Franks Stephen: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:21023] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The interesting thing about sitting through the submissions from the victims was how few of them—in fact I do not think any of them did—spoke in terms as strongly as has been expressed in Parliament today about prisoners; those who had hurt them. In fact nearly all of them said they wanted prisoners to be protected from abuse or harm in prison. They wanted prisoners to have a means of remedy when they in turn were hurt. They did not want to see prisoners suffering abuse. But at the same time the victims made it absolutely clear—not that they had needs that ought to be met or as Mr Barnett has just implied would be met by more Government money—they simply wanted to see that justice was not undermined. 
In that sense the fury that we are hearing from the Opposition members today who are opposed to this bill is entirely justified. It is not overstated. Because what the victims were saying to us was: “Step back from the technicalities step back from the lawyers’ opinions step back from the 136-page judgment of Justice Young and just look at it as we see it. Who is ending up with society’s help out of this? We are left to deal with the injury inflicted by these beasts on us to cope as best we can—paying our own parking fines to get to court and having to buy the suits to bury our dead. Meanwhile the State is taking this tender care of prisoners.” 
That is what they were concerned about. They were simply saying: “Look at how it looks to us with what we already think to be derisory inadequate penalties.” The parole system tells prisoners that the punishment—the price—means nothing as long as they can pretend not to be a danger to the community when they are one-third of the way through the sentence. Then on top of that when those people have the lights left on too long or are not given a clean laundry bag or they have a window left open in winter when it should have been closed— 
Jill Pettis 
: Oh don’t be ridiculous. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Mrs Pettis says “ridiculous”. Has she read Justice Young’s judgment? Has she seen the list of complaints that resulted in each of those complainants getting $500 a week—$2500 a month for the time they were on their behaviour modification regime? Many of them would not have been able to earn that in honest toil. That would have been the best money tax-free they had ever made—for being in prison! What was upsetting the victims was that they were facing a select committee that knew that what was being proposed was wrong. They could tell from our body language—and I say “our” because it included the Labour members who did a good job on this—that we too agreed that there was something deeply wrong with this. They expected the outcome to be respect for their position. That is why the Sensible Sentencing Trust came back when it saw what the select committee had done or what the Government—the Minister—had forced on the select committee and what Mr Goff’s officials had bulldozed through with the help of the Greens and Labour. That is why they said: “victim bashing; political arrogance; Government hypocrisy”. This was a bill that Mr Goff said was there to help victims and that is how the most active representatives of victims judged it. 
Garth McVicar said that the select committee process was an utter sham and the most blatant example of our democratic system being trashed that he had ever witnessed. That is because those representatives took it seriously. They thought there was a chance of getting this bill to reflect what victims really want: a system that does not insult them. They were not there to be vindictive; they simply did not want to see the cruel irony of prisoners being paid for trivial abuse while the law in New Zealand states that real crime victims can get nothing. That is the problem. The accident compensation scheme states that generally even if the other party had the money one cannot sue for the kinds of injuries inflicted by crime. Yet this Government now claims absolutely falsely that we are obliged by the United Nations Human Rights Committee the members of which are appointed by some of the most disgusting vile and cruel dictators on this earth. Mr Mugabe has a nominee on the United Nations Human Rights Committee as does the Sudan—a country that is arresting people who are reporting mass rape—and this Government says we kowtow in this country to the United Nations Human Rights Committee! 
Is it any wonder that Garth McVicar of the Sensible Sentencing Trust thinks that this Government is an utter disgrace? Representatives came here in good faith and tried earnestly with Tony Ellis—who of course they were suspicious of; he is the representative who is claiming over $3.5 million from the Government in compensation for 200 criminals—they sat down to try to sort out something that would suit the interests of all New Zealanders having prisons that kept prisoners safe and something whereby victims would be protected from the further outrage that this legislation now countenances. In the end the shutters came down. After all the work that one can see in the select committee’s report no substantial changes were made. 
What are we talking about? The Government has grudgingly released under question that in 2000 the then Attorney-General authorised the payment of around $325000 to four Mongrel Mob members. Other payments that have never been identified bring the total up to $566000 over 6 years. Then we got to 2004. Justice Young told the Government in April 2004 that he had decided to uphold the claims of Taunoa and his mates. In August 2004 the Human Rights Review Tribunal awarded to MacMillan $1200 for injury to his feelings loss of dignity and humiliation because the father of one of his victims had seen a letter that he had not seen. Do members recall the Christchurch case? MacMillan scumbag of the worst sort committed some of the most disgusting crimes that could be committed. The father of a teenage girl had written a letter describing what he believed MacMillan had done to his daughter and this scum was awarded damages by the Human Rights Review Tribunal for injury to his feelings! 
Victims do not get awarded any damages for injury to their feelings. It is just not there. So we are told by the United Nations Human Rights Committee that we have to continue paying $1200 for injury to feelings loss of dignity and humiliation to some of the worst criminals in this country and the Government will not stand up to it. It simply will not do anything. It has come to the House with a bill that Mr Goff trumpeted three times: first over the outrage with the MacMillan award; secondly when the Young decision came in September; and thirdly in October when he still did not have his bill ready. Finally when his bill was released it was a damp squib. 
Why did it not simply end judges’ powers to make these awards? What is left of New Zealand sovereignty with these so-called human-rights abuses? Financial compensation for them was never voted on by this Parliament. It was expressly excluded from the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 and it was invented by the judges in 1994. There was absolutely no constitutional reason why this Parliament could not simply have said either that the  
Baigent 
 decision was overreaching and should not stand or at least in respect of prisoners it should not stand. Instead what did we get from a Government that promised that victims and their families would get compensation that they would have Government assistance to claw back windfalls or inheritances or even Lotto or the proceeds of a book sale? We got what the prisoners and the lawyers described as illusion.