Barker Rick: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Barker Rick: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21000] 
Hon RICK BARKER (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Part 3 is a consequential part. It amends the legal services provisions to ensure that people have access to legal services and it puts caps on them. The second important aspect and this was raised in part by Stephen Franks is that it alters the statute of limitations and suspends it so there is a much longer period in which people can make a civil claim. 
Brian Connell 
: Yeah right! 
Hon RICK BARKER 
: If Mr Connell reads it he will see that it does exactly that. And it does that for a number of reasons. It will strengthen the rights of victims to sue which will be a very valuable tool in the future. Mr Franks says that in terms of claims the bill does not cover windfall gains that a person might get by virtue of Lotto or writing a book. We do not have to mention that. The statute of limitations is extended so if a prisoner at the end of a 20-year sentence for example writes a book and gets a substantial amount of money for it then the way is still open for the victim to sue for compensation as a civil matter. If victims wish to do that they will be able to do so. Without this amendment they would not be able to sue because there is a limitation on the time in which to sue. If Mr Connell was on the side of victims he would support this extension because it improves their powers. [ 
Interruption 
] But as someone on this side of the Chamber has said he is not quite that bright. 
The second thing the bill does is amend the Victims’ Rights Act to ensure that the secretary is able to identify the victims. Gerry Brownlee asked who the secretary was. It is the Secretary for Justice; it is defined in the legislation. The hard-working deputy leader of the National Party has spotted that in clause 62 we are deleting “2001” and substituting “2001”. On the surface that seemed a very good argument that the amendment was foolish but in fact the amendment is very pertinent. That member has missed a full stop. We are taking out “2001.” and inserting “2001” without a full stop. Without this grammatical change the clause would make no sense. It is a very important grammatical change. As I am sure Mr Dail Jones would say it needs to be done. The grammar has to be correct does it not? 
Mr Peter Brown raised the prospect as Opposition parties do—they try to raise all sorts of dire prospects of doom and gloom—that we would open the way to suing for accident compensation payments. The second thing Peter Brown said is that the Government gives prisoners money. The court gives them that money. Peter Brown knows very well that it is an order of the court not a Government decision. I come back to the point that the reason the court can do this is that in 1994—when Tony Ryall who has not taken a call in this debate was in Government—we had the  
Baigent 
 decision in which a person who sued the Crown for a breach of human rights was awarded compensation. The then National Government decided that that was OK; it had no objection to that at all. I notice that Mr Tony Ryall has not stood up in this debate and denied it. The National Party did nothing about that ruling. Nor did New Zealand First when it was in power with the National Party. 
I want to make a further point concerning the claim that has been made in this debate about compensation. Under the regime endorsed by the previous National Government a prisoner who claimed that he or she had suffered some breach of human rights could hold the matter over and do nothing about it at the time and could sue for compensation some time later—go all round the board land on “Go” and try to get $200. This legislation will stop that because it will require the prisoner to have exhausted all remedies and avenues before filing for compensation or going to court. 
The second thing that will happen as we have made very clear is that the Government will establish an independent prison complaints authority. This is quite different from the issue raised by Peter Brown about the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman does not have the sort of investigative powers that we would like a prison complaints authority to have. We want an independent prison complaints authority—one that has strength and teeth so that if someone feels aggrieved he or she can write to the authority directly and have the matter resolved at that point. If processes are not working well we want them fixed at the point at which they occur. This Government is committed to fixing the problem where it starts. Unlike the previous National Government which did nothing to fix this problem from 1994 onwards we will fix it. We will have an independent complaints authority to inspect prisons to make sure that such problems do not occur. 
I want to come back to Marc Alexander who talks about a moratorium. Even if this Committee agreed with his proposal about a moratorium as he has written it the people who currently have an award for compensation by the court would not be captured by it. If the Court of Appeal upheld the decision the money would have to be paid out. So the objective of that member—to stop the compensation being awarded to Mr Taunoa and others—would not be achieved. This legislation will ensure that if the court decides to uphold the award of compensation then the money will go into this process and will be available to victims. I would have thought that Mr Alexander would support that. So this bill is in fact a more effective vehicle although it does not have the simplicity Mr Alexander claims his proposal has. 
I finish by saying that this bill does strengthen victims’ rights despite the comments of the Opposition. It strengthens victims’ rights and ensures that we can hold our heads up in any forum and say that we have done the right thing. Firstly we will do so by having a stronger prisons inspectorate. More important this Government has made a commitment to undertake an inquiry to see how we can better support victims—how we can provide them with the necessary support and so on that one would expect for them. This will be a very complex issue. There is no simple easy answer. But I want to say that no previous Government has ever attempted to do find one. This Government is prepared to do it. We will do the job very well and we will be here after the election to make sure it happens.