Power Simon: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Power Simon: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2209] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I never thought I would start a speech in this House by saying that I agree with Dianne Yates but the reality is that all members of this House and all members of the public will be opposed to torture and any other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. The Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill as would have been stated by my learned colleague Dr Richard Worth implements the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which was adopted by the UN in December 2002 and signed by New Zealand almost a year later in September 2003. 
Although the UN may provide countries around the world with a standard or indeed a set of protocols to which they should adhere these matters should not simply be taken as read; nor should they be taken without questioning. As Dr Worth has stated National will support this bill to the select committee but will require some convincing beyond that point that indeed the bill warrants further support. It is hoped that the select committee process will enable members of the public as well as members of Parliament to examine the bill in a way that not only preserves New Zealand’s sovereign right to make its own decisions as indicated by Dianne Yates but also enables New Zealand to involve itself at an international level in a way that has been consistent with our history of having been signatory to many protocols and conventions that are designed I guess overall to make the world a better place. 
However some issues need to be addressed and the Parliament of the Commonwealth of Australia examined this protocol in what was known as report 58 in March 2004. I think it is worth reading out three points in order to give some context to the discussions that will inevitably flow from the select committee consideration of this bill: “Firstly the issue of whether to sign the optional protocol needs to be examined in the context of the Australian government’s approach to the UN treaty committee system. Australia remains concerned that the UN committees are not focusing on the most pressing of human rights violations.” The select committee when it is examining this bill will need to assure itself before it reports back to the House that that particular matter does not present itself as a hurdle for the New Zealand Parliament when considering this matter further. The report suggests further: “Secondly there is no suggestion that the independent national preventative mechanisms are inadequate in Australia.” This Parliament needs through the select committee process to convince itself that there is no suggestion that mechanisms currently operating in New Zealand are inadequate or indeed require the ratification by way of entry into domestic law of this protocol in a way that suggests current measures in New Zealand are inadequate. 
The report goes on to state: “Thirdly there are also some procedural and substantive concerns with regard to the Optional Protocol. The procedural concerns are that the Optional Protocol was developed without widespread consensus and was not considered in detail by the working group which was established to consider the draft text. The substantive concerns relate to the need for UN treaty bodies to operate effectively with committees focusing on the areas of greatest human rights violations.” In fact those matters will also need some consideration in the New Zealand context and there will need to be I guess some bolstering in the eyes of National members on the committee that the third matter raised in this report to the Australian Parliament does not give rise to any shortcomings or concerns on behalf of New Zealand parliamentarians in respect of the ratification of this particular convention—or Optional Protocol as I believe it is—into domestic law in New Zealand. 
So although there are three key measures in this bill the first being to enable a subcommittee to exercise its functions in New Zealand which includes visiting jails getting unrestricted access to information and conducting private interviews with prisoners it is hard to believe actually that many of those measures do not already exist in New Zealand law. In particular members will be familiar with new section 161 of the Corrections Act which enables a member of Parliament without permission or any other notification to arrive at a correctional facility and to wander through in a way that convinces that member that that jail is in order and that prisoners are being treated correctly. 
The second key measure authorises the Minister of Justice to set up one or more National Preventive Mechanisms to make recommendations for improving conditions of detention and prisoner treatment. But in New Zealand prisoners already have an almost unfettered right to the Ombudsman if indeed there are issues in our prisons or correctional facilities that are concerning them. Of course in a country with an effective Opposition many of those issues are raised in different forums and not just by the prisoners themselves if indeed the corrections department is falling below a standard that the public would expect it to follow. 
The third key measure is to designate a Central Preventive Mechanism—I do not even know what that means—to coordinate the activities of the National Preventive Mechanism and to liaise with the UN subcommittee. That sounds like one of Steve Maharey’s working parties. It seems to me that if that key measure can be put in a way that produces clear concrete practical down-to-earth outcomes then that is fine. But let us not pass into law legislation that actually is not required in the sense that there are a number of valves available to those in our prison system to activate in the event that many of the concerns contained in the Optional Protocol were not being addressed. Let us not overdo this in a way that assumes that our domestic ability to handle these matters does not fit snugly within the Optional Protocol. What I am saying in short is that it is up to the select committee to determine whether many of the issues raised in the Optional Protocol are not already well covered by New Zealand domestic law. Many will have a suspicion of an international organisation imposing its views on domestic sovereign countries but if the standards are being met anyway then we need to make a decision at the select committee about whether this bill needs to progress any further. 
As my colleague Dr Richard Worth said in his opening remarks National will support this bill going to a select committee in the first instance but will reserve its right to consider this matter further once the select committee has heard submissions and in particular in the event that National members of the select committee concerned believe that there are already domestic safeguards in place that may render this Optional Protocol less than necessary. But that is a matter for the select committee. At this point the National Party will support the first reading of the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill.