Parker DavidHon DAVID PARKER (Labour): The previous speaker Chris Hipkins makes an interesting point because if Sir Kenneth Keith is right that these things are already dead anyway you really can never get to deader than dead. The principle that is being embarked upon through this legislation—as a repeal bill that then needs to be repealed itself because it sits on the statute book and then needs another repeal bill to repeal the repeal bill that repealed the already redundant legislation—is a bit of a nonsense at that level. Having said that I do not mind cleaning up some of this old stuff and getting rid of it.I do want to return to this point of the Sentencing Council Act because we still have not had a response from the Minister in the chair and I am hoping that we are going to get one. I want to explain why it is wrong that through this excising of redundant legislation we get rid of the Sentencing Council Act and I want to explain the policy reasons that lie behind the Sentencing Council Act which just should not be repealed through this statute repeal legislation. There is no analysis in the original bill's explanatory note there has been no evidence given by the ministries as to why the underlying purpose of the Sentencing Council Act is no longer relevant; they are just trying to get rid of it through this administratively convenient mechanism.In New Zealand we know that we have high rates of incarceration of Māori. It is a shame upon our country that more than 50 percent of all prison inmates are of Māori ethnicity. We also know that there are assertions which many believe to be correct that Māori offenders suffer higher sentences than non-Māori offenders for the same crimes. The sentencing council was meant to be preparing sentencing guidelines that I think would have made it more likely that sentences would be equivalent for equivalent crimes. There would have been more guidelines because section 9 of that Act—not clause 9 of a bill that is in consideration not some legislation that may or may not sometime come into effect but section 9 of this legislation that is currently on our statute book—says that one of the functions of the council is: (a) to produce guidelines that are consistent with the Sentencing Act 2002 relating to—(i) sentencing principles: (ii) sentencing levels: (iii) particular types of sentences: (iv) other matters relating to sentencing practice:".What might the sentencing council have done? It might have actually produced some guidelines that said that because of this evidence that Māori are overall likely to receive longer sentences for the same crime compared with someone like me judges in the future need to take particular care when sentencing Māori to make sure that they are not sentencing Māori offenders more harshly than other offenders.That I think would have been a good thing to do because I think it is accepted by most that people who are in a less powerful position in society—who are in New Zealand disproportionately Māori because Māori are disproportionately represented in lower socio-economic groups—are less likely to have the quality of legal representation particularly as legal aid is eroded and also just because of their financial situation and their lack of power in society they are likely to be on average penalised more harshly.For us for this repeal legislation to repeal the Sentencing Council Act 2007 without having that discussion about whether this underlying problem that we have got with high rates of incarceration of offenders of Māori ethnicity—[Bell rung]The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Referring to the Clerk this is actually clause 3 under Schedule 1. I have given you the latitude to talk about it but it actually comes up later on under clause 3. I am happy for you to continue but when you come to clause 3 then we will be stopping it at that stage—so I call the Hon David Parker.Hon DAVID PARKER: I thank you Mr Chair. I will address it again under clause 3. Thank you for that."