Harawira Hone: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Protected Disclosures Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12572] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 When employees former employees or members of an organisation are able to report misconduct such as a violation of health and safety regulations corruption fraud or any other activities that might provide a direct threat to public interest we politician types have coined a phrase making it all sound nice and legal. We call it protected disclosure. 
The bureaucrats like to call it whistle-blowing because it makes them feel that what they have done is righteous and good for the country. There is another name for it of course and that is the one that the hoodlums use: they call it narking. If one gets caught doing it one does not get any medals or write-ups in the paper; one gets the bash. 
The original Protected Disclosures Act whichever way one wants to look at it was koretake anyway. A recent review highlighted evidence of delays inconsistencies confusion difficulties in using the procedures a lack of communication a lack of confidentiality and a lack of protection of identity. That is hardly the promise a person would want to lay out in front of those potential narks and whistleblowers who he or she hopes will sabotage their careers to serve his or her interests. In fact given the current flaws in this legislation it is no wonder narking has such a bad name. 
Then there is the question about exactly what kind of crime we are talking about because the real crime ain’t the stuff plastered across the front pages of one’s local paper; it is the stuff hidden away in the pages of the business section. Criminologist Dr Greg Newbold reckons that for every dollar stolen by blue-collar criminals in this country around $40 slides into middle-class pockets. Get this folks: your poncy-ass professional pilfering pals are taking this country for millions while my whanaunga are filling up the jails and you wonder why us Maori have this strange notion that the criminal justice system works only for rich white folks. Insider trading price fixing illegal offshore accounts tax avoidance employee theft insurance fraud stolen or counterfeit product sales—mate when it comes to crime the white-collar bandits have got it sussed. 
To confirm that strange Maori notion about rich white criminals always getting the breaks even David Bradshaw of the Serious Fraud Office reckons that the approach taken towards white-collar offending tends toward the softly softly method of crime control. In his 2004 annual report Bradshaw noted several cases that suggested white-collar criminals were being treated more leniently than other criminals. Jonathan Krebs of the Law Society’s criminal committee was not so subtle. Just last month he said that the police had a poor record of tackling white-collar fraud and instead prioritised resources towards physical crime. 
This stuff about how the white-collar crims get away while poor Polynesian crims get jailed for some rather petty bloody offences makes me want to go out and preach in prisons to all of the whanaunga I have in there: “Mend your ways all ye brownies who have fallen by the wayside. Come unto the path of righteousness whiteness light fingers and fraudulence; and if thou must sin then sin with aplomb sin with style and sin with a white collar for greatest effect. Make lots and lots of money slip a smidgeon to the Lord and sin against only the poor and the Maori for theirs is already the kingdom of heaven when they die so they will not mind you robbing them blind while they live.” 
But to bring a sense of perspective to all this let me also say that while white corporate raiders continue on their merry way untroubled by the pathetically weak laws of this land Maori people are being hunted down and arrested as we speak. That is not because of any life-threatening actions but because of this Government’s kihi-kotore sycophantic yassum-massa attitude to America’s demand that we accept unreservedly its definition of terrorism which is justified no doubt by some protected disclosures. 
Is this whole terrorism thing over-blown? Hell yes! Television One flies in an expert on terrorism and protected disclosures. He looks over the facts and he tells us that the police action is over the top unnecessary and overkill and that what has been identified is not terrorism at all but just good old-fashioned Kiwi activism. Even Ross Meurant—who was in the Auckland task force and the Red Squad and was the MP who used protected disclosure to try to get me lynched for terrorism during his maiden speech in this very House—reckons that officers were victims of their own propaganda. He said “the actions of the police are totally excessive in the extreme” and added: “This is always the case where subjective assessment of information is peer-reviewed by one’s immediate supervisor and all persons on the police unit concerned have a self-interest to justify their existence”. Meurant compared the police actions to those of the Bush administration invading Iraq with supposed evidence of weapons of mass destruction. 
Is there a threat to the stability of this nation? Hell yes! Here is a protected disclosure for example from the Justice and Electoral Committee where we are trying to turn back this Labour Government’s nasty little attempt to stack the next election to suit itself in the face of massive criticism from the Law Society the Human Rights Commission and thousands of others. 
Is there a threat to the Prime Minister? Hell yes! If the polls are to be believed John Key is hoping to put her out of business permanently at the next election. 
Is there a threat to life? Hell yes! Pissing off a policeman like Steven Wallace did can be a very serious threat to one’s life. 
Are these threats from Maori serious? Hell yes! There is mounting frustration and anger right across the country by Maori genuinely aggrieved by the continued loss of lands the denial of the Treaty and now these raids smashing into Maori homes and terrorising Maori communities. Of course Maori are bloody angry. Why would they not be? 
But guess what folks: none of this is news really. Maori have been protesting land theft for 150 years and the State forces have always opposed them. How many times have we heard Maori says that they are prepared to fight and die for their land. For heaven’s sake! Shane Jones used to talk like that before Helen Clark got him by the tongue. Tariana Turia came to this House as a dedicated Maori activist and she has not changed one iota. I got in here only because of a tidal wave of unrest and an absolute rejection by Maoridom of the thieving ways of this Government. 
So is this terrorism threat serious? Yes; hell yes! The actions of the New Zealand Police—who contrary to what the Minister says are not separate from the Government but are in fact an arm of the Government—highlight an ongoing ignorance of the Maori community by the New Zealand Police; a reluctance to engage Maori and a willingness to arrest Maori; a refusal to allow their own Maori officers to negotiate on day one in order to save the country a million-dollar surveillance operation over the next 18 months; and a readiness to brutalise Tuhoe in exactly the same way the they did 100 years ago even using 70 armed constabulary like they did back then. 
The recent actions of the New Zealand Police with the support of this Labour Government signal clearly not just to Tuhoe but also to the rest of Maoridom that hell yes the terrorism of the Maori community has in fact never ever ended— 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Ann Hartley) 
: Please be seated. I have given the member a fair bit of latitude but he really needs to come back to debating this bill. 
HONE HARAWIRA 
: This bill plans to deal with all the inefficiencies and errors in the Act by allowing the Ombudsman to provide information on the procedures that must be followed when making a disclosure information on protection for those who make the disclosure and guidance for those considering blowing the whistle on their mates. That is great of course but in terms of protected disclosure what protection would there be for those of us in the Maori Party who are required to advise our electorates that the Labour Maori MPs including Parekura Horomia Nanaia Mahuta Mahara Okeroa Mita Ririnui Dover Samuels Dave Hereora and Shane Jones voted to delete “the Treaty of Waitangi and its principles” from all legislation? In terms of protected disclosure what protection is there for those of us who have to blow the whistle on those same Labour Maori MPs for going along with this Government’s decision to cancel manaaki tauira? 
Mind you when we think about it maybe it is Parekura Horomia Nanaia Mahuta Mahara Okeroa Mita Ririnui Dover Samuels Dave Hereora and Shane Jones who will need the protection when their people find out that they also sat by and said nothing when their own Government decided to take the Treaty out of the curriculum. Indeed that protection for protected disclosure may be an absolute necessity come election time when our people find out that those very same MPs—yes members know the ones—are also opposed to the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which was signed up to by 143 countries right across the world. 
The Maori Party takes this opportunity to raise again the injustice of poor people being penalised for crimes of need while the white-collar boys continue to get away with their crimes of greed. We condemn the system of injustice that continues to brutalise and traumatise Maori communities while those who commit crime against the whole of society do not just get more lenient treatment but some even get knighthoods for their acts of financial piracy and destruction of whole communities.