Norman Russel: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial ResignationText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Urgent Debates — Hon Maurice Williamson—Ministerial Resignation[Sitting date: 06 May 2014. Volume:698;Page:17491. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green): I moveThat the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. This cuts to the heart of our democracy—this issue around Maurice Williamson—and this cuts to the issue of whether our democracy is for sale under this Government. But I think that we should start in this case from the point of view of the victim of domestic violence because I think that under our system everybody is deserving of the protection of the law. Regardless of how rich a person is regardless of what connections a person may have and regardless of the wealth of a person’s abuser everybody deserves the protection of the law in this country. In this case we had a Minister intervening to protect the abuser not to protect the victim and I think that is what is truly deeply appalling above everything else in this case. Here was a victim of domestic violence—the perpetrator in this case has pleaded guilty to domestic violence—and here we had a Minister of the Crown intervening in a police investigation to put pressure on the police not to go ahead with a prosecution for a domestic violence incident.Put yourself in the shoes of all the domestic violence victims across New Zealand. It is a hard thing to complain in a domestic violence situation. It is always difficult it is always traumatic and how much harder is it when you have Maurice Williamson intervening on the side of your abuser in a domestic violence situation? How much harder is it for a victim of domestic violence trying to get justice in this country under this Government when we have a Minister of the Crown intervening to try to prevent the police from going ahead with the prosecution of a domestic violence perpetrator? That is the actual situation we have just experienced in our country. We have gone through the experience of a National Party Minister ringing up the police in a case of domestic violence and leaning on the police not to go ahead with the prosecution. So from the point of view of the victim which I think should be at the heart of this whole debate everybody deserves equal protection from the law but the National Party does not seem to believe that any more. It seems to think that some people—if you are a domestic violence abuser who has a lot of money—should get special treatment. That is what happened in this case.I think it is important to read from the police email about National Minister Maurice Williamson’s conversation with the police about this case of domestic violence. Maurice Williamson’s mate was a domestic violence abuser in this case. According to the police email Mr Williamson rang up a senior police member and said that somebody should review the matter to ensure the police were on solid ground as Mr Liu is investing a lot of money in New Zealand. Think about that for a second. Thinkabout what Mr Williamson—a very senior National Party member a member of the National Party for decades a member of this Parliament for decades—was saying. Think about what it means. He was saying that this person Mr Liu had to get special treatment because he was wealthy. Because he was planning to invest money in New Zealand National thinks that he should get special treatment in the criminal justice system.This very senior National Party member of Parliament and Minister was intervening in a police investigation to put pressure on the police not to go ahead with the prosecution of a domestic violence abuser because that abuser was investing money in New Zealand because he was wealthy. Think about what that means for our justice system. Think about what that means for all the victims of domestic violence in New Zealand. Think about what it is like to complain about domestic violence and how difficult it is to go to the police in a case like this. Then when you are involved in a police case like this you have a Minister of the Crown intervening on the side of your abuser to try to stop the police proceeding with the prosecution. That is how low National has now got.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Rubbish!Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: It is that low. Mr Gerry Brownlee says “Rubbish!”. I am sorry Mr Brownlee but we have the evidence from the police in front of us right here. The police email says that Mr Maurice Williamson a senior National Minister rang them up and said that he wanted to make sure somebody reviewed this matter—a domestic violence case. Mr Williamson was intervening to say to them that he wanted them to review the matter to ensure the police were on solid ground as Mr Liu is investing a lot of money in New Zealand. What he is saying is that the law is not equal. We are not all equal before the law because if some of us are wealthy then they get special treatment according to National. That is what senior National Minister Maurice Williamson has just done in our country in the 21st century this year. Think about that.So where did the rot begin that we end up at the point where a senior National Minister thinks that someone should get special treatment in a domestic violence case because they are wealthy? How did we end up in this situation with this Government in 2014? I would argue that the problem is this. National has adopted the culture of the world of business where everything is for sale—and that is fine and how it is meant to be; the world of business is all about money—and has applied it to the world of Government and the world of justice. What it has said is that in the justice system you can buy your way out. If you are accused of being a domestic violence abuser and you have got contacts with the National Party and you are planning to invest a lot of money in New Zealand then you can buy your way out of it. Maybe another donation to the National Party would fix it for you. You can have a National Minister ring up senior police on your behalf if you are a domestic violence abuser. You can have a senior Minister in the National Government ring up the police and lean on them to not proceed with the investigation.So what National is saying is that there is the culture of the world of business and there is nothing wrong with the culture of the world of business—we need to make money in the world of business and that is fine. But when National brings that over to the world of justice and says that the richer you are the more justice you will get that is wrong. And what National has done is wrong. What Maurice Williamson did was wrong. Think about it from the point of view of the victim of domestic violence. For once National should look at its heart and think about it from the point of view of the person who has had violence done against them by their partner.I would also say that National is applying this idea that money rules all else to the world of politics. In the world of politics it is supposed to be one person one vote. Weare all supposed to be treated equally by the Government of the day. That is regardless of how wealthy you are regardless of how much money you may give to a political party. We are all supposed to be treated equally in the world of politics and democracy. That is the idea of democracy. The whole idea what our forefathers and foremothers fought for over centuries was that we could all have one person one vote and be treated equally by the law and by the Government. The whole idea was that we would not get special treatment just because we were rich and we would not get special treatment just because we donated to a political party. This is where National has lost its way.Maurice Williamson and the attitude of Maurice Williamson I think have come to represent everything that is wrong in this current Government. The amazing thing is listening to him even after he was sacked as a Minister. He was defending the position that you should get special treatment if you are planning to invest lots of money in New Zealand. This reminds me very much of the Skycity debate. Where did the rot set in? Let me suggest to you one place where this may have begun and that was the Skycity debate. The idea of the Skycity debate was that this Parliament changed the gambling laws of New Zealand in order to facilitate Skycity. You could argue that it bought the law—that might be a bit strong. But you could certainly argue that National’s position was that if Skycity was willing to invest a lot of money it could get the law changed for it. That is very similar to the position of Maurice Williamson which is that if you are investing a lot of money in New Zealand you should get special treatment from the justice system even if you are a domestic violence abuser.Hon Gerry Brownlee: That is wrong.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN: Mr Brownlee says this is wrong. So he is defending Maurice Williamson. Let us be clear about what Maurice Williamson did. He did not say that everybody—a domestic violence abuser or a victim—should get treated equally by the law. Maurice Williamson said no. If you are planning to invest heavily in New Zealand you will get special treatment. He said that their case must be on solid ground so presumably everyone else’s case does not need to be on solid ground. But if you are planning to invest lots of money in New Zealand the police’s case against you should be on solid ground.The Green Party does not believe what Maurice Williamson and the National Party believe. We believe that all people are equal before the law. We believe that all people are equal under our democracy and we will defend that position. Every time that the Green Party has proposed more transparency around donations to political parties the National Party has rejected them—every time. It has rejected every attempt to clean up the system. Simon Power to give him his due did have some respect for the idea that we need more transparency around the system and some of the changes that he made around electoral finance were very very good. But what we are seeing now is that this Government opposes every attempt to clean up the political system and the reason it opposes every attempt to clean up the political system is that it is defending the indefensible.Maurice Williamson has become I think the most rotten piece of this whole ideology that the National Party has adopted which is that the more money you have the more say you should have in Parliament and in the Government and in our democracy and if you have enough money you should get special treatment under the criminal justice system. That is exactly what Maurice Williamson was saying in his intervention in this case.So this is a pretty simple case. I do not think it is a complicated issue actually. I think that it is quite straightforward. I think that it is good that Maurice Williamson has been sacked and good on the Prime Minister for doing it but the Prime Minister needsto look in the mirror and see where the rot has set in. Where has this culture arisen that says that the more money you have the more influence you have in politics and the more say you have in the criminal justice system? That is wrong and I think that most New Zealanders will reject what the Government has been doing in this respect. We need to clean up politics in New Zealand and we need to remember that the law is here to protect all New Zealanders even if they happen to be the partner of a domestic violence abuser who gave a lot of money to the National Party. Even those victims Mr Brownlee deserve our defence as a Parliament because the law is here to protect all of us.