Locke Keith: Ministerial Statements — Taser Guns—Introduction 
Locke Keith: Ministerial Statements — Taser Guns—Introduction 
[Volume:649;Page:17976] 
KEITH LOCKE (Green) 
: 
 This is a very sad day for policing in New Zealand. Our country has prided itself on a much lower level of violence in policing than other jurisdictions such as the United States. Let us be blunt about it: some New Zealanders will die unnecessarily as a result of this decision as have over 300 people in the United States the home of the Taser. So far this month we have seen five Americans die after being Tasered. Those who will die from this 50000-volt weapon will be Kiwis with heart conditions and those whose circulatory system is weak through drug use or mental disorder. Deaths are most likely to occur among mentally disordered people because in our year-long trial the Taser has generally been used against such people. 
The use of the Taser will not help police relations with Maori and Pacific Island communities because the trial statistics show that people from these communities have been the main targets. The introduction of the Taser will be bad for race relations. 
We know that the Taser is very likely to be overused despite the controls the Minister has mentioned as it has been overused elsewhere in the world. In our Taser trial the police sometimes went beyond their mandate which was to deploy the weapon only when there was an imminent danger of injury. In practice Tasers were also pulled out and pointed at people simply when the police were having difficulty restraining and putting handcuffs on an offender. This has happened frequently overseas. Members may remember the horrific television footage last year of Robert Dziekanski—a man who was confused rather than violent—being Tasered to death at Vancouver Airport. Members may also remember the TV shots of a young American student being Tasered after interjecting at one of Senator John Kerry’s meetings. 
This sort of thing has happened here as recorded in the official police reports. One example states that on 20 March 2007 a mentally disturbed women in Waitakere City who was not armed with any weapons took refuge in a bathroom. The two police officers present broke in and Tasered her two times. Such mission creep in the use of Tasers is unlikely to be ever fully controlled because individual officers quickly find out that the 50000-volt weapon is so frightening to people that they will generally comply when it is pointed at them or fired at them. It can easily become an everyday policing tool as it is currently in the United States. 
We have already seen mission creep in the use of pepper spray including the use of it in the confined space of a Whakatane police cell. The Greens have yet to be convinced that the police administration has got on top of pepper spray misuse by some police officers. We do not think that this is the time to equip such officers with a much more dangerous weapon—a 50000-volt Taser stun gun. We can predict the outcry when the Taser is first fired at a protester. There is already concern at the misuse of pepper spray on protesters. Last month Judge McGuire awarded compensation to an anti-GE protester who was pepper sprayed in Rotorua. 
Introducing a greater level of violence in policing actually weakens its effectiveness. Traditionally the New Zealand Police has been more effective than its American counterparts because its officers do not carry guns and because they are less violent in their approach to crime situations. Ordinary members of the public will be more fearful of police patrols that are armed with Tasers and this will get in the way of better cooperation between the police and communities—cooperation which is critical in both crime prevention and the apprehension of offenders. 
There is also the serious question that Taser use is legally torture. This was clearly stated last November by the United Nations Committee Against Torture when it stated: “The use of the Taser X26 weapons provoking extreme pain constituted a form of torture” and was therefore contrary to the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment which New Zealand is a signatory to and must obey. The fact that America and some other countries use the Taser does not make legal what is clearly illegal under international law—and that is the use of Tasers. 
For all these reasons the Greens are very opposed to these painful—and sometimes lethal—stun guns being introduced into our police armoury.