Power Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Power Simon: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:637;Page:7422] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 What a messy difficult start it has been for the Prime Minister and the Labour Party since this House has come back. The issue of Taito Phillip Field has come home to roost for all those Labour MPs who never took the opportunity over the last 8 months to stand up and defend that member. Well that was good judgment because as it turns out it was indefensible. Now this sick tired old Government is propped up by the Green Party. I will come back to that later on. 
When I look around the House during question time I see it is a sad state of affairs. George Hawkins is actively disengaged now. He is not the slightest bit interested in what is going on in the House. The Hon David Cunliffe is all puffed up with his chest out answering his questions to the gallery instead of to the people in the House. Moana Mackey is about to start her career for the mayoralty of Petone. She knows the time is up for a Government back-bencher who is never going to make it. 
Who has been setting the agenda in New Zealand since Christmas? John Key has been setting the agenda since Christmas time and into 2007. He is doing a sterling job because not only is he aspirational and unafraid of the big fights but more to the point he represents a generation of New Zealanders who cannot be represented by that tired old grey lot across the other side. It is a generation that that Government has lost touch with and does not understand. I can tell the House that National has lost confidence in the Department of Corrections and in the Minister of Corrections. But it is not just us. It is the Prime Minister as well. 
In the Prime Minister’s annual statement she made it clear that although responsibility for applying for recall rests with the probation service she now wants the police to do it because the Department of Corrections is not up to it. She has also—and this one snuck under the radar—lost confidence in the Ministry of Justice. When we look closely at who is leading law reform and legislative change we see it is the Law Commission. It is not the Ministry of Justice; it is the Law Commission. If it is a hot potato we know that Rick Barker does not want to know about it. We know that Mark Burton has no idea of how to deal with it. Worst of all we know that Damien O’Connor just cannot cope any longer. The justice sector under this Government is in total and utter disarray. 
Let us look at the facts behind the disastrous and tragic events of the Burton case. The Parole Board released him back into society. That was not a smart move. But then the police told the Department of Corrections in November that something was wrong that this guy was not where he was supposed to be and that they were desperately concerned. On 5 December he allegedly breached his parole for the first time. Despite his history—escaping from Paremoremo in 1998—and despite the police warnings that trouble was on the way what did the department do? It sent him a letter. This is the sort of guy who is going to race out to his letterbox at 11.30 every day open it and say: “Oh well the parole service has written to me. I had better go and check in.”! 
The Department of Corrections sent him a letter and then did nothing until 19 December. It gave this character a 2-week head start on the New Zealand Police. What did the Government do? It ordered another report. The department said that it had nothing to do with it and that it had done everything right. Well there is no change there; that is what the department always says. The chief executive officer of the department told the media that there are no plans to change the Parole Act—and then on Tuesday the Prime Minister said that there are plans to change the Parole Act. The chief executive officer has no idea of what is going on and has been left out of the loop completely. No doubt Damien O’Connor knew even less. 
But did the Prime Minister say there would be changes made to the Parole Act? When one reads the Prime Minister’s statement one finds it is very carefully worded. She stated the Government has decided to give “serious consideration” to allowing the police to make a recall application. She gave no guarantees. She went on and stated “it can be argued that the police should have the power to make an application for recall”. Nowhere in her statement is there a commitment to put the Parole Act into order. Nowhere is there a firm undertaking to clean up the mess that occurred in December and January. It is just weasel words. 
But I cannot let the Prime Minister’s statement go without saying something about the Greens. Green members are abstaining. Where are their principles? This is the party that fights for an agenda fights for ideas and tells its voters that it will not back off. Where are the major extractions of concessions of policy they have made? What I am sure of is this: Sue Bradford MetiriaTurei and Nandor Tanczos did not fight to get into Parliament in order to abstain on issues they feel strongly about. Sue Bradford’s own member’s bill agenda indicates she is a person with firm ideas and principles. What is that party doing by abstaining? Either it should get on board and back the Government or it should get out but its abstaining and being neutral is a disgrace. It is a party of Ashraf Choudharys. We have seen a party of Ashraf Choudharys. 
I would tell Green members not to come to this Parliament with all their righteous indignation about what other parties do and with their carrying-on about how the Greens are above that if they are prepared to be neutral on whether this Government should continue to survive. That is not good enough when those members have been elected to be the Switzerland of the New Zealand Parliament. They should either get on board or get out. 
This Government is old tired and grumpy. The Prime Minister’s face has returned to that pre-1999 lemon-sucking contortion that we have not seen for 4 or 5 years where the sort of forced smile we see on  
Close Up 
 has been replaced by the grim darkness of the “evil empire” coming to its last days of power. We on the National side of the House know that Labour’s time is up that Helen Clark is gone and that those tired old Ministers—who will be driving around in their hybrid fuel cars shortly—have to get used to the fact that their time is done and that they did not get anywhere near delivering for New Zealand the type of vision aspirational messages and legislative drive that John Key and the National Party will bring after the next general election.