A motion was passed by Parliament this week to accord urgency to a couple of Government bills - one of them was the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Amendment Bill
This bill tweaks legislation from 2015 in order to ensure that all people returning to the country after being in prison systems abroad - particularly those deported from Australia - can continue to come under parole-like oversight and support when back in New Zealand as the original Act intended.
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Labour MP Kiri Allan during the General Debate Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
As Justice Minister Kiri Allan explained, the tweak was necessary because a recent High Court decision found that the Returning Offenders (Management and Information) Act 2015 didn’t not apply retrospectively.
“The court also found that natural justice requires the Commissioner of Police to provide notice and a right to be heard before determining a returning offender's status under the Act. The effect of the decision means that the Act is not available for returning offenders, such as 501 deportees from Australia, who offended before the Act came into force in 2015. The decision would also delay the making of returned offenders orders, which are currently served on the person as they enter the country,” Allan explained while introducing the Bill which then went through all stages yesterday and this morning during urgency.
“There are currently about 265 returning offenders being managed by the Department of Corrections on particular conditions, and of this cohort about 40 are being managed for convictions that pre-date the Act, with several considered to be high risk. The court's findings mean that these offenders could apply to have their order quashed, and, further, this affects future returning prisoners with offending that pre-dates the Act, as they would be released into the community on arrival into New Zealand without any specific agency support or oversight. To put it simply, I consider that this situation amounts to an absolutely unacceptable and urgent risk to public safety, and it's contrary to how Parliament always intended the Act to work,” the minister said.
ACT MP Nicole McKee speaks in the debate on Conversion Practices Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
So the legislation amends the 2015 Act to ensure that it continues to put all returning offenders in roughly the same position they would have been in had they offended in New Zealand.
Apart from the Greens and Te Paati Māori, the Bill had widespread support in the House, but ACT’s Nicole McKee expressed her party’s concern about it going through under urgency.
“We do have some questions around the speed that this bill is going through in the House, and I will address those in my second reading speech. But the ACT Party opposed the House sitting under urgency to hear this bill. Removing the select committee process from the people is not going to be something that we support, but ensuring their imminent safety is. So while we don't support the process, we do support the bill,” McKee said.
The Attorney General David Parker later spoke on the timing of the bill.
“The decision of the High Court, which has been well traversed in this House, was delivered after the House had risen. We were very concerned that had we not got a stay of that decision, the duty of the Government would have been to apply the law as the court determined it to be rather than as we thought it to be, and immediately we would have had to have removed the supervisory aspects in respect of people who are subject to the regime currently, in a way that caused concern to Government agencies and the Government.”
Labour Minister David Parker debating in the House Photo: ©VNP / Phil Smith
Parker said the Government was fortunate to be able to secure a stay order on the High Court decision.
“The Court of Appeal may overturn the High Court decision, or it may not. We thought we had to guard against that possibility by bringing this legislation to the House at the first opportunity, which, of course, we have done,” he said.
The legislation was passed this morning, ensuring the New Zealand Police will be able to collect information from returnees to establish their identity and potentially support future investigations, and parole-like conditions will be available if a returnee has been deported after a prison sentence. The government stressed that the provisions are supervisory and rehabilitative rather than punitive.
The other Bill that went through its entire stages under urgency yesterday and today was the Road User Charges (Temporary RUC Reduction Scheme) Amendment Bill (No 2).