Davis KelvinKELVIN DAVIS (Labour—Te Tai Tokerau): Let us just revisit the genesis of this bill. As the member who just sat down Ian McKelvie said it is the bill with a very long name. Phillip Traynor Smith or Phillip John Traynor—oh bro he had all these aliases anyway. He was released from prison over a weekend. He was going to be out of the prison for some 72 hours. Within 8 hours of his release from prison he was on a plane to Chile. I guess that plane flight would have taken some 12 or 13 or 14 hours. He would have landed in Chile. He then caught another plane I assume and got to Brazil.His downfall I believe was his ego. He could not resist when he was in Brazil actually emailing back to New Zealand—I think it was to his lawyer—and his lawyer went to the media and so people knew he was in Brazil. If he had not done that then there would have been nobody in Brazil keeping an eye out. It just so happened that some fellow backpacker in some hostel somewhere whose attention would have been raised by the news story of this New Zealander absconding to Brazil actually happened to see him there and alerted the authorities. So if his ego had not got the best of him he could well be hiking the Inca Trail right now or be in Copacabana enjoying a cocktail and the sights of Brazil or a steak in Buenos Aires. Anything could have happened. Fortunately he was picked up and returned to New Zealand but we have to look at why he was able to do this in the first place.I disagree with Jonathan Young who said that this is a case of identity fraud. It was not identity fraud because he actually got a passport under his own name. It was a name he had not used since he was a child. His journey through the justice system was under an alias—another name that he used. The actual obtaining of a passport was actually done I believe legitimately under a name that he had not used for some years.Where the system let everyone down was that there was not this information sharing that we have been talking about. There was no information sharing between the Department of Internal Affairs and Corrections there was no information sharing between Corrections and Customs there was no information sharing across a number of Government agencies and that is one of the areas where the whole system broke down and allowed Phillip Traynor—whatever his name is—Phillip John Traynor to abscond.Having said that we just need to read a report from the New Zealand Herald which said: The escape could have been thwarted before it even began if Corrections had simply checked with Smith's nominated sponsor that the prisoner was expected to stay with him overnight." Corrections has a lot to answer for in this whole episode. " 'The sponsor in fact knew nothing of the release and would certainly have said so if asked' … There were shortcomings in various agencies systems and processes as well as simple failings that acted as 'links in a chain' in their failure to prevent Smith's escape"—that is very true. There were a number of systemic failures all links in the chain and if any one of them had been addressed or looked at previously then Phillip Smith would not have actually been able to do what he did. Even when it became obvious that the guy had absconded Corrections was pretty slow in doing what it needed to do. It should have alerted Interpol a lot more quickly; it did not. The police were not alerted until the day after Corrections realised that he was not back in prison where he should have been. So it was a systemic failure and this bill is seeking to address some of those failures.I do though take issue with our colleagues from the Green Party. I do not believe this is overreach for the very reasons that members have said. The crimes that Phillip Smith committed—i.e. child abuse sexual abuse child sexual abuse and the murder of his victims' father—are serious crimes and what he did was expose a loophole in the system. It is only appropriate that Parliament moves to close that loophole so that other people cannot do what he did. There were poor checks and balances from Corrections and there were systemic breakdowns from a number of Government agencies all of which led to him heading off overseas.As Peeni Henare said the collection of biometric information is not something in the future; it is happening right here and now. Biometric information includes the taking of photos. Well you know photographs have been around for a hundred and something years. The taking of fingerprints was one of the first detective tools. It was a great leap in the 1800s but it is not terribly innovative these days. Iris scans—OK that is something different but I think I saw a movie about 15 years ago where somebody had their iris scanned to get into some nuclear plant or whatever. What is the difference between taking an iris scan and say a doctor taking a mole map of your back? It is all just taking basically scans of photos. It is nothing actually particularly new or innovative. The taking of measurements I assume height and palm-prints maybe—there is nothing really overreaching when we talk about the taking of biometric information.I do agree with Marama Davidson though—her comment that Māori are overrepresented in the justice system. I agree with that. I do not think though that taking biometric information from Māori is really that much of an issue. Fingerprints and iris scans and your height—that is nothing. I do not think there is anything racist in that. It applies to everybody equally. So biometric data is in the here and now.In terms of some parts of this bill an accessing agency—so an accessing agency is an agency that takes the identity information—the Minister must be satisfied that the biometric information is being taken for the purpose that it is needed for and the purpose must relate to the role of that particular agency. So we are not talking about wholesale gathering of illicit information on people here. It is just common-sense stuff to keep New Zealanders safe.The information to be accessed is to be no more than is necessary to fulfil the purpose that the agency needs it for. Reasonable force may be used to compel somebody to give the information—that is a bit vague. What is the definition of "reasonable force"? I would like to think in this instance that reasonable force for the big burly tattooed bloke is not going to be that much greater than is taken for a skinny weedy guy like my colleague Stuart Nash here.Hon Members: Or Todd Barclay.KELVIN DAVIS: Ha! Something that we need to mindful of though is that if any information is collected from somebody who in the future is acquitted of anything they are accused of there are checks and balances to make sure that that information is destroyed so if that person is totally innocent it cannot be used against them later on.Just with that I do not think this is an overreach; I think this is plugging up a loophole that was created. We should probably be grateful to Phillip John Traynor/Smith—however many other names he goes under—for highlighting this and showing us that there was this loophole. The loophole has been closed. I think Corrections though needs to take notice that it had some failings in the whole process. Thank you."