Sepuloni Carmel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
Sepuloni Carmel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — In Committee Third Reading 
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CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 I will talk a little bit about what Charles has been saying and also Moana with regard to extending the permission of the State without judicial evidence. One thing that has not come up as much across the duration of the debates and the discussion over this issue is the cultural implications of the Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill. Labour is not opposed to DNA testing. In fact Labour members were leaders with regard to the legislation around DNA testing in New Zealand. We have very much kept up with the technology that has taken place. We do support this bill but we do have some reservations. 
This perhaps is one of those reservations. It was a conversation that some colleagues and I were having about the cultural implications of this bill with regard to what DNA testing means for Maori and for some Pacific groups also. Even just now I was looking at one of the district health board websites and saw there that it encourages staff with Maori patients to give them back any hair toenails fingernails or bodily tissues that had been collected from them because of the fact that those items are seen as tapu. 
One of the reservations that have come from Maori and Pasifika is the ownership over the information that is contained in our DNA. One thing that seems of concern is the fact that that information can be gathered from people when they have not been charged with any particular crime—when there is the intention to charge but the suspect has not been found guilty of any crime. It seems a worry and it is something that will come up with those particular groups. Given that someone has not been found guilty of any crime and that he or she has not necessarily done anything wrong to have that information taken will be a concern to those particular groups because that information is seen as tapu. It is held in those parts of the body whether it be in hair fingernails or even in parts of the skin that a sample has been gathered from. I do think it is something that needs to be mentioned. Some thought needs to be given to that perhaps because in this country we regard those cultures as being of importance so we need to take into consideration their viewpoints on such things. 
One of the things that Moana has also made very clear is the fact that DNA testing is not foolproof. A concern that she has put out there as a scientist and as someone who has a background in this—in fact I think she is the only person in the Chamber who has a background on this subject—is that DNA testing has been held up very high and is perceived by many as being foolproof. But the concern arises where jurors and others may look at DNA tests and decide that that evidence is it. That is what it proves therefore that must be 100 percent the truth. Scientists have said and Moana has said— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: The member must use full names not members’ first names. That is the third time so I ask the member just to remember that. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: I apologise Mr Chairperson and I apologise to Moana Mackey. Moana Mackey has said that no scientist would say that DNA testing is foolproof. I think that is something that we need to take into consideration when we look at this bill because we do not want to put out the impression that DNA testing is 100-percent fact and that jurors can take this information and believe that it is all the evidence that they need. 
Moana Mackey also raised the fact—and this is something that has come up in the US and in other places—that there are more and more cases of people planting evidence with regard to DNA so getting other people charged with crimes and convicted of crimes when in fact the evidence was planted. That is something we need to be very cautious of as we go down the road of putting out DNA testing as the test. We have to make sure that we do not put it out to be foolproof. 
Before I end I want to talk about the evidence involved and how much the cost will be. That is something that keeps coming up with regard to this bill. It does not seem that the Government has looked into how much it will cost with regard to storing the DNA and collecting the DNA. We have a Government that says that money and resourcing is everything at the moment and that it needs to be very tight on the money that it spends.