Clendon David: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Third ReadingsText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeClendon David: Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — Third Readings[Sitting date: 04 December 2014. Volume:702;Page:1169. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID CLENDON (Green):Apology accepted thank you. Shall I begin? No just kidding. I am pleased to take a call in this third and final reading of these cognate bills. As there is the opportunity at the third reading to do so I would like to not only reflect on the content of the bills but also say a bit about the social and indeed the political context from which they have emerged.Just to reiterate the Greens will be supporting the extended supervision orders legislation. It is a strong response and a strong intervention to extend the period over which people can be subject to supervision orders but we see it as an appropriate and measured response—responding to the existence of a small number of very challenging people who for their own benefit as much as for the broader social and community protection need to be continually monitored in order to overcome their predilection for particular forms of offending in particular sex offending violent offending and the like. So although we acknowledge that it is a very strong intervention it is an appropriate one.We believe that the public protection orders bill goes too far. We think it is excessive. We think it unwarranted. We think it ignores other options that could achieve the same ends of enhancing community safety without compromising our commitment to human rights both domestically and indeed in the context of international law and international convention. So we have in a sense a dollar each way on these cognate bills. We will vote for one and against the other.The Public Safety (Public Protection Orders) Bill and some other legislation we have seen passed in recent decades reflect I believe the fact that lawmakers have been more of a mind to inflict a punitive regime than society the general community has been. All the evidence is that although people might spontaneously react to particular crimes to particular high-profile offences if one scratches an inch below that surface you find that the general population can be persuaded by evidence by dialogue that actually these knee-jerk punitive responses are unlikely to deliver public safety are unlikely to positively affect the long-term behaviour of offenders and are unlikely to reduce recidivism or achieve any of the other goals and objectives of our justice system.Part of the difficulty facing political decision-makers I would argue is that the media are complicit in sensationalising crime and offending. There is a distinct over-reporting of crime. All the evidence is that we do have an over-reporting of crime. It is easy news. It is something that always grabs attention. The old phrase “If it bleeds it leads.” is nowhere more real than in terms of the reporting of crime.This is significant because it creates a perception in the communities that crime is increasing when in fact for at least two decades the trend both in New Zealand and internationally has been a reduction in offending. Our communities are not more dangerous than they were 20 30 or 40 years ago—the opposite in fact. But much of the response or the success I would say of a very vocal minority—indeed as a consequence of the over-reporting and inappropriate reporting of crime—has led to a public perception of there being a much more dangerous society. That creates an environment where these extreme measures are more likely to be accepted and acceptable than they need to be.What we want are responses that do not have recourse to excessive imprisonment that look for non-custodial sentences. We want therapeutic approaches. Let us heal these people who are damaged in ways that cause them to offend. Tougher sentences are not a solution. There is no evidence anywhere in the world that tougher sentences longer terms of imprisonment actually reduce crime. It is quite the opposite. They simply impose costs both social and economic.There is some useful work being done. I would have to put in a wee plug for an organisation called JustSpeak. It is a youth justice organisation that has recently published a couple of very relevant and very helpful documents one of which is entitled—if I can find it—What Do I Have to Do to Change Your Mind? It is a document that highlights that we do have an issue in terms of bringing public understanding and hopefully political decision-making to a position that is based on much better evidence. It is important that we look at the quality and level of information available to us when we are making decisions about appropriate penalties for offenders.We need to consider the genuine fears and frustrations and uncertainties in the broader society in our communities. We can achieve that by debunking some of the myths that surround crime and punishment issues. Ultimately we need to engage and encourage ourselves as political decision-makers to rely more heavily on evidence to consider more cross-party agreements and multi-party approaches and to take some of the political risk out of looking at positive alternatives rather than the old and failed knee-jerk punitive strategies. So I would hope that some of the alternative methods are actually considered and applied much more in our legislation and our decision making over time.To speak more specifically to these bills the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill which as I have said we do support is a measured response. It does acknowledge the need to enable ongoing monitoring and supervision of a small number of very difficult individuals who would almost inevitably reoffend if left to their own devices which would not do the community any good. Clearly it would victimise individuals and ultimately would not be a good thing for those offenders. It is better to enable them to live as near as possible a normal life outside of prison outside of detention but at the same time ensure that they no longer offend.As I said our opposition to the public protection orders is that they go too far. We have heard this constant litany that the public protection orders do not impose punishment. I reject that. It just does not stand up. My Concise Oxford Dictionary gives me a definition of the verb “to punish” which is “to cause an offender to suffer; to chastise; to inflict penalty for offence”. I will not reiterate them but in an earlier reading this week the previous reading I worked through some of the provisions of the bill and the extent to which people who are subject to them will be denied their liberty denied freedom of association denied everyday access to communications telephones internet and so on and will have very limited access to news media. Any of their correspondence be it personal or otherwise will be censored with a few exceptions. These are seriously punitive elements. This is undoubtedly a regime of punishment. We punish people for offending. In this instance we will be punishing people for the possibility that they may offend and that is simply a step too far for the Greens.We believe there are alternative means we can try and that we can in fact rely on to be effective in a way that these public protection orders are unlikely to be. That is as much as I think we need to say at this point. I do believe that the public protection orders are a reflection of a set of understandings—a belief system if you like—that are no longer valid or relevant either socially or politically. I think we need to constantly rely on evidence both internationally and locally derived. We need to invest a great deal more in finding out what does work and to acknowledge what fails and has been proven to fail over time. We believe the extended supervision orders regime will succeed and will achieve its goals and its objectives with significant but acceptable levels of intrusion into people’s rights. The public protection orders regime we believe is doomed to fail and for that reason we will not be supporting it.