Harawira Hone: Succession (Homicide) Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Succession (Homicide) Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:639;Page:8990] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Tenatatou te Whare. Some 30 years ago Bob Geldof and the Boomtown Rats took their song “I Don’t Like Mondays” all the way to number one in the UK. It was a story of a horrific shooting spree of 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer who killed two adults and injured eight kids and a police officer. Her only explanation was: “I don’t like Mondays.” Yesterday was just such a Monday here in Aotearoa as the nation reeled from the tragic effects of the deaths over the weekend of three innocent kids in Christchurch and Wanganui. 
While the country woke up to those horrifying stories other reports of homicide were coming in from other parts of the nation as well. In Rotorua the jury heard the case of a Waikato man on trial for a domestic double murder in Napier a depositions hearing began for the man accused of murdering Hawke’s Bay farmer Jack Nicholas and in Auckland the defence opened its case in the trial of a 32-year-old woman and her 27-year-old partner for murdering the woman’s 3-year-old son. 
The tragedy about these cases is that this was just another Monday in Godzone. Since 1990 we have had nearly 120 homicides each and every year a tragic figure that is but a glimpse into the wide-scale trauma that rocks our world. It is with that background in mind that we come to the House today to debate the Succession (Homicide) Bill a bill that is a sad but logical consequence of living in a nation with such a high homicide rate and a bill born of the crime of murder enacted far too often in this country. 
The purpose of the bill is to clarify the law so that killers cannot benefit from the estate of those they have killed—a clarification the Maori Party supports although noting some issues raised at the Justice and Electoral Committee that still need closer attention. Negligence is one of those issues. I note the submission from the National Council of Women recommending that causing death by negligence such as when someone driving negligently causes the death of a passenger in a car should also be included under the terms of this Act. The New Zealand Police Association also wanted negligence included within the terms of the Act. It was concerned that in cases where somebody had killed his or her spouse the killer might still profit from the victim’s estate through a claim that the murder was an act of recklessness and nothing more than a negligent act. 
A finer point of the bill though is to ensure that although people should not profit from murder neither should they be deprived of rights not related to the murder. It took a while to get my head around but in the end I accept that being wrong for one thing should not mean having to suffer for everything. 
An issue I raised during the first reading of this bill was the impact the bill might have on the succession to Maori land under Te Ture Whenua Maori Act of 1993 which states that owners of Maori land can will their land to only whanau and that where somebody dies without leaving a will the Act will ensure that the property stays within the whanau. This is a laudable concept. During the select committee debate we were told that if a killer loses his or her property interests under the bill Te Ture Whenua Maori Act will ensure the land remains in the family. That principle comes from traditional practice first introduced into law through the New Zealand Maori Council in 1983 when it called for Maori land to be kept in the hands of its owners and for law and policy to reflect Maori land ownership and use by the whanau and hapu. 
Maori communal ownership and strong links to the whenua became the overriding priority rather than the rights of the individual. We were keen to ensure that the bill did not cut children out from succession to land because of the sins of the parents. We were also told that the Succession (Homicide) Bill would not stop whanau from giving a person back his or her land interest if the whanau so wished even if that person had been responsible for the death of another whanau member. 
Given the significance of Maori connection to the whenua we are keen to hear the Minister’s call during the Committee stage to see how much consultation there was with tangata whenua over this bill. I know that the Law Commission was consulted and in preparing the original report in draft legislation it consulted with the Public Trust academics and a former law commissioner. We know too that specific consultation with Maori was a key suggestion in the 1996 working paper of Drs Pat Hohepa and David Williams and we hope the Government sees the value of that to this piece of legislation as well. 
Finally I wish to return to yesterday’s events. Alongside the reports of court hearings and tragic eyewitness accounts came new research from Victoria University’s Liz Moore about the homicide of some 70 kids murdered over the past 20 years which showed that most of them lived in normal family situations with both parents but because of poor record-keeping and classification of coronial records data gaps were common and proper research could not be completed. We need that research. We need answers and we need firm action to deal with questions such as “What value do we place on human life?” “How do we protect our most vulnerable from attack?” and “How do we ensure that kids are not denied their rights because of the actions of their parents?”. In questioning the futility of life Bob Geldof says in his song: 
And he can see no reasons because there are no reasons 
‘Cos there are no reasons 
What reason do you need to die die? 
My reply would be that there may be many reasons why we do die but there are no excuses for us to continue to accept the actions that lead to the scourge of homicide that blights our world. Kia ora tatou.