Franks Stephen: General Debate 
Franks Stephen: General Debate 
[Volume:621;Page:16557] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 This debate is customarily used for rebuttal. It is one of the few genuine debates we get in the House when people take up points that have been raised previously. I want to deal with something that was raised in the House earlier today but not in this debate. The Minister of Agriculture answered a question about the costs of crime to the rural community the costs of the precautions rural families have to take and the change in the culture and climate of rural areas which have gone from being one of the proudest exhibits of Godzone—we thought we had the best way of living in the world—to being an area that people are now moving from. The Minister of Agriculture’s answer to a genuine question—whether he had an idea of those costs and whether he had inquired about the sustainability of farming in areas where stock is now treated as a public asset for marauders to prey on—was: “I do not support the member’s bill to allow the shooting of trespassers.” 
My bill does not authorise the shooting of trespassers. It is a careful bill designed to restore a state of law that this country enjoyed until only 25 years ago. It is designed to restore the effect of a defence that every New Zealander thought until 1980 was automatic common sense. In fact pretty much every New Zealander still thinks it is automatic common sense; it is the justice establishment and the politically correct Ministers of this Government who think it is laughable ludicrous or outrageous. 
My bill would tell people that what 80 percent of them are already doing is OK. Eighty percent of law-abiding decent hard-working farmers say they would use a weapon to defend themselves and their property if necessary. The bill says that what ordinary decent people think should happen should be the law. What we have in our rural areas now is an international anomaly. In no other country surveyed by the International Crime Victim Surveys is crime dramatically higher in provincial and rural areas than it is in the centre of the big cities. New Zealand is alone in having more crime in its provinces than in its cities. 
There is a simple reason for that. We now expect lawful defenders of their own homes and property to dither to carefully calibrate their proportionate response to wonder what a court might hold later and to wonder whether they are going to be bankrupted or lose their entire livelihood and their families instead of acting on the simple intuitive and rational response of threatening unreasonable force. One simple thing that every code on defence and every military treatise says about defence is that it is not a matter of slowly and in a very carefully calibrated way elevating the hostilities. The best method of defence is to threaten an unreasonable response so that the only sensible thing for the aggressor to do is run away stop what he or she is doing and get out of it. That is the one thing our law says they cannot do. 
The one thing our law now says is that—just get a load of this—people may use force but may not strike or harm a trespasser stealing their property. What kind of force is the law talking about? The only way we can find out is by going to court. That is exactly what the Attorney-General insists happens time after time. Common-sense juries discharge these poor victims. Common-sense juries acquit in more than eight out of 10 cases. Our justice system should take a message from that. Precedents should apply. One would think that the police would be allowed not to prosecute when they lose eight out of 10 cases but the Crown Law Office sends to court the poor devils who have already been traumatised. In McIntyre’s case 2 years later he is going through a second trial. The cost to him is enormous. He will not get out of this for under $300000 or $400000 in costs. No one will compensate him when he is finally acquitted; there will be no reimbursement to Mr McIntyre. The real victims are the defenders. 
The debate having concluded the motion lapsed.