Mark Ron: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Mark Ron: Parole (Extended Supervision) and Sentencing Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:613;Page:10197] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
That member over there on the Government benches certainly did not earn anything of the huge magnificent salary that he is paid with that speech. That is the sort of speech that I will make sure New Zealand First members tout around his electorate to show his constituents how much work he does in this House. It was an absolutely pathetic contribution no doubt written by a senior Cabinet Minister and handed to him the minute before he spoke with an instruction from the whip to get up and read it out and then to sit down and shut up. The party that member belongs to does not want to hear him speak in this House. That is why they gave him 1 minute to speak on a very important bill such as this which we will support being referred through to the select committee. 
Darren Hughes 
: Get on and talk about it. 
RON MARK 
: That member is now making a longer contribution by interjection than he has made in this House in 3 months. What a useless pathetic example he is of a young man to have in this House. I have to say that that reflects this bill.  
This bill is a sham and a scam. What the Minister did not tell the House about this bill is that it contains technical amendments to address drafting matters such as incorrect cross-references anomalies omissions and greater clarification of expressions in the much-vaunted sentencing and parole legislation that he brought to the House. It contains amendments to clarify that much-vaunted legislation hailed as Norm Withers’ answer to all his prayers. Here we are now correcting and amending the wonderful sentencing and parole legislation because as we said in the Committee stage—where I did not hear one contribution from that young man who spoke before me—it was flawed from the outset. We said it would not contain— 
Darren Hughes 
: I was not in Parliament then you fool! 
RON MARK 
: Well it was a good decision not to have that member in Parliament then. Someone got it wrong thereafter. I would have thought that that young man would stand up and refer to that but he did not. That was an absolutely pathetic contribution. My comments about that obviously hurt him and that is why he is interjecting a lot. He does not want us to publish that speech throughout his electorate.  
I turn to the provisions on home detention in section 97 of the Sentencing Act and section 35 of the much-vaunted Parole Act. Excuse me! We were told there was nothing wrong with that legislation. All the Opposition cries were ignored—no problems. Yet here we are using up valuable taxpayers’ time to correct and amend that legislation. Government members hate that. 
Jill Pettis 
: Sit down then. 
RON MARK 
: There goes the parrot—the fishmonger’s wife must be back screeching across the Chamber. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No no— 
RON MARK 
: I thought that came from the gallery. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
:: The member knows that he must address members properly. 
RON MARK 
: I was not talking to her. I just heard a squawk. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: The member will withdraw and apologise. 
RON MARK 
: Well I withdraw and apologise for not recognising that the squawk came from that honourable member. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: No no. Please be seated. The member will withdraw and apologise without making reference to what he is withdrawing and apologising for. He knows that is outside the Standing Orders. 
RON MARK 
: I withdraw and apologise. I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. In the interests of fairness a lack of prejudice and good and proper order I say I do not mind solid interjections that have a point. But screeching across the Chamber in that manner is surely unacceptable.  
I return to home detention and section 97 of the Sentencing Act. Who raised the issue about the problems contained in that section? It certainly was not Jill Pettis. It certainly was not that young man whose name I cannot remember. It certainly was not Mr Goff or Clayton Cosgrove and it certainly was not my honourable rugby-playing mate Damien O’Connor. That issue was raised as a result of a constituent in the Canterbury region telling me about a horrendous case where a person who had embezzled his company of $140000— 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: A constituent? 
RON MARK 
: It is a constituent that one of that member’s fellow MPs was not looking after. That is why he came to me. I will not say he came from the Christchurch central area but he did not want to go to a Government member of Parliament so he came to me. It was something to do with orientation or something; I do not know what the issue was. That man saw his employee sentenced to jail and a week later he saw her on the street. The employee had got into trouble by gambling at the casino getting herself hugely into debt and she then embezzled the company she worked for of $140000. 
Clayton Cosgrove 
: Sounds like Tuku. 
RON MARK 
: I thank Mr Cosgrove for that; I will remind Dover Samuels of that comment. That employee was sentenced to jail and a week later she was found out on the street.  
But worse than that that employee was spotted in the Hoon Hay Working Men’s Club gambling on the pokie machines again. How did she get there? The much-vaunted sentencing and parole legislation allowed the judges to give her the right to apply for home detention and to give her that leave and that leave was given at large in the community. It is called a deferred sentence. She is now out at large for another 3 4 or 6 weeks and is back into the same activity that got her into trouble to start with. And the businessman who is out of pocket by $140000 has to swallow that and accept it. I think not! We raised that case in this House and finally the Government is doing something about it. But what was the Government’s first reaction? It was to say it would cover it over by putting through a Statutes Amendment Bill. Like heck it will! We said the Government should come back and address all the problems contained in that legislation including that of child sex offenders which Mr Goff is now attempting to deal with.  
There is a fundamental issue with regard to child sex offenders that I believe this Government will not face up to because the rot started during the time when Helen Clark was the Minister of Health. It relates to deinstitutionalisation and to whether child sex offenders and paedophiles are mad or bad. Hello! There is no answer from Labour on that. Are child sex offenders and paedophiles mad or bad? Are the people who prey on our children doing so because they are bad nasty horrible people of sane mind or because they are mentally impaired and intellectually disabled—mad as opposed as to bad? If they are mad they should not be in jail and we should not be passing laws like this to catch them. We should have institutions and asylums where we can put those people and care for them and where they are protected from society and society is protected from them. But this Government fundamentally and ideologically will not stand for tolerate or allow institutions to exist because it has carefully constructed its arguments to stigmatise institutions.  
Not only does the Government stigmatise institutions but it also stigmatises every person who supported them and worked in them. I remember Ruth Richardson being one person and the Labour Party members being other people who went about and condemned anyone who worked at the Templeton Centre as being institutionalised himself of herself. They said those workers did not know what they were talking about and had nothing constructive to offer. The warnings of such workers that this sort of thing would happen fell on the deaf ears of Helen Clark who wears medals for closing 29 hospitals and getting rid of institutions. 
Jill Pettis 
: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. A case with regard to the allegation that the member has just made has been in front of the courts. What the member has just said has been proven to be totally incorrect and I request that he withdraw and apologise. Helen Clark did not close 29 hospitals at all. 
RON MARK 
: It is a matter of debate. It was 32 actually. 
Madam DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: That is a matter for debate. 
RON MARK 
: What else do we have in this bill? Home detention is an issue and it will be partially addressed in this bill. We would be a lot happier if this bill contained the repeal of all home detention law altogether. Part of the control on the paedophiles and sexual predators who attack children depends and relies on 24/7 supervision which we now know will not necessarily involve having a person standing beside the criminally convicted offender. It may instead rely on electronic monitoring. The honourable Dale Jones is a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and he will be sitting on it through the consideration of this bill. We will be looking at that issue closely. Everything that we have heard from members of the Department of Corrections in the Law and Order Committee is that an ankle bracelet will not stop a paedophile abusing or sexually molesting a child. The ankle bracelet does not leap to criminals’ necks and choke them to death does not handcuff them to the nearest power pole and does not physically restrain them. All that it does is to go off when they are outside their designated place. We now know that the designated place is subject to whatever conditions or impositions the Parole Board and probation officers impose which is just so open-ended as to be ridiculous.  
We have heard much about global positioning systems from the Minister himself. Let me tell the House that a global positioning system device will tell us where a person raped a child; it will not stop that person doing it. This bill is fundamentally flawed in those respects. If we are to have 24/7 supervision let us have it in a mental institution or a proper asylum where the staff can give the person good medical care and where the person will be out of circulation but will be looked after professionally not looked after by a Chubb Security guard who is paid $9 an hour and has had no professional training whatsoever on how to care for monitor and look after people like that.  
It is timely that this bill has come to the House and that we are finally to deal with some of the problems. But I suggest to this House that this Government has a lot more cleaning-up to do in its own backyard and much of what needs to be addressed dates from 1984-87. Is it not sad that such a number of casualties in the community have fallen by the wayside since then?