Sepuloni Carmel: Parole Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Parole Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 06 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:744. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston):I was not on the Law and Order Committee for the Parole Amendment Bill but I may be at some point—who knows? I am interested in the bill. Labour is supporting this bill. It is always good when we have agreement across the House that something is worthwhile supporting. We do feel that victims of crime can often feel unnecessarily stressed dealing with the prospect each year that their offender may be released when in reality there is little prospect of that. So extending that period of time between parole hearings—from 12 months to 2 years—is a good idea. The justice system must work to support and protect the victims of crime. Maybe this is not entirely the answer to doing it but this is one way in which we can do that.Our vision is of a New Zealand that guarantees civil and human rights provides equal and full access to justice and achieves real public safety rather than delivering just immediate punitive measures. Currently the parole board is required to consider at least once every 12 months every offender who is eligible for parole. As I said where there is little chance that an offender might be released this causes unnecessary harm to victims and slows down the hearing process. We must have a fair parole system for offenders who have accepted their actions and who are ready to be rehabilitated; however where they are not accepting of their actions or able to be rehabilitated the parole hearings really are a waste of time.This bill builds on previous work done by Labour and I do want to acknowledge the former Labour speaker the Hon Phil Goff—the Parole Board as we know it today actually comes from the work of Phil Goff. There do need to be assurances that suitable candidates for parole are not being detained for longer than necessary although changes at the select committee with the insertion of new section 21A by clause 10 address this. The select committee also said that in its consideration of the bill it became clear that information on civil protection orders was not automatically available to the Parole Board. The select committee said it “saw value in the Board having access to information on civil protection orders which may be relevant to their decision making.” and “raised this issue with the Minister of Justice for her consideration.” It is hoping the Minister will look at this.So there were changes made at the select committee by a majority of the Law and Order Committee. The majority recommended that the bill pass with the following amendments. The first is to replace the term “risk milestone” with “relevant activity” as it was deemed “more neutral and does not imply a measure of potential risk.” Another change was inserting clause 5A “so that standard release conditions applied automatically would be treated as if they were imposed by the Board.” The third change was “changing references to the Department of Corrections in clauses 10 11 and 12 to ‘the manager of the prison in which the offender is detained’.” We support this bill. We support the changes that have been made at the select committee. I look forward to hearing more speeches in the House on this particular bill.Debate interrupted.