Dean Jacqui: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee[Sitting date: 17 November 2015. Volume:710;Page:8040. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): It is my pleasure to speak to the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Bill throughout the course of today. First of all before I address the bill a question was raised quite rightly that in the bill provisions around the reintegration of returning offenders who will be subject to conditions under this legislation are not noted in the bill. As my colleague in front of me Jono Naylor points out no it is not in the bill and in fact that is not normally in the bill.This Government has a very strong work programme under way traversing a number of relevant Government agencies involved in offender rehabilitation: New Zealand Police the Department of Corrections Immigration New Zealand the Customs Service the Ministry of Justice the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade the Ministry of Health and also the Ministry of Social Development. Those agencies are working together—and have been for some time—to ensure that we are ready to support monitor and begin the reintegration of these offenders upon their return to New Zealand. So it is this Government’s priority in fact to ensure that there are plans in place for these individuals who are being returned to New Zealand and who will be subject to the orders that are passed in this bill with a focus on reintegration but also keeping our communities safe. That is entirely consistent and in line with a number of pieces of legislation that have fairly recently gone through this House such as the orders mentioned by a previous speaker.On the extended supervision orders perhaps a point around the context of this bill that I want to make is that this Parliament did put through extended supervision orders which came into being in December and also public protection orders for those offenders who did not commit their crime in New Zealand. But in the absence of an information-sharing agreement it was not possible at that time to extend parole conditions and supervision conditions or orders against offenders who committed their crimes outside of New Zealand. We were simply unable to craft up a regime for monitoring and rehabilitating offenders in the absence of an information-sharing agreement. That was completed in February of this year and here we are in November with the bill before the House.Although the gap between February and mid-November might seem a long period to traverse in fact an awful lot of work has been under way to put a system in order that will cater for those people who are increasingly being returned to New Zealand many of whom are coming from Australia due to a change in its internal legislation with changes to its migration legislation. The register that is being brought about in this legislation to track offenders and information-sharing arrangements with Australia will give us the detailed information that we need and puts the New Zealand Government the Department of Corrections police and everyone else in a better position to properly assess and to monitor these offenders returning to New Zealand.We still need all criminals being returned to New Zealand to be subject to the same form of oversight as New Zealanders when they complete their term of imprisonment for a similar prison sentence. So this bill implements a regime a supervision regime to cover the gap. There are three key aspects in this bill. The first aspect is to allow police to compel returning offenders to provide information—so that is their name their date of birth their fingerprints and in some cases a DNA sample. Previously police could ask but there was no degree of compulsion. Secondly there will be standard monitoring and supervision conditions that are automatically imposed on eligible returning offenders. So they are pretty standard and will apply to all eligible returning offenders. Thirdly there will be new powers through the auspices of the District Court to impose special conditions. Those special conditions will be restrictions for example on not residing near a school or not residing near a day-care centre or something like that. Orders can also be subject to electronic monitoring. There will be further interventions today on this bill and I will leave my contribution there. Thank you.