Wong Pansy: General Debate 
Wong Pansy: General Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16694] 
PANSY WONG (National) 
: 
 Ni hao Mr Assistant Speaker. Navtej Singh Madam Yin Ping Yang and Ms Joanne Wang are all victims of the violent crimes in the last 9 days that have shocked our nation. We must send a message to the killers and criminals out there that their actions will not be tolerated. The New Zealand Indian Central Association challenged parliamentarians to set aside time this week to acknowledge these tragedies and to make a commitment to return safer communities to our people our country. Our leader John Key has made it clear that community safety is his priority. 
Families in the Indian and Chinese communities still have confidence in the police to apprehend criminals. They will continue to look to the police for action and so they should. The police force is our front line against crime. The police should be empowered and supported to protect our people. However apprehension of the killers and criminals will not bring back any of the victims to their families. To their families they are more than just names and nothing can replace their loss. Time will only dull the pain somewhat. 
Navtej Singh got up in the morning to go to work from 4 a.m. until 8 a.m. at the post office before returning to the liquor store in which he had a share. He bought into the business only earlier on this year after working and saving hard for years. This big handsome guy cared for his family and cried over his girls who are aged 5 years 3 years and 7 months. Now Harjinder Kaur is left with their children and with elderly parents on both sides of the family to care for. Thousands came to Navtej Singh’s funeral and prayer farewell seeking answers to his senseless killing for a few bottles of beer. 
Madam Yang lost her husband some 20 years ago in China. She came to New Zealand 18 years ago to be with her five children. She enjoyed good health. Her exercise included morning walks and growing Chinese vegetables. On the morning of the fatal day she was talking to and joking with her daughter and daughter-in-law. They came home to find her in a horrible state. In the short time between her regaining consciousness and death she spoke constantly of fear. What a way for an 80-year-old elder to finish her life’s journey. Her dying wish was for the killer to be caught. 
Ms Joanne Wang was described as caring and hard-working. Bakery shops require hard work. One can imagine her anger as she gave chase when her bag was snatched. Why should the lazy criminals get away with that? She paid with her life while her 8-year-old son watched. 
Asian women are being educated constantly about what we should do or should not do to avoid bag snatching. It is time the criminals needed to get the message. It is their conduct that needs to be changed and not tolerated. Denial of the fact that we have problems with violent crime is a barrier to coming up with solutions. 
Prime Minister Helen Clark is out of touch with communities and her own Ministers. At the prayer farewell for Navtej Singh the Hon Phil Goff told the family that the Hon George Hawkins would be assisting the members of the Sikh community to lodge a complaint against the police. The Prime Minister’s denial of that in Parliament yesterday is a sign that she is not communicating with her Ministers. 
I ask whether the Prime Minister is also aware that at a meeting called by the New Zealand Indian Central Association on 14 June which Chester Borrows and I attended the Minister of Health David Cunliffe said he had been given a medical briefing that the ambulance staff’s delay in attending to Navtej Singh made no difference to his condition. In the meanwhile many of us are prepared to wait for a proper inquiry before making any such assertions. Is the Prime Minister also aware that David Cunliffe told the same gathering that Pacific and Maori youth are the problem? Yet in the last 8 years her Government has lectured anyone who has dared to label communities in such a fashion. In fact one of the Indian Central Association executive members stood up and said that if he had made that statement then he would be in big trouble. 
Can the members of the Prime Minister’s Government really work together to provide leadership in law and order when they do not even talk to each other any more? After 9 long years of empty words slogans promises and the patronising of ethnic and New Zealand communities I say it is time for this Government to go because it cannot do the job.