Jones Shane: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
Jones Shane: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21464] 
Hon SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora ano tatou. This arguably is one of the most vexing issues that Maori parliamentarians can stand and speak upon during their parade into the world of parliamentary politics. Firstly on behalf of my party I would like to have it recorded that I support the referral of the Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill to the Justice and Electoral Committee but with reservations. 
Dover Samuels that rather colourful colleague of ours in times gone by 48 hours after the so-called Tuhoe raids went to Tuhoe. He had no compunction. He suffered no doubts about going there despite the encouragement of our then leader Helen Clark that it possibly was not the most judicious of things to do. He had family connections there and he went there to assure the Maori members of the Labour Party that whatever had happened up there there might have been a criminal element but it did not represent a level of egregious offending akin to international terrorism. He came back and told us that yes there were dramas or raruraru as we say in Maori up in that part of the country but he saw no evidence that there was a well-conceived executable strategy to destroy the nation state of New Zealand. 
He did not gain very many fans or friends—not that that ever bothered him in the life of the Labour Party in times gone by—but from that small incident I as a Maori parliamentarian learnt an important lesson. The lesson is this. When many of our young Maori say that the largest gang in New Zealand is the police I tend to pooh-pooh that idea because I rightly or wrongly believe in the notion that the constabulary are there to effect public safety and that they do operate within the confines of the law. When we feel that our rights have been infringed or that the law may have been broken we are the first to call either those of the Maori folk we know in the police force or the local policeman. But let history record that in this particular incident where a group of New Zealand’s trusted officials called the police decided to don garb akin to that of the SAS operating in Afghanistan and move into the sleepy valleys of Tuhoe to arrest possible developments that belong in the mythology and the stories of al-Qaeda the police made an egregious error on that day. 
The courts may show that Tame Iti and others deserve to be charged and eventually convicted but we leave that for the courts. The key point that a Maori parliamentarian is entitled to make about this issue is that we trusted the police. We trusted the most powerful policeman in the country Howard Broad and we were prepared to rely on his judgment. It is wrong for any Government irrespective of the flavour of its Maori presence to politicise the police force. God knows there are many opportunities where a politician or a Minister might be tempted to tell a regulator: “Can you taihoa?”. This party did not put that pressure on Howard Broad when he and his officials—in particular a unit located in Auckland—became possessed of the view that elements from the Pakeha community possibly the greenie community and hapu of Tuhoe were conceiving a plot to destroy the nation state of New Zealand. That particular act must not go unchallenged. 
We come this evening to what we are to do. The highest court in the land as Rodney Hide has correctly pointed out is the Supreme Court. The actual legislature you and I Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson populate. We are the legislature. The judiciary construes the law that we make and we rely upon the bureaucracy or the executive to execute the law. We have almost an existential tension. The highest court in the land has said that the police have consistently in this case behaved in a way that is illegal. But there are cases where the quality of life of New Zealanders could actually be worsened if we do not enable the police to effectively prosecute these villains and criminals. 
I have taken the effort to find the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in this bill—the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act passed by Geoffrey Palmer in his time. The New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is something worth fighting for as a parliamentarian. It is a clarion call that those of us who are parliamentarians we place at the point of primacy the liberties the freedoms and the interests of citizens and it is nothing—and it brings us into disrepute—if we are incapable of calling the police to operate under the same standards. 
We want this bill to go to the select committee but let no New Zealander think that any parliamentarian—I am prepared to say even those on the other side of the House—wants to hand over a blank cheque or unfettered authority to the police force. It has a difficult job to do but we also have an arduous task before us. The courts already have enough discretion. The courts already have enough authority to make a call as to whether evidence in particularly gross cases can be admitted to effect a successful prosecution. When the courts have that level of discretion it is not unreasonable for a parliamentarian to expect the judge of a court to exercise it. 
We may not like the results that are delivered from the exercising of it. I was not a parliamentarian at the time but I was quite surprised at the vigour with which the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court delivered her seabed and foreshore—takutai moana—judgment. I raise that issue only because there are certain resonances between that decision a year or two prior to the 2005 election and this decision quite close to the 2011 election. It focuses our attention on what is worth defending. It is worth defending. If the Government of the day wants to pass law that has retrospective impact that does potentially curb the rights and freedoms and liberties of citizens we should stand up to that. After all these are the characters who actually vote for us. The institution of the police force does not vote for us. The police may as citizens but their advocates—Mr O’Connor and others—have a different agenda. So this bill ought to go to the select committee. 
It may come to pass that something can be cobbled together because at the end of the day it will be between the two major parties to develop a “sustainable deal”. Whether it is them or us someone will have to fix this problem. But there are some deep principles that are worth fighting for here. No group in New Zealand ought to feel either that they are above the law or that having not operated within the law they can usher an agenda into our legislature and have it limply passed. 
The role of an Opposition is to hold the Ministers and the Government to account and indeed the police. They must justify why they want retrospective power. If it passes the court of public opinion and if it passes our threshold of tolerance then it enjoys the broad support of this legislature. That is something worth fighting for and what better time to debate it what better time to distil the essential arguments than 9 to 10 weeks from an election? 
So Labour will support this particular bill. I am confident that with the spirit of goodwill we will find a balance between what the State needs to effect its enforcement powers and what the legislature needs in order to be a credible House of Representatives. I look forward to hearing what submitters may say but more important to enjoying the experience of seeing a commingling of goodwill on the other side of the House and within Labour to effect a sustainable outcome for this very sad episode. A number of people have been through hell. Most of them have been released. The remaining number four or five unfortunately for them will have to face the music and only the facts will liberate them. But we must not deprive individual citizens of further liberty through the unfortunate passage of poor legislation. Kia ora tatou.