Bakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBakshi Kanwaljit Singh: Drug and Alcohol Testing of Community-based Offenders and Bailees Legislation Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 26 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:2022. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI (National): Thank you for the opportunity to speak on this bill. First of all I would like to congratulate the Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga on introducing this bill. Drugs and alcohol are a very important part of our lives. Studies done on this show that one of the biggest reasons behind crime is drugs and alcohol. The irony is that we are going through a petition in the Law and Order Committee where the petitioner has requested that we legalise cannabis. This Government is really focused on reducing the use of alcohol and drugs and there are some people who want other drugs to be legalised which I do not think this National Government will support in any manner.This bill is a very important tool that we are going to provide to corrections officers and the police that will help to monitor offenders on whether their bail conditions are being breached or not. It is very important that we have the tools. In the past 6 or 7 years this Government has really focused on providing tools to the police and to the judiciary so that we can reduce crime in this country. Crime is one thing that makes people feel unsafe. As I said in one of the speeches yesterday on the Parole Amendment Bill people are now feeling safe in their homes they are feeling safe on the streets and they are feeling safe in their businesses. That is what people want from a Government and this Government in the past 6 or 7 years has provided tools to the judiciary and to the police so that we can reduce crime. Crime is the lowest since 1978 which means a lot to the people. It has given a lot of confidence and people are feeling happy about it.I have got little doubt that the National Government has always endeavoured to make communities stronger and safer by focusing its investment on the sectors like rehabilitation education and improving the profile of prisoners. Right now we have got three prisons that are called working prisons where the prisoners are being trained in different sectors so that they can have some kind of trade training before they go back into the community. Once they are back in the community they have got confidence that they can work they can integrate into the community and people can be safe and be protected from their past. People have to think about this thing—the past which they have to forget—and look forward to the future. It is great to see more and more people who earlier may not have had clarity on their pathway through their life leaving prison and being able now to think about their future about their families and about their children.I do not think that any offender would like to go back to jail or to prison or reoffend and that is the reason reoffending is also coming down with time. As the Minister mentioned in his speech the Department of Corrections is working very hard to make sure that the reoffending rate is coming down. The Prime Minister has set targets for Better Public Services and we have set a target for reoffending to be reduced by 25 percent by 2017. When we were having a financial review yesterday at the Law and Order Committee the Department of Corrections was very confident that it will be working towards this target so that we can achieve it in days to come.The investment in the future of prisoners is an investment for New Zealand’s future. We want to ensure that people who are working are feeling safe and this bill—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I am now going to invite the member in the second half of his speech—he was really good for about 2 minutes—to now address the bill not post-release which is nothing to do with the bill.KANWALJIT SINGH BAKSHI: This bill will give rights to the police and the Department of Corrections to try to ensure that offenders and bailees comply with their drug and alcohol conditions. They can test them but this bill does not provide that they should breach their privacy. Police and corrections officers should make sure that privacy is maintained and that it is not quite often that they go and test offenders. They have to ensure that what they are doing is not breaching any privacy and that the offender is not being harassed because of this. Current legislation does not give any clarity or any authority to police or corrections officers to do these kinds of tests but this bill will help in putting up a legislative basis for the testing and the monitoring of the bailees and the community-based offenders with drug and alcohol conditions.It requires all the bailees and the community-based offenders who are subject to the drug and alcohol abstention conditions imposed by the court or Parole Board to undergo alcohol and drug testing and to submit to continuous monitoring if directed by the police or the Department of Corrections. The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections and the Commissioner of Police will have this authority to have the testing methods and procedures set up for offenders. This is another tool that we are going to provide to the judiciary. It will help to reduce crime and reoffending further and I hope that it will go a long way towards the security of people. I commend this bill to the House.