Mark Ron: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Mark Ron: Appropriation (2002/03 Supplementary Estimates) Bill — Second Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:609;Page:6381] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise again to signal that New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. There are no surprises there. I just wish—and so do a lot of people I know—that our colleagues in the United Future party would not support such legislation and would not fund this Government’s rather obscure programmes. 
I want to speak to one issue in the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations. Let us look at the D1 appropriations for Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections. The D1 appropriation for Vote Corrections takes a broader interpretation. It is not just about advice but about information services. Is that not typical? We have come to expect a lot from the Department of Corrections and the one thing it is very very good at is spin doctoring. Its information services are booked out at about $26 million. All I have to say to the Government and everybody who is listening is that that money does not need to be spent on policy advice for this Government because one it does not listen to good advice and two on the track record thus far— 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
RON MARK 
: I was drawing members’ attention to the D1 appropriations in Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections which deal with advice. But before I go further in dealing with advice I want to reflect on the speech made by the Hon John Tamihere the aspirant to the Maori affairs portfolio—which I do not think will happen now. I have some advice for Mr Tamihere and it comes directly from the leader of New Zealand First the Rt Hon Winston Peters. In response to that speech this evening he said that Mr Tamihere’s allegations of electoral fraud against New Zealand First were the ravings of a bum lawyer practising without a certificate. He said that the facts are that in 1996 a complaint was made by two disgruntled New Zealand First candidates. New Zealand First vigorously defended the charges and the District Court in Wellington struck the complaint out on the basis that there was not a shred of evidence to back it up. He said that Mr Tamihere was floundering around desperate to defend himself but that as Al Jolson once said: “You ain’t heard nothing yet!”. That is direct advice from the Rt Hon Winston Peters. 
The bloke-to-bloke advice I would give to John Tamihere is that he should not come into the House making allegations of corruption and fraud if he does not have the evidence to back them up. That case brought by two disgruntled people was totally thrown out of court. It was not backed up. There is an old saying that the member needs to know: “If you’re going to take on Winston Peters you need to know who you’re picking on mate!”. I leave the member with that bit of advice. 
The issue I want to talk about now is the advice to the Government. I have a piece of advice to give the Government—[ 
Interruption 
] One gets tired of hearing that from that guy over there. What is his name? Al Bundy? I cannot for the life of me think of his name. 
Peter Brown 
: Alf Garnett. 
RON MARK 
: I did not realise Alf Garnett had been elected to the Parliament of New Zealand but I get tired of hearing interjections from him. 
The advice I have for the Government is that it should stop wasting all its money on advice that it ignores. It should come straight to me or to New Zealand First if it wants advice on Vote Police Vote Courts and Vote Corrections. If members are wondering why I am saying that I simply draw their attention to what has been going on in the last few months. In the last few months I have raised a number of issues one of which has been home detention. The hapless Rick Barker over there was overseeing the Department of Corrections and when he was asked about violent offenders being on home detention he said that violent offenders were not on home detention. He said that in this House. What did we find out within about 3 minutes after he had sat down? We found out that people who had raped who had assaulted children with firearms who had threatened to kill and who had committed grievous bodily harm were on home detention. It took only about a week or so for the Minister of Corrections Paul Swain to come out and say there are problems with home detention and some of the recording data and the Government was reviewing the situation. 
I raised a stack of issues on home detention. All those issues I have to say had been flagged to the Government previously by other people—people like Joe Public who had pointed out that home detention was being abused; people like Glen Goodman who had worked for the probation service for 16 years and said that the home detention system was being abused. Did the Government listen? No. Has it finally admitted it was wrong? Yes. Is it moving to tidy up the situation? Yes. So I tell the Government to stop wasting all its money on bringing in all this advice; it should just come and talk to me. I am only too pleased to help. 
Where else have we been able to help? Let us talk about deferred sentences. When I first raised the issue of deferred sentences it was about a woman who had embezzled money from her employer. She was convicted in the court was given a jail sentence of 2 years then was allowed to go home. Where was she found? She was found back on the pokies gambling again. What did people say? They said it was not an issue. What did Mr Phil Goff eventually say? He said: “Well there is an issue and we want to bring a Statutes Amendment Bill to the House to amend the law.” We said: “Actually let’s do it the right way put it through for public submissions and tidy up a few other problems.” But it is good to know that finally the Government knows it has got it wrong. In relation to justice issues Government members should not just sit there pretending they know it all. They should come and talk to me. They should stop wasting Government money on all this advice that quite frankly does not seem to be doing any good. 
Another issue to look at is quota ticketing and unpaid fines. Here we have a Government that has clocked up according to the Supplementary Estimates of Appropriations $90 million worth of traffic infringement notices. That was for this year just gone by. It is in the Supplementary Estimates. The figure has been downsized a wee bit actually. Not as much was picked up as was hoped. I think the shortfall is a few hundred thousand dollars. How sad! The projected figure was $94.5 million and it finally ticked off at $90 million. 
But here is the real kick: the Government is aiming to increase that amount by 30 percent. That is in the latest Budget. It wants to up those figures by 30 percent. Why is it doing it? It is to improve road safety. Well there are a whole heap of problems about handing out carte blanche hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of fines. One is that the fines have to be able to be collected. The Government says it does it because it makes our roads safer; that people who get a ticket say they will not speed again. But that is not the truth. We now know from what I have brought before this Government that people are not paying their fines. That is why this Government has $488 million in outstanding fines. What has the Government said about that? It has finally conceded that there is a problem. So now what is it doing? It has a bill coming to the House that will help deal with the fines collection problem. The sum of $315 million is outstanding in traffic fines; $488 million is outstanding in fines across the board. It is nice to know that finally the Government has said that yes there is a problem. It is nice to know that the Government has said it will do something about it. That is three strikes. I would say: “Three strikes and you’re out.” 
The point is we are spending a fortune under these appropriations on ministerial advice from all these various departments and quite clearly either the advice is wrong or the Minister does not want to accept it. 
From where else have we got advice? We had advice recently that the police wanted 169 extra police. What did they get? They got 55 extra police. What is the result? The result is that someone like Mr Scotty Watson a Ready to Retail coordinator in Rotorua is saying: “We need police on the beat again. In 17 months I have never”—underlined—“seen police on the streets and on two occasions I have called police. They never have anyone to send. It is going to get to the stage where we will take the law into our own hands.” It is good advice to put more cops on the beat. It is good advice from the commissioner—“Give us 169 extra police.” What is the Government’s response? Its response is to provide 55 extra police over 4 years. 
The bottom line message is that this Government is paying an absolute fortune to get advice. Its Ministers receive advice—we have watched Parekura Horomia and what has happened with some of the advice he has been given—but consistently they have denied the accusations and the issues we have raised only to find themselves falling flat on their faces having to defer to New Zealand First and saying: “Ron Mark you and New Zealand First were right all along.”