Franks Stephen: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
Franks Stephen: Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill — Consideration of Report of Health Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9562] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise as the ACT spokesman on justice to address the second reading of the Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care) Bill. I see that it is now to be called Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Bill. That change in heading says quite a lot about this bill. The bill started out to try to draw a distinction regarding people who by reason of intellectual deficiency—low IQ defined in the bill—were permanently to be in care and would always need the community to look after them and also to look out for them. This is the bill that explains how people will deal with those who are so subnormal that they will be a threat to others and have committed crime. 
As I understand it although no ACT member at the moment was on the committee that considered this the difference or the distinction drawn here between people who are mentally ill and people who are just incapable of being left uncared for and out of custody in effect is supposed to be quite significant. But this bill is so nauseatingly horribly politically correct that it has now stuck right into the title the term “rehabilitation” which undermines the whole basis of the distinction. It seems to assume that these folk are simply people who have lapsed from a normal state of full competence and they are to be rehabilitated into that normal state of full competence. I hope to find out during the Committee stage whether my fears are in fact justified about this bill being likely to be counter-productive and utterly ineffective because of the nauseating approach that infuses it. 
I have looked carefully to see whether this bill deals with the primary problem in the boundary between the criminal justice system and the mental disability system. The real problem is that the criminal justice system takes measures to protect the rest of society the innocent. The health professional’s duty is clearly to the patient. That transcends all other factors. When we have people who have committed crimes or people who threaten or harm others the community needs to know that those who then have the custody and power of control of those folk have a duty to the rest of the community a duty to protect the innocent that transcends the duty to the patient. 
I am afraid I cannot find it in this bill. It may be there. It may be that this bill does resolve that fundamental conflict; if so it should be in plain terms. It should say that when patients come under the Act while they still have the expectations of patients with their carers there is one very very important qualification: that the carer has a primary and first-ranking duty to the community to make sure that they cannot harm others again. I fear that in all the disgusting verbiage of this bill that does not appear anywhere. 
I have used strong language. Let me just look at a few of the measures in this bill: for instance the statement of principles. When I look into Clause 12(d) of the principles governing children and young persons I start to get anxious: “consideration should be given to the wishes of the child or young person”—of course—“that is appropriate in the circumstances having regard to the age maturity and culture of the child or young person:”. In other words we are to draw race distinctions to govern whether we consider the wishes of a child. So having decided that someone’s culture is generally not very respectful of the wishes of a child the rest of New Zealand which holds that to be of high value will subordinate its judgment to the culture that has decided that it does not respect the wishes of a child. 
I then go to clause 13. All the powers of the Act have to be “exercised with proper respect for cultural identity and personal beliefs” including “proper respect for the care recipient’s”—that is a nauseating term is it not; what about patient— the patient’s “cultural and ethnic identity language and religious or ethical beliefs;”. I have no problem with religious or ethical belief. The rest are just synonyms or euphemisms for “race”. 
That in itself is not exceptional but I go a little further. We find when we look at clause 23 that every care recipient is to have a culture assessment. In other words one of the primary matters is to find out the race of the people in care. If the caregivers decide that the care recipient is a Maori and the care recipient agrees that he or she is a Maori the coordinator must then try to involve any suitable Maori organisation. This does not require the patient to agree that he or she wants a Maori organisation involved. All that that person has to agree is that he or she is Maori and the machinery of the State grinds in to draw it to make race discrimination. What does this have to do with the care and rehabilitation—as this proposes—or even the safe custody and humane treatment of mentally subnormal people who are a danger to their community? Nothing! It is politically correct garbage. 
The care and rehabilitation plan under clause 24 must identify the care recipient’s needs and take into account the cultural assessment. The whole thing is infused with race prejudice. The whole thing assumes not that these people are first people individuals—poor children many of them young persons who have been born with the worst cards in the pack. Instead it says to identify their race and start from there. Worse it does not say to the caregivers—another nauseating term—“Remember that once they have come into the criminal justice system the primary responsibility must be to the innocent to those who might be harmed in future.” It says no the primary responsibility is—first on the list clause 25(1)(a)—“the social cultural and spiritual needs” of the patient. That is before even their medical psychological or physical needs. The very first needs that have to be considered are the cultural needs. 
None of this augurs well for the detail in this bill. It says that the Health Committee soaked as it is in race consciousness has gone about looking at the needs of these people. Clause 50 is another one which I will not have time to go into in detail. Clause 50 carries it on. It states: “Every care recipient is entitled to be dealt with in a manner that accords with the spirit and intent of section 13.”—which is the one that sets up the race criteria. That is just in case we forgot halfway through the bill. The Government goes back to remind us that it has set this up as a primary duty. 
Then a little bit of lunacy that just caps it: all the provisions of the Health and Disability Commissioner’s Code of Health and Disability Consumers Rights regulation code are to apply to these folk who are in protective custody—that is protecting themselves and protecting the rest of us. Right No. 2 says that every consumer has the right to be free from discrimination coercion harassment and sexual financial or other exploitation. Free from discrimination! Yet the law tells the caregivers they have to start discriminating. And then the code says they are to be free from discrimination and free from coercion. The whole purpose of this bill is that they are subject to coercion they are in protective custody. This bill does not have the intellectual honesty to even make an exception for the irrelevant parts of this code that is to apply. 
This is a typical piece of politically correct nonsense from a Government that has waited 4 years since it was first introduced and then lands it on the House in urgency probably hoping no one will read it too carefully.