Clendon David; Tisch LindsayDAVID CLENDON (Green): I would just like to begin in the spirit of goodwill engendered by my colleague Jan Logie. In that spirit I have tried very hard to find something good to say about this bill. It has not been easy but I have managed it. This bill does identify a problem. That is its one redeeming feature. We do have a problem with non-compliance with community work orders. However this bill is so far from being a solution that it cannot even see it over the horizon. Sadly it has identified a problem and come up with utterly the wrong response to that problem.I would pose a question. There is some irony in the fact that we are talking about giving the Department of Corrections an authority to withhold payments from people and to withhold from them their means of support on the very day when the Department of Corrections has been revealed to be failing to comply with the reasonable requirements of the Office of the Ombudsmen. Perhaps senior staff management at the Department of Corrections should have their salaries withheld until such time as they comply with the Ombudsman's requirement for them to report about the well-being of prisoners.I think there is an interesting differentiation being made here and that point has been made not least of all by our friend Mr Ball. If the intention of this bill is to gain compliance from people who are not complying why limit it to beneficiaries? The Government already has the power to withhold wages from people who fail to pay their tax for example or who fail to pay fines. If the intention is gaining compliance why specify only beneficiaries? Is it about beating people when they are down? Is it about punishment and stigmatising those people? Why not? If the logic of this bill is to force compliance why do you not go after wage earners as well? Explain to me the difference and the logic between those things if it is about compliance and not punishment.If you actually want to know how to improve compliance with community sentences take a leaf and look at our own experience. In Nelson in April this year the reporting point for people on community sentences was moved from Nelson to Richmond. They immediately got an increase in non-compliance because for some people that was a 20 kilometre journey. It was a 20 kilometre journey for people who do not have drivers' licences and live where there is very little public transport—and the Department of Corrections ceased providing transport in a van for these people. That would be a really simple way to resolve that specific problem: provide a van pick these people up and get them to the point where they can then comply with their service.The Department of Corrections in Canterbury in November last year identified a serious problem with non-compliance. The compliance levels got so low that its solution was to fire some of the supervisors because they did not need that many. What a perverse response that was. How about getting more supervisors—people who can monitor inveigle inspire encourage and harass people to turn up on the day—to be on their case and make sure that they actually come along and fulfil their sentence requirements? Would that not be an actual real solution rather than this phony attempt at a solution this punitive stigmatising solution provided in this legislation?In Tauranga in 2013 this problem was in evidence. They discovered that a lot of the non-compliance was because people were choosing to go and do a day's seasonal work rather than go and do their community work obligation. The rather enlightened response of the probation service in Tauranga was to accept that as a legitimate reason and endeavour to get the community service so that there was no conflict with the ability of these people to go out and earn money particularly in fruit harvesting and these sorts of things.We do have a problem in New Zealand. The number of people who comply 100 percent with community work sentences is something as low as 36 percent. Many more do ultimately comply but it is a low compliance rate. We do need to address the problem. This is absolutely not a solution. There are some sensible well-founded solutions that mostly revolve around investing in people treating them well and treating them sensibly. This bill is not a solution. We will not support it. Kia ora.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I call Mark Mitchell—5 minutes in reply.