King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:528] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I thank the Minister of Justice for taking one of what will be quite a number of calls I hope to answer questions put to him by members on this side of the Chamber and by the Green Party. I hope that David Garrett takes a call; I am quite enjoying his contribution here today. I believe that he is probably his own man but he might have some questions he would like to put to the Minister. He may even have some luck in getting some answers to them. 
I say to the Minister that he is certainly being a better role model than his colleague Kate Wilkinson who failed to get out of her chair hour after hour to answer questions. I think it is probably because the Minister knows that when a bill is taken through the House under urgency where there is no scrutiny then it is important that the members of this House have the opportunity to question the Minister and to get answers. 
One of the answers the Minister gave was I think partially in response to the question I asked: would he please define for Parliament and for New Zealanders how the community’s safety would be measured? The Minister said that the bill sends a message. But I say to the Minister that I do not think it is good enough for the bill just to send a message. I remember Clem Simich whom I am very very fond of say in 1993 that he would take a message to Parliament and 15 years later we still had not had the message even by the time he left. So for the Minister to say that the bill is sending a message is not a strong enough reason to have brought in this bill under urgency. I ask the Minister to tell us how we will measure the success of this bill because his members have been programmed to say that when it passes the community “will be safer” not “may be safer”. Examples have been given of how it will be safer; most of them did not relate at all to the bail Act changes. But National members have put those reasons up so I have to assume that the Minister or the research unit gave them the information or that it is what they said on the campaign trail. I believe that the Minister needs to tell this House and New Zealanders how we will be able to measure whether the community is safer because this bill will be passed by Monday. 
I also ask the Minister to table for us the advice he got from the Law Society the judges the Police Prosecution Service and the Police Association saying that the changes to the Bail Act in 2007 “have made it easier for defendants to get bail.” I have not seen the advice but it is quoted in the explanatory note on the bill. What I have seen and what I do have are the comments made by Jonathan Krebs on  
Close Up 
 on 19 November 2007. I do have that verbatim. He said: “The threshold of the bail test has been reduced a little bit.” That is different from what the Minister said that Jonathan Krebs had said so I would like the Minister to table that information. We will not be able to question the Law Society the Police Prosecution Service the judges or the Police Association because there is no select committee ability to do that. Therefore to back up what is written in the bill I think it is important that that advice to the Minister is tabled in this Parliament. I have only what is in front of me but the Minister obviously has more. 
I am not at all surprised at the Police Association. I understand the police. The police in most cases oppose bail; that is part of their job. They have gone out and done the hard graft. They have found somebody whom they believe is responsible for the crime and they are very determined to get that person into court. So I understand where the Police Association comes from but I have not seen that advice provided. I ask the Minister whether it is possible for him to table that information today or is it a collection of things sent to him that are hear say and not actually fact? I think that is important because in effect this will become our submission. The basis of the change that the Minister is making today according to the explanatory note is because of those comments made by those people.