Faafoi Kris: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Faafoi Kris: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 02 May 2012. Volume:679;Page:1902. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KRIS FAAFOI (Labour—Mana) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker for allowing me the chance to speak to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ (Claims 2012 Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill.  
I would like to first of all address the mechanics of the primary legislation which was passed in 2005 under the Hon Phil Goff. As has been said by a number of our speakers from the Labour Party we will be supporting this bill because it is a mere extension of some measures that are in the Act that have a sunset clause and we are extending that sunset clause from 1 July 2012 to 1 July 2013 to ensure that victims of crime will still have the avenue of claiming compensation from inmates who have been mistreated while serving a custodial sentence.  
I do agree with Phil Goff—and who would not—who said at the time that the principal legislation was passed that most people believe it is wrong that offenders should be compensated for wrongful treatment but in turn are not required to pay restitution to the victims they harmed. I think from the tenor of the debate right around the House most of the MPs in Parliament agree with that. I also agree with and acknowledge the contributions from Denis O’Rourke from New Zealand First and the Hon Phil Goff in that I do think it is time for a relatively mature debate around this issue. From the instances that we heard from Phil Goff the debate was not so mature and probably a little political back in 2005.  
So allow me to get a little political. We heard from Tim Macindoe earlier on that this bill was an interim measure because there is some legislation that hopes to make the measures in the 2005 legislation much more permanent. I need to ask the question why we have not had a review when it was stated back in 2005 that we were going to have a review and given the fact that we have to be in the House using the time of this House and the resources of this House to bring in an interim measure when something is going to be passed this time next year. One has to wonder why that might be and one might come to the conclusion that it is because this Government has become slightly sidetracked as of late by various scandals and has been a little bit mired in controversy.  
Darien Fenton 
: Which one?  
KRIS FAAFOI 
: Which one? If you want me to get specific I might just talk about why we have not had a review or why we have not had a permanent solution to what we are doing at the moment. We could mention the Banks scandal we could mention the mess that ACC is in or we could mention Dr Nick Smith. But as I said earlier on we have to have a mature debate around this. We do hope that over the time that this bill is being debated we could mention those things. But when we go through the stages of this bill we will be able to make sure that there are some solid interim measures to make sure that if there are people out there who believe they have a claim to some compensation from an inmate—and as we heard earlier there was only one case that was discovered by the Green Party in the last maybe 3 or 4 years—we have some measures to ensure that they can get some compensation.  
The Act was obviously passed under Labour so that is why we support the bulk of the bill. But as I said at the beginning of my contribution we do have some problems as to how we have arrived at this stage of looking for an interim fix and also why we have not had a review and also why we do not have a permanent solution.