Flavell Te Ururoa: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10500] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Speaker. Kia ora tatou katoa e hoa ma i tenei po. 
Paul Quinn 
: You’re back. 
TE URUROA FLAVELL 
: I am back. From the Maori Party’s perspective I will cut to the chase straightaway. At the nub of the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill is the issue of human rights including a person’s right to a reasonable way of life even when in prison. I refer the House to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights under which our Government is required to ensure that inmates are treated with dignity and that effective remedies are available when violations of those rights occur. 
One would think that human rights should have always been up there in our history but when we look back it has not been so. One hundred and thirty years ago this Parliament passed the 1879 Maori Prisoners Trials Act and the Maori Prisoners Act. That legislation was the Government’s racist response to the passive non-violent land-rights occupation—well it was talked about as being occupation but in fact it was a stake in the land—for those people of Parihaka. Under those laws prisoners were held indefinitely without trial contrary to one of the most basic rights guaranteed to all British citizens and set out in the Magna Carta. 
As a part of that history an important player at the time was the member of Parliament for Northern Maori a man by the name of Hone Mohi Tawhai who served in this House from 1870 to 1884. History tells us that he was asked to sit on what was called the West Coast Royal Commission on the grounds that he would be impartial not having been in any war and for his part he decided to take some pretty radical actions. He opposed the prisoners detention bill that was being rushed through the House. He refused to support blindfolded such a hurried set of measures. He publicly criticised the shipping of Maori prisoners from Taranaki to jails in Dunedin because he knew that that was just a move to get rid of them. He also knew that they would die in the colder climate. He also refused to sit on a commission with a gentleman by the name of William Fox and another gentleman by the name of Francis Dillon Bell because of their involvement in the land confiscations in Taranaki. Mr Tawhai an honourable member of Parliament in his time had one clear message during the discussion: laws not made in accordance with Te Tiriti o Waitangi would be the cause of ill feeling between Maori and Pakeha and he urged Parliament not to pass laws from which such evils would flow. 
I recall Mr Tawhai as we consider this Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill because it is desperately important that we remind ourselves always about our commitment to human rights just as I also remind us of the 2004 United Nations Committee Against Torture review of New Zealand which expressed the concern about “the findings of the Ombudsman regarding investigations of alleged staff assaults on inmates in particular regarding the reluctance to confront such allegations promptly and the quality impartiality and credibility of investigations.” That is a damning finding which emerged as members may well recall from the inquiries into the running of the Mangaroa Prison in Hawke’s Bay some years ago. The inquiries found systematic beatings and torture of prisoners by senior prison officers. They used hit squads to beat the inmates. They held inmates naked in overnight pens and lock-ups outside. They also denied inmates medical attention for injuries for injuries such as bruising black eyes and cracked ribs. The key is that although the public expressed its outrage that the nine prisoners were awarded compensation and a public apology very little attention was given to the fact that some of the prison officers who committed those criminal acts were later re-employed and apparently compensated for wrongful dismissal. 
So yes let us have a debate about the definition of rights and victims but let us also be clear that the people whom we do not like are not always the offenders and the people whom we want to feel sorry for are not necessarily the victims. Yes we are comfortable in talking about the role of the State in punishing offenders and depriving them of some of the privileges of citizenship but we cannot sanction the violence against inmates that some people in this House may well turn a blind eye to. 
Offenders lose their freedom when they get sent to jail but that does not mean they should also lose their lawful human rights. Imprisonment is the punishment not the site for ongoing additional punishment that goes way beyond the scope of the court sentence. Yet we know that the rights of prisoners are breached on a daily basis. Article 10 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights says: “All persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.” It also says: “The penitentiary system shall comprise treatment of prisoners the essential aim of which shall be their reformation and social rehabilitation.” Yet member of the House have just spoken recently to a bill that would deny inmates the right to vote. We are about to get another bill denying them compensation. 
The Maori Party supports the rights of victims to be restored to their full potential and we welcome a broader approach to victim support that strengthens and empowers individuals and their families. But we cannot ignore the fact that prisoners who are themselves vulnerable to violence who have nowhere to escape to and no one to turn to often become victims themselves of brutal rape assault and murder in jail. Those inmates will not be in jail for ever. They will return to our communities and if they have been taught that extreme violence is their pathway to success and that a brutal ignorance of the law is acceptable and accepted management practice then that will be the future they will bring back into society. 
The Maori Party supports a radical rethink of our penal system but not along the lines of the uninformed comment that the Ombudsman referred to in his 2007 inquiry into the criminal justice system which stated that denying prisoners their human rights and booting them while they are down would simply not work. So in closing we urge this House to think about ways in which we can create a more effective criminal justice system a system that punishes offending supports victims and helps offenders become more positive members of our society. The Maori Party will not be supporting this bill at its first reading.