Upston LouiseHon LOUISE UPSTON (National—Taupō): Madam Assistant Speaker I want to rise and stand in support of my colleague Brett Hudson and his member's bill that is the Social Security (Stopping Benefit Payments for Offenders—and I want to say who Repeatedly Fail to Comply"—with Community Sentences) Amendment Bill. And for the member that has just resumed his seat Peeni Henare I think that is the key part that he seems to conveniently have forgotten.In the bill immediately preceding this one of the other Labour members talked about the fact there is an expectation that offenders are held to account for their crimes. So this bill is not a bill about suitable sentences; this is about dealing with those who have been sentenced by the court and who repeatedly—repeatedly—fail to comply with the community sentence. So the speaker that just spoke before me completely missed the point in terms of what this bill is and I want to provide a bit of context for this.New Zealand actually uses community sentences more than most other jurisdictions around the world and members opposite should be pleased about that fact because it is before incarceration. It's an important step and as Brett Hudson very clearly stated in his speech one of the ramifications for people not being supported to comply with their sentences—one of the ramifications is that they could end up being incarcerated. I would have thought that side of the House wants to avoid that. I'm really hoping—and the New Zealand First member Darroch Ball is shaking his head. I was shocked that New Zealand First didn't support this bill really shocked because I thought New Zealand First were a party that supported the delivery of law and order. The delivery of law and order is offenders being held to account.Darroch Ball: That's right. They should be going back to court. Why are you giving them an extra cushion?Hon LOUISE UPSTON: So the New Zealand First member would like to see more of these people that are on community sentences currently going back to court and going to prison.Darroch Ball: Recidivist offenders. You can't have it both ways.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: Well actually I disagree with you and I want to talk—the community probation staff of the Department of Corrections do an extraordinary role with these offenders. I do agree with the speaker before me; some of them have quite complex issues and community corrections do an extraordinary job with these offenders. There are 27000 offenders a year on some form of community sentence right. So for those people they want to support them in complying with their sentence so that the sentence is done and dusted and they are never seen again. That is the intent.Unfortunately there are some people who are frequent flyers who do not comply with the obligations that are set down by the court and that taxpayers expect the offenders to deliver. That's the guts of this bill and the opposition seem to have completely lost the point. These are people that have been sentenced. These are about ensuring that people who are sentenced fulfil their obligations comply with their sentences. And when the officials were before us they said it's a tool in their tool box—they don't have to use it and in many cases they wouldn't use it particularly if there are children in the household—and again that point seems to have escaped the Government member who spoke before me.This is about ensuring that offenders who have committed crimes of a variety of natures are stopped in their tracks and we stop them and get them out of the justice system instead of progressing them through. As my colleague said 1300 offences against justice. We want to keep them out of prison. It's interesting some of the other comments that have been made by the other side in this debate and the one prior about rehabilitation. Well if the Government was serious about rehabilitation in the first corrections bill they introduced into this House they would not have scrapped the requirement for rehabilitation in that bill. It's outrageous that it was scrapped.Hon Member: It was rubbish.Hon LOUISE UPSTON: I was in charge of it at the time; I know it was in there. I'm shocked that a Government that proposes to be trying to reduce the prison population would scrap the one thing that makes an enormous difference—yes to the lives of people who have challenges. They don't care. They're going to go back on what they did in their nine years where the prison population increased at a faster rate than the last nine years and they want to lock them up and throw away the key. This is the tool they could use to stop people getting into prison and they're not going take it."