Collins Judith: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Collins Judith: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
[Volume:617;Page:12582] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 Quite clearly the Minister of Justice has not had the benefit of hearing my previous speech on this matter; otherwise he would have had a look at the National Party minority view on the bill including the sentence that Mr Tim Barnett was so nasty about which states: “There is a case for legislation to contain provision for true ‘clean slate’ applications to be made to the Court in individual cases and not on the blanket basis of concealment of convictions which is the essence of the present bill.” 
I say to the Minister and to the Committee that there is of course a case for compassion. The very instance that he spoke of seems to be such a case. But this bill is about lying. It is about the concealment of offences. It is not about looking at youthful indiscretions; it is about allowing someone who commits an offence at the age of 50 to say at the age of 58 very very truthfully in accordance with this bill: “No I have no conviction.” It does not make any allowance for age. It does not make any allowance for circumstance. National’s idea that people apply to the court would allow judges to use discretion and look at the individual circumstances of a case. 
I have made the point before that the diversion scheme works in most cases. One of the reasons it works is that the people who commit a first offence have to admit to it. They have to go in front of a police sergeant and admit to that offence and then they are given a job to do. Sometimes that job is to make a donation to a charity and sometimes it is to do something for a particular charity. But it is the admission and acceptance of having done wrong that is absolutely vital in stopping people from continuing to do what we hopefully call youthful indiscretions but actually can be crimes. It is really important that we do not make it easier for people to hide convictions but in fact ensure they are truthful about what has happened. National members are very happy as I have said before—and we have stated it in writing in our minority view—to look at individual cases. We are not happy to have this blanket approval of lying. 
I will now deal with some of the I have to say slightly hysterical rhetoric from the Minister; there seemed to be an awful lot of personal input there. 
Clause 11 states quite clearly: “(2) An eligible individual may answer a question asked of him or her about his or her criminal record by stating that he or she has no criminal record.” Why is that not lying? People have a criminal record and all of a sudden they can say they do not have one. If they were able to say: “ I had one and it was taken away by the courts.”—that it was an effective conviction and discharge—people would understand. But this bill is about lying. 
It will not help people who travel overseas. It will not help a lot of people applying for jobs within certain Government departments. But what about people applying for jobs in banks? People who run banks should be honest people. They are dealing with other people’s money. People who work in lawyers’ firms dealing with other people’s money should be honest people. I can tell this Committee from my experience in the Law Society that a number of the thefts done by law firms are done by staff not by the lawyers. The lawyers are the people who pay for the thefts and they do not want to lose their careers and end up in jail. A lot of the those conversions are done by staff and under this bill staff will be able to say: “Oh well no I don’t have a criminal conviction.” when actually 8 years ago the last time they were working—guess what—they stole money from a trust account but they got off without having to go to jail because they told some bleeding heart story that somebody believed. 
Unfortunately that basic dishonesty goes all the way through. Leopards do not change their spots. Someone who is dishonest today is likely to be dishonest tomorrow. That is what happens. Dishonesty is not something that just goes away and it certainly does not go away unless people acknowledge that they have done wrong ask for forgiveness and move on in that way. They will not be able to do so in this case.