Mark Ron: Police Complaints Authority (Conditional Name Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Police Complaints Authority (Conditional Name Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7468] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 That speech sounded like one of those “dollar each way” speeches that one often hears from Government members. The last time I heard a speech like that on a member’s bill we later found that the real reason the Government was not supporting that bill was that it wanted to kick the bill into touch so it could bring in a bill very similar and accrue for itself all the public kudos for having made a sensible law change. I say to the Minister that if those concerns are legitimate and if they are true concerns held by him and his Government what is wrong with those issues being covered during the select committee phase and incorporated into Dr Paul Hutchison’s bill? Why do we have do go through this— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Because at the moment we have an agreement by the media not to publish. That is the agreement. 
RON MARK 
: So now the media runs Parliament. We have an admission from the Minister that the media have decided behind closed doors—all the people in the press gallery are nodding their heads—to do a deal with the Minister. Excuse me for suggesting it but I thought the rules of this land were written here not in private little chat and focus groups orientation sessions or backroom dealings. But then I guess we should not be surprised because from 1984 to 1989 backroom dealings with certain sectors of people who funded the Labour Party were the norm. 
 As a result we saw the sell-off of State assets and the rest of that. It is funny but here we are buying them back again. What does that tell us? We know that people who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. I would simply say— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Tell that to Winston. 
RON MARK 
: Tell that to Mike Moore Phil Goff Helen Clark Michael Cullen and a whole group of people who have been down this path before. 
I would have thought that the bill would have a huge amount of sympathy from Parliament because of the feelings that developed nationwide for the way in which Constable Abbott and his family were treated. It is all so ironic is it not? Is it not funny that in a short space of time we can forget how we got to this situation? Let us not forget that the reason Constable Abbott came under such huge media pressure the reason his family members were so affected that they were required to be moved to a secret location the reason we ended up with a huge amount of debate in the streets and the reason we are debating this issue in a member’s bill aimed at protecting law enforcement officers who find themselves in a similar position in future is the very first reaction that came out of this Government’s mouth. Here is the irony: the people who supported Constable Abbott as a policeman going about his duty were the members on the Opposition benches— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: First of all you don’t want his name published then you are the first member in the House to mention it. 
RON MARK 
: Phil Goff feels it coming so he is chipping in already. He is trying to cut me off because he knows what I am about to say. [ 
Interruption 
] He wants to pump it up because everyone is listening. The reason he is chipping is that the people who leapt to the defence of Constable Abbott were the Opposition members in National New Zealand First and ACT. The very people who came in and assumed this policeman was a white guy and had committed a racist killing were the Government members themselves and Helen Clark contributed to that media frenzy. I remind the Minister that the videotapes are in the archives of Television One. He should pull them out and watch them again. 
Venom oozed out of this Government towards the police. The Government immediately assumed that the constable who shot Steven Wallace—and legitimately so—and killed him was a white policeman. On that basis we had all this rhetoric from the Government: “Oh we’re going to have to look into this. It smacks of a race-based killing.” The Government was gobsmacked when it turned out he was a Maori but it was too late. It had inflamed the anti-police feeling by not coming out firmly categorically definitively definitely and positively in support of the officer. It came out with that media frenzy and left a big grey cloud out there.