Mark Ron: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Terrorism Suppression Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:643;Page:12974] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It was very interesting to hear the previous speech by Hone Harawira and it makes me truly shudder with fear as to what sort of country I live in that we now have people in this House believing the sort of rhetoric they espouse. It also makes me wonder if the Maori Party is truly serious about some of the fears its members have expressed about what their children and the people within their communities have been exposed to through the actions of the police which have now been adjudged and determined to have been entirely appropriate what they will do inside those same households now. 
The honourable member Mr Harawira talks about the trauma of young children seeing firearms. Well we all know the realities. Many young Maori children live in homes all over this country where illegal firearms are a matter of course but of course every time one raises the issue of terrorism by gangs the very same member stands up and leaps to their defence. The very same member says we are terrorising the gangs by daring to pick on them. I did not see this member stand up and talk about— 
Hone Harawira 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I have never talked about the State terrorising the gangs. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No no. That is not a point of order. 
RON MARK 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I seek your assurance. This member has been here for 2 years. In that time he has collected well over $220000 of taxpayers’ money because he is representing an understanding of the Standing Orders. He knows that— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: What is your point of order? 
RON MARK 
: My point of order Mr Speaker is that yesterday he did not like my speech so he chose a path of deliberately interrupting it with points of order. 
Hone Harawira 
: Point of order. 
RON MARK 
: He is trying it again and he is doing so on the back of a speech he gave about people denying others the freedom of speech. Could you please deal with this man Mr Speaker. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you Mr Mark but I found it impossible to decide what the member was going to raise before he stood up and took a point of order. The minute I saw that it was not remotely like a point of order I discontinued it. 
RON MARK 
: Thank you Mr Speaker. 
This is the point. We seem to have one set of standards on one side of the House for those who want to be dissidents and activists and who want to give the nation their form of lawful protest. Mr Locke is a great example. Today we had a demonstration out in front of Parliament. People did not have the right to stand up and speak on the steps but because they are who they are—the great holy peacemakers of the nation—they got to break the rules. The security guards sat back and did nothing except advise them that they did not have permission to speak on the steps. Mr Locke’s answer to that was that common sense prevailed—that they were allowed to make their speeches and they were not pulled to account and thrown off the steps. 
 Imagine if Garth McVicar did the same thing in this House. Imagine if members of the Sensible Sentencing Trust turned up here without the right authorities and chose to exercise exactly the same course of action that these people did. Would we see Mr Locke standing up there and defending their right to break the rules to have their say? Not on your nelly! Because there are two standards from the Green Party and the Maori Party on issues such as this—there is one law for everybody else and there is another specific law for them. They argue that freedom of speech gives them the right to say whatever they like however they like whenever they like. 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. This is a point of misrepresentation. I would hold the same rights for Garth McVicar as for anyone else. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Sit down. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Thank you for raising that but it is not a point of order. 
Keith Locke 
: When I was making my point of order Winston Peters interjected. You are supposed to hear these points of order in silence and I am still being intervened with on my point of order. I think you have got to take some action in this case. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Yes I did take action. I said to you that that was not a point of order and I think the Rt Hon Winston Peters was simply trying to assist me in coming to that decision. 
RON MARK 
: And that proves my point again. Mr Harawira says “we’re not thick”. Well excuse me hello! Is that $250000 of wasted tax money or what? It is not wasted just on one of them we have two behaving in the same way! I mean come along and talk to me about the waste of taxpayers’ money and the inability to deliver healthcare to children. We have blown a quarter of a million dollars on just two of them in 2 years. And it is not a case actually that they do not understand the Standing Orders they do not understand the laws of this land they do not understand the laws and the rules that pertain to this House how it is run and how it is operated. The fact of the matter is they do not want to because they believe that they are the moral beacons of this nation. 
Keith Locke 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I think the member should withdraw the remark that we do not understand the Standing Orders. We take offence at that. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No I will not accept that. I will not instruct Mr Mark to withdraw what he said. 
RON MARK 
: Excuse me I am just lost for words. How many times does this member have to assist me? 
We are talking about legislation that is designed to protect democracy to protect the citizens of this nation against people who would use extraordinary means to deny that privilege—extraordinary means. I used to have a little business and I had about 28 staff working for me. One of my staff members said to me: “Ron you’re always at work. Why do you do that? I arrive at work and you’re already here. I leave work you’re still here. I can come back late at night and you’re still here. Why do you do that?” I said: “Well it’s simple. I have a little philosophy: extraordinary results demand extraordinary effort.” I would apply the same philosophy to the issues we face in terms of security the threat to this nation and the issues that this bill attempts to deal with. 
The threats that we face internationally from terrorism are extraordinary and they require extraordinary legislation to empower our police our intelligence agencies and the judiciary to deal with those. We understand the threats that this legislation might bring and the threats are very real so we put in place extraordinary checks. And this debate that we have been watching played out in the media and the commentary that we have heard actually is quite astounding. The one thing that these people—these critics—have failed to recognise is that the legislation that was enacted by the police actually required that the police get authority from the Attorney-General before charges could be laid. That is extraordinary. 
What is even more extraordinary is that the Attorney-General decided not to exercise that power. He chose to expand it; to pass that role to the Solicitor-General a more independent body who is outside politics and outside the Government. Today we have his decision. And far from the accusations that have been made by the people on the left—who are seated on my right today—far from what they were asserting the Government has done everything it could to ensure that the right people the appropriate people adjudicated on this issue and made the right determination and thus they have. 
What are the extraordinary circumstances we are facing? I could say that what is extraordinary is having a member of this House a man who has taken an oath to uphold the laws of this land who has given his allegiance to Queen Elizabeth and the Crown—and I can understand that because Maori have a relationship specifically and personally with the Crown through the Treaty of Waitangi—who would want to undermine that relationship. Why would Maori ever seek to undermine that relationship? They might have their gripes with the Governments of the day but their relationship and association with the Crown is specific particular and personal. 
But not this member. He sees nothing wrong with standing up on national television on  
Native Affairs 
 and saying: “If they tried this sort of—expletive—” and the fact that he has to resort to that sort of language gives an indication of his intellectual powers—“here in New Zealand we’d be out in the streets with guns.” He did not say “they would be”. He did not say “some might be”. He said “we” implying himself did he not I say to Mr Hone Harawira. So what are we to deduce from that? 
Hone Harawira 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. 
RON MARK 
: Here he goes again. Those are the words and they there on the website— 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: Have you a specific point of order Mr Harawira? 
Hone Harawira 
: It is about the mispronunciation of my name Mr Speaker. Could I ask him to pronounce my name properly? Is that appropriate? 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That goes for all of us; yes. 
RON MARK 
: In that respect Mr Deputy Speaker I would like him to refer to me as Ron Mark as opposed to “Marks” and “Maaka”. That would be nice because that is my name. But never mind. 
I would say to that member—who again has just demonstrated exactly what I am saying—that it is one thing for people to espouse freedom of speech for themselves but it is another thing for them to defend and protect the freedom of speech of those who do not agree with them. Some people need to understand that. If we have a short overweight pot-bellied Maori with gelatine in his bum shaking it on TV saying one thing—well the public are quite right to dismiss the person lightly and say that the language of incitement he is using is of no great threat. They will say: “Look at him. Who could take him seriously?” 
But when a member of Parliament stands up and says something it is a completely different thing. That member of Parliament does not need to carry an AK-47. His words are his weapon and the power that he exercises through the written media and through television has a far greater impact on those who feel themselves disenfranchised in society or belittled or disempowered. His power is far greater than that of a short tubby man with gelatine in his bum. 
New Zealand First supports this legislation for all the right reasons. We thoroughly oppose those who would advocate for their own freedom to say what they want while denying the rest of us our freedom to say what we want.