Little Andrew: Policing (Constable’s Oaths Validation) Amendment Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third ReadingText is subject to correctionLittle Andrew: Policing (Constable’s Oaths Validation) Amendment Bill — Procedure First Reading Second Reading Third Reading[Sitting date: 24 October 2013. Volume:694;Page:14290. Text is subject to correction.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): I take a call on this very important—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (H V Ross Robertson): Sorry. Is this a split call?ANDREW LITTLE: It is a split call. I understand I have 5 minutes which I will fill to the full. This is a very important matter and we should not take it lightly. This Parliament should not take it lightly. My starting point is the principle of the rule of law. The rule of law starts with this House and its conduct and the laws that it passes and when Parliament with the power of the people passes laws that bind and constrain the people we require all those with authority under the law to act properly and within the authority conferred by this Parliament. If there is one group of people for whom acting within their powers is absolutely crucial and is the sine quo non of their job it is the police. Their job is to uphold the law not any law but our criminal code. Their job is to uphold the laws that affect our conduct and our behaviour. There is an underlying morality to our criminal code and we expect our police to uphold it. But because we confer on them very coercive powers—the powers to arrest and detain to deprive of liberty—we require them to act within their powers.This House has the job of passing laws but this House has another job too. We elect members of the executive—the Ministers who are in charge of departments and agents of the Crown. Parliament having voted funding having voted money requires the executive to do its job to ensure that money having been appropriated is used for the purposes for which it is appropriated but also that those who act under their executive delegation do so within the powers and the authority conferred by this Parliament which itself acts in the name of the people of New Zealand. So when we find not for a first time but for a second time that some of those people within whom we charge the most serious powers—powers that can constrain the liberty of an individual—are acting without the appropriate authority and power required by this Parliament we should sit up take notice and act with an appropriate level of sobriety.It is for that reason that it does pay for this House to take some time to pay some attention to it and to give it scrutiny. This is a mistake that has happened. I do not accept it when people say that the police officers themselves should be somehow held responsible because they should know the law. Those police officers are reliant on their superiors exercising their powers and authorities appropriately and that has nothappened. It is not just a matter of 63 constables not having been sworn in properly but everything they have done in the execution of their duty without this bill would be invalid. That goes far and wide. That is not just arresting people. It is not just intervening in domestic disputes. It is everything they have done. Had anybody known about it and had there been some resistance had those constables been assaulted in the course of their duty because that is a common occurrence with our police force unfortunately and had that then gone before the court then the police officers themselves would have been left with no protection at all.I take my hat off to this Minister for bringing this bill back to the House. But the question must go really to what her predecessor was or was not doing. How is it that the mistake had been made once but now it is being made a second time. That is where we can talk about the police pass this bill shore up their authority and validate those actions. That is the sensible thing to do but there must be some accountability. It is the Minister who has failed to act. It is the Minister who provides oversight. It is the Minister who ought to be asking the questions. And having made the mistake once I would have thought that any self-respecting Minister of Police would then continue to ask what has happened. Has the law been complied with? When that police Minister then becomes a Minister of Justice—a senior Minister and sometime heir apparent to the throne of the National Party—that failure runs even deeper. So we support the bill but let us not deny that this is a very serious situation.