Mark Ron: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
Mark Ron: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:640;Page:10574] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It was interesting listening to my friend and colleague Simon Power’s speech but Simon did leave out a couple of small steps in the chain of events that occurred. In actual fact after New Zealand First had consulted with Heather Roy and received our email from our former colleague Stephen Franks we consulted the Minister Mark Burton. As was typical of the Minister throughout this whole process he did something I have found it difficult to have achieved from other quarters in this Chamber. That is he listened; he did listen. I find it interesting that Simon Power and other National Party members should now be trumpeting a success on their part in claims and statements that they always wanted this amendment to occur. I am reading pages 16 and 17 of the bill right now which contain National’s minority report. And guess what? It makes no mention of the clauses that Heather Roy has now amended. It says: “National members are also concerned about proposed amendments to the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act. We oppose moves to extend the Act beyond 30 June 2007.” But that issue relates to Supplementary Order Paper 127. It does not deal in any way shape or form with clauses 96 97 98 101 102 or 104. 
Mr Power did make a speech on those clauses. But National has been accused by the Sensible Sentencing Trust and by Stephen Franks of paying lip service to victims’ rights. In that the issue is not included at all in National’s minority report it would appear that Mr Franks is quite correct. National is dare I say grandstanding on that issue. The fact of the matter is that there is a lesson to be learnt here. One should look to Heather Roy as an example and look to the Minister as an example. 
New Zealand First was challenged severely in the debate last night by Mr Henare who said: “What are you going to do about it? What have you done?”. I say to Mr Henare that here is a perfect example of what can be done if one wishes to work constructively as Ms Roy the Minister and I—now supported by National—have done. Yes this is a fine example of MMP at work but it requires for a start a Minister who is prepared to listen. We have had that. I do not particularly want to see some of the former Ministers of Justice from National reappearing on the front benches of a Government because they did not listen did they? Tony Ryall is a perfect example. Tony Ryall knows everything he knows what is best for everybody and he is the first to tell anyone that. So I do not expect to see any changes in MMP with that man as the Minister of Justice in a new Government should that ever eventuate. 
New Zealand First wants to put it on the record that we do believe that effective rehabilitation is not only important but essential moving forward. But our serious belief is that the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Justice over the past—God knows how long—decade or 15 years have been running rehabilitation programmes that simply are not effective. We think that the changes to home detention in particular are a good move forward but we would have to say that New Zealand First is putting the justice sector on notice—on notice. Our confidence in home detention has been severely undermined. We are happy that back-end home detention has been removed. We are very happy that home detention has now become a sentence in its own right which will be given by the presiding judge who has heard the case immediately at sentencing. We believe that that is a very definite positive step forward. But we still have grave reservations as to the way in which home detention is administered. We view with a high degree of scepticism the claims by Ministry of Justice officials and Department of Corrections officials that home detention is well administered and that the number of breaches is minimal and very low. 
We know from our sources inside the departments and the industries concerned that many of the breaches of home detention are never recorded because people consider them to be of minimal concern. Well we do not agree with that. So we say that with the passing of this bill—and everyone is on notice from our chair—home detention is still up for further observation and further monitoring and if we do not see severe progress being made in respect of the administration of home detention we will be first to the front looking to see it repealed. We would say that the Government is on notice again.