs of intellectually impaired offenders once these bills become law. The Government tells us that a regional intellectual disability care agency has been established in four health regions and that a number of new services have been set up including so-called community secure accommodation independent supported living services and respite care services. However word is that hospital-level secure services which in many of these cases are what is needed are still at an early stage of development. The Green Party certainly encourages the Government to do everything it can to resource the provision of those services at a fully adequate and appropriate level with as much haste as is practical. 
We welcome the changes that have been made to this bill and to its accompanying legislation the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill that mean that the bills will no longer include compulsory care for adult non-offenders or under-17-year-olds who have not committed serious offences. It is good that the Government listened to submissions from the Council for Civil Liberties the Human Rights Commission and others that raised undeniable arguments as to the ethics and legality of placing people who have not carried out major criminal acts into what is in effect a term of imprisonment. The Green Party also supports Supplementary Order Paper 161 which among other things allows the courts more discretion about where they remand people who are found unfit to stand trial or not guilty on the grounds of insanity and also allows service providers to have access to assessment reports provided by previous facilities. Those are simply common-sense amendments and I commend them and the bill to the House. 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of United Future to support the consideration of the report on the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7). I would like to confine my comments during this debate to some of the main points in the bill and some of the changes recommended by the Health Committee before taking a call in the debate on the third reading to talk about the general issues that the bill raises in relation to the criminal justice and health systems. 
As noted by previous speakers the legislation augments the procedural safeguards for the treatment of intellectually disabled persons who appear before the court charged with an offence. Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind when considering this bill is the requirement to find a balance between the need to detain offenders for the sake of public safety and the need to ensure that mentally impaired offenders are treated appropriately. 
Under the Criminal Justice Act if a court is satisfied that a defendant is mentally disordered it may determine that that person is unfit to stand trial or acquit him or her on the grounds of insanity. The difficulty arises in the definition of “mentally disordered” in that it does not include those whose impairment is solely caused by an intellectual disability. The distinction is an important one as those who have an intellectual disability are not considered to be treatable which has some fairly obvious consequences for the way in which those offenders are dealt with. It also means that intellectually disabled offenders could be made to stand trial even when because they cannot construct a defence or instruct counsel to do it for them they are not fit to do so. The bill gets round this by changing the term “mentally disordered” to “mentally impaired” as recommended by the Law Commission in its 1994 report on mental health and criminal justice issues. 
An important change made by the committee was to ensure that those who know the defendant’s personal history and condition the best such as caregivers and family are consulted when a health assessment is being made for the court. If a defendant is found to be unfit to stand trial he or she will be made subject to either an order for compulsory care if intellectually disabled as provided for in the accompanying Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill or compulsory treatment in the case of those with mental illnesses as provided for under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act. But in order to balance that desire to ensure appropriateness of care and attention the threshold for determining whether the accused is physically guilty of the crime is somewhat lower than normal. It is based on the balance of probabilities rather than on the absence of reasonable doubt. In light of the incapacity of the defendant to undergo trial this is a practical change that keeps the need for community safety uppermost. There is an appeal process available to defendants on the basis that there may be insufficient evidence to convict or that the defendant is unfit to stand trial. 
On the other hand to ensure that being found to be unfit to stand trial is not a softer option the maximum period of imprisonment is being increased from 7 to 10 years. Once again to balance out the need for public safety the bill extends the period in which a person may be remanded to a hospital or secure facility from 7 days to 30 days which allows the court sufficient time to assess the most appropriate method of dealing with a defendant. 
Under the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill the court will have an extended range of options made available to it. The bill also allows offenders to receive treatment at the same time as being subject to a prison sentence. One of the difficulties with the current system is that the courts cannot ensure that the offender is both punished and treated leading to a backlog of people in prisons awaiting transferral to a hospital. 
It is important to acknowledge that when we talk about offences committed by the genuinely intellectually impaired we are actually talking about a small number of cases. At times such as this the tragedy is not limited to the victims—although I firmly believe that their needs should be paramount—but also extends to the fact that those crimes would not have occurred if the offenders had been receiving appropriate care. Ron Mark raised a few points and—although without quite so much exuberance as he exhibited—I have to say that there are some people for whom community care is simply not feasible. It is inefficient. It may be that institutional care is the only appropriate means by which to keep them. 
We commend this bill. 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak on the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) on behalf of the ACT party. The ACT party will be supporting this bill as will all the other members in the House. I congratulate the National Party and especially Wyatt Creech who is no longer with us on bringing this bill before the House. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: He’s still alive though. 
HEATHER ROY 
: He is still alive and I am pleased to say that. I commend him for bringing this bill to the House. It makes a good deal of sense. I will not go over the points that the other members have made but in particular I am very pleased with the provision for compulsory treatment to run concurrently with the prison sentence. As Marc Alexander has just said people can be both treated and punished now whereas previously that was sometimes not the case. The prison sentence will now run while the person is in hospital or in secure care. If the need for treatment or care ceases the person will be transferred to a prison to complete any remaining period of the prison sentence and that is as things should be. 
However while supporting the bill I would like to ask the Minister of Justice as others have why it has taken this Government so long to get to this point and why we are sitting here at 10 minutes to 11 at night— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: You guys never vote for overtime. You vote against every motion ever passed to take urgency then you wonder why you don’t get progress. 
HEATHER ROY 
: It would be good if the Minister would stand and take a call when it is his turn. In fact I would like to say it has taken—[ 
Interruption 
] 
 I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I must say that while we are having running commentaries from both sides of the House I am finding it very difficult to speak myself. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Members will allow you and so will I to continue in relative silence. 
HEATHER ROY 
: It is good to be able to be heard again. This Government has taken 4 years to get to this point. It is becoming something of a trend for this Government to drop long Supplementary Order Papers on the Table the day before a bill is to be heard. The one quite recently just a couple of weeks ago that I recall was the Gambling Bill. There were not 44 pages but 65 pages of Supplementary Order Paper that made significant changes to the bill. Fortunately the changes to this bill are not quite as significant as that but in a democracy this is not acceptable. Mr Goff stood up and commended the select committee for its hard work. I am not sure why he bothered commending anybody for hard work when he has introduced a new Supplementary Order Paper to replace the bill. Why did—[ 
Interruption 
] 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Mr Goff speakers are clearly not heeding your advice. 
HEATHER ROY 
: Quite right. Anyway it is very good that even after 4 years this Government has managed to bring this bill finally before the House although changes do need to be made. People with intellectual disabilities should be separated from those with mental illnesses although this Government does not have a good record in dealing with matters of mental illness. As Dr Lynda Scott said previously the Paul Ellis inquiry the report on which was released today is a good indication of this. There are serious problems with the mental health system and it is important that we should note these when we debate matters of mental illness. What we have at the moment is a fragmented system that is failing the truly vulnerable in our society. 
This stems from two main causes but there are others that are relevant. The first is that we have a chronic shortage of staff in this country. It is quite right that those with intellectual disabilities should be housed in separate units but the difficulty is there are not enough mental health staff at the moment to staff the facilities that do exist so quite where those staff will materialise from is anybody’s guess. We train our health professionals for export at the moment. We train them and give them very good training they immediately see that their opportunities in terms of both working conditions and pay are much better overseas and off they go. The second thing is that there are not enough beds as it is and that is part of the reason that ACT welcomes this bill. There will be more beds despite the staffing difficulties but at the moment what is clogging up the system is long-term patients in acute beds. When psychiatrists in particular are faced with a patient who needs inpatient care there is nowhere to place that patient. We have a fragmented system not one that patients can enter and flow through as they should be able to. That is a serious failing and is part of the reason that there is a cycle of tragedy in this country when it comes to mental illness. 
The cycle of tragedy was pointed out to New Zealand in December 1998 by the then Opposition health spokesperson Annette King. She criticised the then National Minister of Health for what he had described as the cycle of tragedy. A tragedy happened blame was apportioned there were inquiries and reports were written that went nowhere and addressed very little. When another tragedy happened the whole cycle started again. That was a fairly accurate description of what was happening at the time. But what is happening now? There is exactly the same cycle of tragedy. The Opposition health spokesperson at the time Annette King said that this is no way to run a health system. What do we have now? There is no change—absolutely nothing is different. There is a cycle of tragedy and if anything the cycle of tragedy is worse now than it was then. 
If we move on to intellectual disability which is what this bill is mainly about—the proper and humane treatment of those with intellectual disabilities—we can talk too about community care and deinstitutionalisation. I would not go quite as far as my colleague Ron Mark from New Zealand First did. He indicated that the whole thrust of deinstitutionalisation had been a mistake. I think of it more as a pendulum. Previously there were too many people living in institutions who could have been incorporated into the community. But the problem is that deinstitutionalisation was the politically correct thing to do so the pendulum swung the other way completely. We are now at the point where there are not enough beds as I said before. There are not enough beds for the acute patients or the medium-term patients or indeed the long-term patients—the people who will be very difficult to incorporate into society. 
If we look not far up the road at the Kimberley Centre we can see that it illustrates this point beautifully. Those who have been easy to re-establish into the community have now moved into the community and are being very well catered for. By and large they get the support they need. But there is a group of people now left in that institution who are very difficult to place. The local community is in uproar of course because those patients need a great deal of care. They will be housed out of the Kimberley Centre so that it can be disestablished and they will find it extremely difficult to integrate into the community. In fact we might find that they are the very people whom this bill has been written for; people who without the adequate support that they need which in many cases is institutional care find themselves in positions where they become criminals and are in need of the very facilities that the Minister is advocating now. 
Ron Mark also pointed out that the Ministry of Health accepts no blame for anything and that nobody is to blame for anything. That is a very convenient situation for the Government is it not? Nobody is to blame for anything. I welcome some of the report’s recommendations. I was pleased to see that at least it had not blamed the mental health workers who are holding this system together—those at the coalface who are the last to see the patient. At least the report did not blame them. What it should have done is blame the system that those people have to work in; the system that is failing the patients the families of those patients and also the staff who are expected to work within that system. The cycle of tragedy will continue until the Government addresses the real problems of mental illness. 
I would like to finish by saying that we do in fact support the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7). It will bring forward some very sensible changes that should have been made long ago and my criticism is that it has taken the Minister of Justice 4 years to get to this point which is shameful. 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am delighted to take a quick call on this bill because I am one of three current parliamentary members who were on the original select committee. I would like to clarify a couple of points. 
I would like to acknowledge Wyatt Creech who worked very constructively with Annette King when we come into Government. This was a top-priority bill and we decided to send it to the committee where it had full support I must say. The committee worked in great accord on the bill. 
The bill fits a small niche of people with intellectual disability—it has nothing to do with deinstitutionalisation which Mr Mark seemed to confuse it with. A small group of up to a hundred people with an intellectual disability have been quite incorrectly housed when they get into difficulties with the law. Provision for housing has been carried over in the Budget to build appropriate supported residential care for this very small group of people. 
It is a great bill. It is a bill on which we should not be bitterly divided. The committee worked in accord on the bill and saw it as a very high priority. The gap concerned Wyatt Creech; it took 7 years to work up the bill so it could go to the select committee. Three years later we are now debating it in the House. I am delighted to support this bill. 
Members of the community with intellectual disabilities will be thrilled about this bill because they have always felt they are muddled up with people with mental ill-health. They do not fit that community of interest as a client group. They came before us and urged the passage of this bill and will be very delighted with its outcome when it is passed into law. 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Under urgency at 11 p.m. we are debating the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7). Laughter is coming from the Labour front bench but I do not see anything funny. I do not think that the name of this legislation does justice to the human tragedy we are talking about in the bill. I hope that Labour Party members will have a change of heart and listen carefully. 
I want to use my 10 minutes to tackle two issues. The No. 1 issue is the process of this bill and the No. 2 issue is its substance. The Hon Phil Goff in Opposition would have shown passion and outrage if any other party had dared to let this important human tragedy bill languish in Parliament for 2½ years. When National was in Government in 1999 we brought in this bill because we knew there was a situation out there in which mentally impaired individuals who should not have to stand trial had had to. The Rt Hon Wyatt Creech introduced the bill in 1999. I looked through the bill’s report-back from the Health Committee. It did a good job. It put forward amendments to make the bill more workable. 
The bill was reported back to Parliament on 30 April 2001. The Hon Phil Goff has blamed National and Opposition parties for not agreeing to an urgency motion to debate this bill earlier. How many sittings under urgency did Labour have to wait through before it brought this bill back? It has waited for 2½ years and now has come to Parliament to say that it has to bring in a Supplementary Order Paper of 44 pages—the same number as the original bill—without it being subject to the scrutiny of the select committee. Labour can blame the process and say that changes have happened in the world. Of course changes will have happened after 2½ years! Of course the world will have moved on—apart from the Labour Party! The Hon Phil Goff was outraged and asked why we could not just trust Labour to introduce 44 pages of Supplementary Order Paper. It is nothing new so why can we not trust Labour? It is obvious why a person like me is full of scepticism. We heard the Hon Pete Hodgson bring in a “fart tax” of $8 million because he said that the farming community contributed to research funding to the tune of only $800000. Now the Government is saying that it looks as though farmers have contributed about $5.4 million. The Rt Hon Helen Clark has said that in terms of free-trade agreements Labour was not doing too badly alongside Australia. We notice that the single example she was using was the Singapore free-trade agreement. Negotiations for that were started under National when we were in Government. So with those types of outrageous claims why should we trust the word of the Labour Government that this Supplementary Order Paper will not contain any surprises? 
The abuse of the process is starting to get to a point where the public has simply had enough. We had the question of the Supreme Court about which 80 percent of people said that the whole matter should have been subject to a referendum and that people should have had a say but the Labour Government would not heed a word of it. This bill is a continuation of abuse of the process in which the Health Committee had done its job amended the original bill then reported back to Parliament on 30 April 2001—2 years ago. Now this Minister says that because it is 2 years since that process an amendment is necessary and he has not referred the bill back to the Health Committee for a proper process to be carried out. But I support quite a lot of what was said. I think it was said with sincerity and with a lot of passion by my colleague from New Zealand First Ron Mark. In fact we are looking at “the fence at the bottom of the cliff”. Why do some of these individuals have to come before the court? I share Heather Roy’s view that we cannot say the whole deinstitutionalisation process was wrong but certainly the pendulum has gone too far and Labour—despite whatever claims it made when it was in Opposition—after 4 years has done nothing to address the human tragedy that continues to happen. 
Today we have heard the inquiry results of Paul Ellis a psychiatric patient who suffers from mental illness and who killed a family member. I agree that it is totally unsatisfactory once again to say that the system failed the individual. Accountability seems to be something that is now totally missing from this Labour minority Government. The report findings of this sad case say that it was due to the acute shortage of resourcing of mental health services. How many times did we hear outrage from the Hon Annette King when she was in Opposition? How many times did we hear promises that she would fix the mental health services? But after 4 years we have not seen an improvement and we continue to see individuals falling through the cracks. We continue to note the Labour minority Government announcing one inquiry after another. It is washing its hands by spending more and more money on inquiries but it is not addressing recommendations and solutions to the issues. 
I hope that the Minister when we commence the Committee stage will take this Parliament seriously and explain in detail what is in the 44 pages of Supplementary Order Paper. But more than that I think the Minister owes the public an explanation about why this bill—which is dealing with some of the saddest human tragedy in New Zealand—was sitting on the parliamentary Order Paper for 2½ years. Does Labour not find our mentally impaired individuals important enough human beings for that bill to have been passed a lot earlier? I hope that United Future stops complimenting the Labour minority Government on this bill because it was totally outraged tonight that Labour was trying to rush through a 44-page Supplementary Order Paper on a very good bill that was introduced by the National Government in 1999 examined by the Health Committee and reported back to this House in 2001. Although we will support the bill we think the Minister owes the House the duty to take it fully through the Supplementary Order Paper. The Labour minority Government should at least pretend that it respects the process of the Committee stage. 
MARK PECK (Labour—Invercargill) 
: 
 I am delighted to stand in support of this bill. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 National and New Zealand First wish to split the next call to have a 5-minute speech each; the first by Mr Dail Jones and the second by Dr Paul Hutchison. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The next call will be split; 5 minutes each and the bell at 5 minutes. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 Thanks to members of the House Mr Tisch and Dr Hutchison for coming to this arrangement. This bill is new to me so I have obviously been spending a little time going over it. I have been trying to come to grips with it and with the 44 pages of Supplementary Order Paper. I asked myself what the process was when the previous bill the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) was considered by the Health Committee. What happened in that select committee and why could this amendment to create a new Act not be sent to the Health Committee? Was it such a long process on the previous occasion? Did the committee spend hours and hours on it? Did it get 360 submissions as we sometimes get in the Justice and Electoral Committee? Will it take weeks for this to be resolved? 
I looked at page 15 of the commentary on the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) and what did I find? The commentary states that the Health Committee received and considered eight submissions from interested groups and individuals. It states: “We heard five submissions orally. Hearing evidence took one hour and five minutes and consideration took eight hours and forty minutes.” There is absolutely no reason why this bill with a Supplementary Order Paper cannot be returned to the Health Committee so that for 1 day interested parties can make a quick comment on this legislation before it is returned to the House. Yet 2½ years or so after it came back to the House we are given a Supplementary Order Paper on the same day as today 21 October and we are told that it must be rushed through the House. What is wrong with the bill going back to the committee so that Associate Professor Warren Brookbanks the National Network of Stopping Violence Services the Auckland City Council the Human Rights Commission the New Zealand Law Society Mrs L D Orr the Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists New Zealand Branch and the Mental Health Commission can have a look at? It will not take long. It is a simple matter and there will be proper consultation. 
We make a mockery of Parliament and we all make fools of ourselves with this type of legislation. It is no wonder parliamentarians have a bad name. It is due to the actions of the minority Labour Government failing to consult the community and being very reticent in consulting the community. Mrs Chadwick can turn up her nose at submissions—she does not want it to go back to the Health Committee. She is not interested. She knows it all. She knows absolutely everything there is to know about this matter. She does not want the advice of people like Associate Professor Warren Brookbanks or the Mental Health Commission. It would take one quick meeting of the Health Committee and the matter would be back in the House within no time at all. Parliament would have done its job and we would have had consultation. 
I seem to recall that once upon a time a Supplementary Order Paper like this would have been out of order. We would never have dreamt of putting a Supplementary Order Paper of 44 pages before the House. It just would not have happened. But today this minority Labour Government has no regard for Parliament or the people of New Zealand. This type of legislation is rammed through under urgency at this hour of the night in the hope that no one notices what is happening. Tomorrow morning or on the following day the people involved in this area will suddenly discover that a bill has been passed—at last for we have heard that this bill seems to have taken about 10 years to get to this stage. If it has taken 10 years altogether then why can it not have 1 day in front of the Health Committee so that people can make submissions on it? 
What does the Supplementary Order Paper actually do? As its explanatory note comments—and the explanatory note takes up barely half a page of its 44 pages—we will now have a new Act called the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act. I am not sure that the term “mentally impaired” was the intention of the select committee. I ask Mrs Chadwick who claims some knowledge of the bill whether she agrees with the comment on page 3 of the commentary on the bill that: “The term ‘mental impairment’ should be left undefined to avoid the possibility of leaving an unintended gap in the legislation”. This legislation seems to be a contradiction of the work she allegedly did in the select committee—that is if she can remember ever doing anything in the select committee other than going along with the Labour Party viewpoint. Why can this bill not go back to the select committee so it can be reminded of what has been involved? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This is a very important bill. I well remember that in 1999 the Health Committee worked very well together and Steve Chadwick pointed that out. However it is a huge anomaly that finally 4 long years later here we are under urgency addressing this very important matter but with no consultation on a Supplementary Order Paper of 44 pages. 
Let us have a look at the commentary in which Mrs Judy Keall had quite a lot to say. She said: “Occasionally Government departments”—and I will add Governments as well—“will propose substantive and significant changes to bills after select committees have finished hearing submissions.” She went on to say: “We disapprove of that practice. Committees are not simply vehicles for Government amendments to legislation: they are committees of Parliament with a duty to scrutinise legislation and provide for public input so that New Zealand is provided with the best legislation possible reflecting a wide range of interests. Our process of select committee scrutiny and consultation is widely recognised as one of the most important aspects of our constitutional framework.” 
Well here is a clear abuse of that process by the Labour Government. No matter what Government members might say about their Supplementary Order Paper it is very unfortunate that it is on a matter as important as this. It relates to distinguishing between those with intellectual impairment and those with mental illness or even distinguishing between those who have a combination of the two. It requires huge skill and a great deal of thought to be able to transfer that into sensible legislation. There was good cooperation 4 years ago and that was great but to suddenly have this Supplementary Order Paper imposed on Parliament under urgency is inappropriate and an example of how this tawdry Labour Government which is becoming more and more arrogant by the day treats such a serious matter. 
Let us look at the Supplementary Order Paper. Apparently the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) is now to be called the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Bill. But if we go down to the fourth part of the explanatory note I see that one of the reasons for the Supplementary Order Paper is to remove the current requirement that persons found unfit to stand trail or who are acquitted on a count of insanity must be remanded to a hospital or facility while inquiries are made to determine how they should be dealt with. Instead of the mandatory remand provisions the Supplementary Order Paper gives the courts the option of remanding such persons on bail. 
 However in deciding whether to grant bail the need to protect the public is “the paramount consideration”. Here we have the Minister of Justice saying quite rightly that the need to protect the public is important but he is also saying that it is “the paramount consideration”. In this circumstance it is not just the need to protect the public; it is the need to ensure that those individuals who might be incarcerated or put into a treatment facility under this bill are indeed appropriately and fairly treated. 
To say that this is “the paramount consideration” where there are clearly balancing and conflicting considerations is quite inappropriate. This is the quality of the Supplementary Order Paper that the Labour Minister of Justice under urgency has put on the Parliament and that is quite wrong. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed. 
Bill to proceed. 
Procedure 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I seek leave that the bill be taken as one question in the Committee stage and that there be one wide-ranging debate. 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Leave has been sought by Mr Tisch. Is there any objection? There appears to be none. 
In Committee 
Clauses 1 to 20 and schedule 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 It is with pleasure that I begin the debate on the Committee stage of the bill. Members will note that the Supplementary Order Paper in the name of the Hon Phil Goff omits from clause 1 the words “Criminal Justice Amendment Act (No 7)” and substitutes the words “Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Act”. That means that this will not be an amendment bill; it will become a separate bill in its own right. 
This bill will be welcomed by judges who have been working under a difficult situation. It amends the principal Act to allow people who are mentally impaired by insanity—by a mental illness—or by intellectual disability the ability to have the defence of being unfit to stand trial on either of those grounds. If that is found and the court is satisfied that the defendant who has been involved in an offence either has a severe mental illness and is insane and therefore is unfit to stand trial or has an intellectual disability that makes that person unaware of the consequences of his or her actions then that person can be found not guilty on those grounds but be placed in an appropriate level of care to protect the community. 
I am very concerned that the proposed amendments to the Criminal Justice Act on the Supplementary Order Paper remove the requirement that persons found unfit to stand trial or acquitted on account of insanity must be remanded to a hospital or facility while inquiries are made to determine how they should be dealt with. That is the way the bill was but it is now to be changed to allow the courts to decide whether to grant bail and whether a person can then go back into community care. 
Understandably the need to protect the public is paramount. However I have immense concerns about this. We have just had the report on the case of Paul Ellis who was considered to have a mental illness. His family approached psychiatrists and doctors for care. He was committed to a hospital to be assessed under the Mental Health (Compulsory Assessment and Treatment) Act but he sought a judicial review. He managed to get that review after only a very few hours in hospital. The doctors had not had time to complete an appropriate assessment so when Mr Ellis came up before the judge he was discharged. The very sad and tragic consequences were that he then attacked and killed his father. 
The amendments on the Supplementary Order Paper allow a judge to discharge somebody or to grant bail and let him or her back into the community before inquiries can be made to determine how he or she should be dealt with. Sometimes that takes time. We know that our facilities are full. We know that we do not have enough resources. Therefore we may not have the beds. If we do not have the beds in say an intellectually disabled care facility that gives 24-hour locked care what will happen? Pressure will be on for those people to go back to their families. That is what we wish to avoid. We want to be able to put people in a situation where a care plan can be made. If someone has an intellectual disability and his or her behaviour deteriorates to the point where he or she ends up before a court due to having broken the law because of assault indecent exposure or other anti-social behaviour then in that situation it can take time to put together an appropriate care plan. Often the social situation can be very difficult with families struggling to cope. If time is given a care plan can be put together. If the situation is rushed that will not happen. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 The Committee stage gives us the opportunity to ask the Minister to explain why with such sensitive legislation as this—when 4 years ago there was clearly cross-party cooperation and collaboration—he has brought the bill in under urgency and also changed some aspects of the care of people affected. It is important that the Minister stands and gives an adequate explanation. 
As I said earlier this bill involves a particularly vulnerable cross-section of New Zealanders. It is absolutely important to get it right. There is no doubt that the judiciary has supported these changes. In fact I note that just recently the  
Dominion Post  
pointed out comments made by one of the judges who very much welcomes that finally something has been done that will save witnesses and juries from the unnecessary anguish of having to consider in detail awful events about which there is no contest on the issue of insanity. He goes on to point out once more that the major decisions were made in 1999 and 2000. 
 There is absolutely no excuse for the Labour Government letting this bill lie for the last 2 to 3 years and now suddenly bringing it in under urgency. As my colleague Dr Lynda Scott was just saying there is an area of considerable concern in the explanatory note to the Supplementary Order Paper. It points out that instead of the mandatory remand provision the Supplementary Order Paper will give the courts the option of remanding such persons on bail. However in deciding whether to grant bail the need to protect the public is the paramount consideration. A fair amount of discretion is being given to the courts in a situation that not only might endanger the public but also might endanger the individual. 
The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists has said that at least two formal psychiatric opinions are needed in terms of assessing. In fact I believe that the bill does not allow for that as being compulsory. It is optional. The other assessor may be a psychologist or other similar health assessor. However clearly this bill allows for a variety of discretions to occur. We now find that on a Supplementary Order Paper brought in under urgency by this Labour Government a substantial change is being made and a substantial concern raised in terms of saying on the one hand that paramount consideration is given to the safety of the public—that is absolutely vital—but on the other hand that the court has the discretion to decide whether someone remains on bail. That is clearly something we hope the Minister will also take a call on. I can see the Minister nodding. I hope he will carefully explain why there has been such a delay in this important bill and also why he has not continued to foster the cross-party support that was enjoyed by all members of the Health Committee some 4 years ago. 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I will respond to the comments made by Dr Hutchison and Dr Scott. First the question has been raised about the length of the Supplementary Order Paper. The Supplementary Order Paper is as long as it is because this new legislation has been recast as a stand-alone Act not as part of the Criminal Justice Act as it was introduced. Therefore most of what is in the Supplementary Order Paper is what is required in order to turn it from an amendment to a bill that is shortly to be totally repealed to a stand-alone Act. So most of this material is purely technical. It is to create it as a stand-alone Act. It makes sense to make it a stand-alone Act and to have a title that better reflects what it does. This is not about criminal justice because this is about people who are deemed to be not responsible for their acts in a criminal sense. 
Secondly we would not want to keep the legislation called the Criminal Justice Act when that Act is about to be repealed. Most of it has already been superseded by the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. I mention the point made about multiparty support. Yes there has been multiparty support and there has been that support in the Chamber tonight. Every party in the Chamber has agreed that this is necessary legislation and will be supporting it. Yes it is important that we get it passed now and therefore I hope that the matter will not be unnecessarily delayed. 
I now want to come to the key point about the mandatory requirement. The original Act has a requirement that the judge must remand the individuals in a hospital or secure facility while inquiries are made about the most suitable method of dealing with them. Clearly in most cases where a person is found unfit to plead or not guilty on the basis of insanity that person will be remanded into some form of secure facility in most cases. But it will not be the case on every occasion that it is necessary to remand a person into a secure facility. In fact the advice I have been given by Crown Law is that by making this mandatory or leaving it mandatory we would very likely contravene section 22 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act under which everyone has the right not to be arbitrarily detained. In most cases the judge will remand the person to a secure facility. But it is always important in our justice system to give a judge discretion so that the law is applied to the situation in the particular case. In every other facet of our justice system we create that form of discretion— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: Oh! 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: —and unless the member believes that a person who patently constitutes no risk at all ought nevertheless to be compulsorily detained when there is no need to do so why would we not want to give the judge discretion? 
But within the context of the discretion we have given a clear direction to the judge that the benefit of the doubt has to be given to the safety of the community. That is why in making the judgment the judge will be required to give paramount consideration to the safety of the community. I think everybody would agree that that is eminently sensible. It is certainly what Crown Law requires. It is certainly what the Human Rights Commission would support and I think that every reasonable person in the House would say that that is sensible. We should err on the side of caution but we should not create a mandatory situation that fails to take into account those situations where a person constitutes no risk and should be able to be remanded on bail into the care of an appropriate person. 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 I know it must be late in the night because clearly the Minister was not even listening to himself as he said that this bill is about people who are not responsible for their criminal acts. So what he is saying is that people who are not responsible for their criminal acts and who may be involved in criminal acts can be possibly let out on bail. When people are involved in criminal acts often very serious ones they should not be let out on bail in the first place. Here we have the situation where a person who is not responsible—which is a polite way of saying that the person is possibly insane—and who has committed a criminal act is to be allowed out on bail. What absolute rubbish! Is this not the same Phil Goff who when he was in Opposition constantly opposed the granting of bail? Did he not time and time again when he was in Opposition say that criminals should not be let out on bail? Now what he is saying is that not only should they be let out on bail but that even if they are criminally insane they should be let out on bail. That is what he is saying. He is giving criminally insane people the opportunity to go out on bail. 
New Zealand First will not be supporting this Supplementary Order Paper. It is absolutely ridiculous. I asked United Future what the Sensible Sentencing Trust would say about this. We are talking about a person who as the Minister himself said in a short speech a few moments ago has committed a criminal act and who is insane and the Minister is going to give that person the opportunity to get bail. That person should not get bail at all. 
The select committee was right when it considered this bill initially and said there should be a mandatory provision of no bail. Is that not what the select committee considered as I understand it? That was the select committee’s original consideration as has been read out by Dr Hutchison in the explanatory note. Instead of the mandatory remand provision the Supplementary Order Paper gives the court the option of remanding such persons on bail. As members of this Chamber we quite often criticise the courts for granting sane people bail. We have been upset and Phil Goff has been upset when visibly sane people have been given bail. Now he is supporting visibly insane people who have committed criminal acts the opportunity to get bail. What absolute ridiculous nonsense on the part of this Minister! It is as simple as that is it not? That is the simple fact of the matter. This Labour Government and this Minister Phil Goff when in Opposition stood here as Labour Opposition members did from time to time and opposed bail. And what was Mr Maharey’s view? It was just that: “Well that was when we were in Opposition.” 
Pansy Wong 
: The ”Maharey principle”. 
DAIL JONES 
: Yes the “Maharey principle” is well and truly in practice tonight. It may be twenty minutes to midnight but here we have the “Maharey principle” in practice. Phil Goff the man who opposed bail left right and centre for all sane people is tonight supporting bail for the insane who have committed criminal acts. What an appalling piece of legislation! 
We in New Zealand First have had enough. Time and time again during this urgency we have been fed 40 30 and again 40 pages of Supplementary Order Papers in respect of the Retirement Villages Bill and other legislation that we have been considering right throughout this urgency. Well this is it. We have cooperated until now to a large extent. We have voted I think for just about every bill we have had under this urgency but we cannot support this one. This legislation is itself just about insane because it supports allowing the insane people who have committed criminal acts to be let out on bail. 
I am sure the doctors in this Chamber will not like me using the word “insane” but I am a New Zealand First member and a lawyer and I call an insane person an insane person. I do not come up with fancy phrases about people not being responsible for their criminal acts. Let us call a spade a spade and an insane person an insane person. For a Minister of Justice to support people who in his own words are not responsible for their criminal acts to be given bail—well what more can one say? 
This Supplementary Order Paper must go back to the select committee. It took only one hour on the previous occasion for the select committee to consider it. Can we not send it back to the select committee and give it at least another hour so that people can make comments on it? I am sure it will come back in less than an hour with the mandatory provision once again reinstated. What does Mrs Steve Chadwick have to say about this? This is clearly not her bill. I expect her to stand up in this Committee and say why she supports insane people getting bail. 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I would like to start where the previous speaker left off. The ACT party too has had quite enough of a lack of democracy—a lack of scrutiny—with this legislation. The Minister stood up before and said that his 44-page Supplementary Order Paper was necessary to the bill and that it contained just minor changes. Why is it 44 pages long if it contains just minor changes? There has been no scrutiny of those changes at all. 
The Minister complimented the Health Committee on its fine very thorough work on the bill. I would like to read out a piece from page 12 of the commentary on the bill as it was reported back. It states: “Occasionally Government departments will propose substantive and significant changes to bills after select committees have finished hearing submissions. We disapprove of that practice.” 
The committee stated that it disapproved of that practice yet the Minister congratulated it on its work then still put forward a 44-page Supplementary Order Paper. The commentary goes on to state: “Committees are not simply vehicles for Government amendments to legislation:”—and ACT New Zealand would agree with that—“they are committees of Parliament with a duty to scrutinise legislation and provide for public input so that New Zealand is provided with the best legislation possible …”. 
I recently attended a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association seminar and was asked to present on the select committee process in New Zealand. I must say that the other delegates from around the Commonwealth were impressed with our select committee process. They were very much in favour of the cross-party support that is often gained from that process and they were also very impressed with the amount of public scrutiny our bills receive. Because of those very things I felt very proud of our select committee process when I was there. I think those delegates would be appalled if I turned up today and said: “Well actually since I spoke to you the Government has done nothing but put up hefty Supplementary Order Papers to Government bills that do not receive scrutiny from the members of select committees or from the public. That is clearly wrong as the commentary on the bill as reported from the Health Committee states. 
Like New Zealand First we in the ACT party are saying that enough is enough. We will no longer support this Supplementary Order Paper. We were very happy to support the bill which has very sensible measures in it but we will not put up with the lack of democracy and scrutiny that is becoming a habit with this Government. It is not good enough. 
Mr Goff says the Supplementary Order Paper does not contain anything controversial yet if we look at the explanatory note on the back page of it we see in the bottom bullet point—and the National Party has mentioned this as did the New Zealand First speaker who spoke before me—“Instead of the mandatory remand provision”— 
Hon Chris Carter 
: What about Donna? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Perhaps that member on the Labour side would like to stand up and take a call—although that would prolong the process that those members are trying to shut down. They do not want to see democracy or scrutiny in this country. They will not stand up and argue this issue properly. Instead they just hurl abuse across the Chamber. Where does that get us? I ask Mr Carter what he thinks the people of New Zealand think of that. I suspect they think very little of those tactics. 
I come back to the bill and the quotation from the Supplementary Order Paper’s explanatory note: “Instead of the mandatory remand provision”—and there is a blatant conflict here—“the Supplementary Order Paper”— 
David Benson-Pope 
: What about Mainframe? 
HEATHER ROY 
: Mr Benson-Pope wants to have a go now—not in his own time but in other members’ time. Perhaps he would like to read the Supplementary Order Paper. Maybe he has not had the opportunity to do that either because it did not come out until yesterday—despite the fact that the Government has had 4 years to bring it to the attention of the New Zealand public and to the members of the Health Committee. They should be given the opportunity now to look at the Supplementary Order Paper in some detail so that it can be scrutinised as it should be. 
I go back to quoting from the explanatory note on the Supplementary Order Paper. Government members do not want to hear this because they know they are wrong. If they were at all worried they would listen. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I was delighted to hear Dr Paul Hutchison Dr Lynda Scott Mr Dail Jones and my colleague Heather Roy finally say that it is almost irrelevant what the Minister thinks he has provided in the Supplementary Order Papers we have had during this urgency. We have had page after page of amendments in Supplementary Order Papers that have been dropped on Parliament without members being provided with any adequate explanatory notes or explanation as to why they were so late. Members of Parliament are being expected to push provisions through in 1 day the real import of which they could have absolutely no knowledge. We cannot have any understanding of them and I believe I am a reasonable reader of legislation. We cannot know the effect of these pages of amendments on Supplementary Order Paper 161. 
It may well be that all of the parties on this side think this is good law that should be put through but it would be utterly irresponsible to vote for it. It would be utterly irresponsible for Parliament to continue to connive with a Government that is so incompetent that after 4 years it has to dump this material on it in urgency expect us to vote for it and for the people of New Zealand to respect Parliament while it happens. This Minister is utterly incompetent. 
The last time the Minister in the chair Phil Goff did this he got caught. He dumped a Supplementary Order Paper on the House in respect of the Victims Rights’ Bill that utterly gutted the way burglaries were prosecuted. The Minister is sitting in the chair pretending he cannot hear but the Government dumped on Parliament a Supplementary Order Paper that reversed the effect of a unanimous select committee change to the Victims’ Rights Bill that allowed the police to at least tell the court the address of a burglary. No this Minister knew better. He did not consult the select committee or his own members. He dumped a Supplementary Order Paper on us and he pushed it through. What happened? Suddenly there were 60000 prosecutions where the police were not allowed to tell the court the address of the victims. 
Would Mr Goff care to comment on just how much that has cost the country? The last time he tried to ram a Supplementary Order Paper through in these circumstances without Parliament being able to know what was going on it meant that in 60000 burglary prosecutions there was a need—at an estimate about an hour extra in procedure—to explain to the court what they were doing. What was the explanation for that? Oh it was that the officials and Mr Goff knew better than the select committee so they just changed it back to what they had before the committee had considered it. Let us put it into a great fat Supplementary Order Paper that no one understands and push it through! But the Minister is begging us to allow the fix-up to go into the Statutes Amendment Bill. 
Now we have silence on the other side of the Chamber. Now we have the three musketeers sitting there—one of them with his hand over his face. Of course it is embarrassing! 
Hon Rick Barker 
: This is so funny. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: It is not funny when the member has to sit there in embarrassment with his hand over his mouth because he knows that these kinds of Supplementary Order Papers have got Mr Goff into trouble and when this side of the House finally says: “Enough is enough. We’re not going to tolerate any more of this kind of Supplementary Order Paper.” Whatever the merits of the bill we will not rubber-stamp legislation that the Minister has not explained. We will not vote for it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: There will be fewer interjections from the Government benches. They are not making any sense. If there are interjections they need to be relevant to the issue before us. [ 
Interruption 
] I do not need any argument. I am here you are there; I hear you. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I believe that the broadcasting of Parliament saves those people from a little bit of public disclosure of just how bereft they are. Faced in this Committee stage with 10 pages of material that they have not seen but are expected to vote on—material that they do not understand and that this side of the Chamber certainly cannot understand—all they can do is yell and then cover their mouths with embarrassment when the consequences of the last time this Minister did that are pointed out. 
The Minister in the chair could perhaps explain just why this is so urgent that none of it was disclosed to the members of the committee before. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 I know it is very late at night and all of us would rather be home. However here we are debating the Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) which is about to be turned into separate legislation by the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper—that is the Criminal Procedure (Mentally Impaired Persons) Bill. There is one part of this Supplementary Order Paper that we do not like and it is having 44 pages dropped in the House the day before this debate. None of us have had a look at it. How many times have we seen this type of behaviour before? 
Problems occur when those on the select committee the public out there plus those who work in the particular industries have not had time to scrutinise the Supplementary Order Paper. This is all about looking after people who have an intellectual disability or mental illness and when found to be insane or unfit to plead will be released on bail. How many psychiatrists have had a look at these changes? How many people who work in the area have had time to look at them? Probably none because certainly no members of the Health Committee have had time to look at them. It is absolutely unacceptable that this Government should be trying to rush them through the House when no one has had a look at them. 
The explanatory note to the bill talks about the court having the option of remanding persons on bail in the community or deciding whether they have to go into a secure facility. That is a major change and it is in clause 23 “Court orders”. The Minister said there was no risk. How can he possibly say that when we are talking about a person who has been found unfit to stand trial because he or she has been determined to be insane or unfit to plead? If that were the case surely those people should then be in a secure facility until they can be appropriately assessed and placement made in an appropriate facility? Whether or not those individuals are clinically insane due to a mental illness they should go into a secure forensic facility so that they can get appropriate treatment and an appropriate care plan. If it happens to be somebody who has an intellectual disability and therefore does not understand his or her offending does not understand the social consequences cannot take responsibility for the criminal act in which he or she has engaged that person also needs to be in a secure facility with access to an appropriate care plan. 
With this Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) and the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill National put its money where its mouth was. It put in $18 million to set up facilities that could care for people with an intellectual disability who come before the courts who actually are in a position to not be able to take responsibility for a criminal act and therefore need secure care. It is just beyond me how the Minister can stand there and say that there is no risk. Why was that person before the courts if there was no risk? One does not come before the courts unless there is some act that breaks the law. 
We will not be supporting this bill and that is unfortunate but the Supplementary Order Paper cannot be supported. In the select committee we worked so well together on the original Criminal Justice Amendment Bill (No 7) to try to get a good piece of legislation that would deliver for New Zealand. We had discussions about the two levels of offending and about the definition of health assessors. This was quite a debate because it determined whether one needed to have a psychiatrist decide mental illness and intellectual disability or whether psychologists could do the job. The Royal Australasian College of Psychiatrists submitted that assessment reports should be from psychiatrists if the issue was one of mental illness and psychologists or other experts if the issue was intellectual disability. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 It is getting close to the midnight run for sure. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: It’s fantastic to have you here. Great speaker from the National Party! 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I failed to hear what the member said. There was a considerable amount of verbal—I note it is getting late. 
Hon Rick Barker 
: I just said it’s fantastic to have you here. Great speaker from National! 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: The member is recognising the clarity and excellence of this speech and it will be directed towards the Minister of Justice who in dealing with this bill has miserably failed the parliamentary process. I called for him to make an explanation why a bill so sensitive and so important as this where there has been cross-party collaboration has been brought in by him 3 years later under urgency and without any explanation. That is clearly an abuse of parliamentary process and it has been carried out by of all people the Minister of Justice! He has failed to explain why he has done that and I would call on him to do precisely that. As Mr Franks pointed out just a few moments ago this is the third time in the last 24 or 48 hours where this Labour Government has just continued to abuse process. 
It was absolutely fascinating to see that commentary which was influenced so much by Judy Keall who used to be here. She said: “Occasionally Government departments will propose substantive and significant changes to bills after select committees have finished hearing submissions. We disapprove of that practice.” Here we have this crucially important bill dealing with— 
Ron Mark 
: Who said that? 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: It is in the commentary of the select committee on this very bill. Here we are 3 years later and none other than the Minister of Justice of this tawdry Labour Government abuses the process. 
Sitting suspended from midnight to 9 a.m. (Thursday)