Jones Shane: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Jones Shane: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8872] 
SHANE JONES (Labour) 
:  
Kia ora anotatou. Tenei take e harurunei te motu katahiano au ka tu ki te whakapuakiiokuwhakaaromotenei take weriweri ki etahi whakamamangakau ki etahike atu. Na reira kia whaitaringa mai ngawhanauMaori me o tatou hoa Pakeha ki eneikorerookuna te meakuataunga au ki tenei take. He matua ahau tokowhitunoa atu waku tamariki maua ko takuwahine. 
[An interpretation in English was given to the Committee.] 
[ 
Greetings once again to us all. I am at last able to express my thoughts on this matter that has taken the country by storm—for some a distasteful matter for others gratifying. Therefore I urge Maori families and those of our fellow non-Maori families to listen to these thoughts of mine because I am familiar with this matter. I am a parent and my wife and I have seven children. 
]  
I stand not to engage in either name-calling or point-scoring in terms of whether the Leader of the Opposition seized the initiative or whether the amendment would not have been crafted without the leadership of the Prime Minister or whether the promoter of the bill was too obstinate. I stand as a parliamentarian who along with my wife has struggled to raise seven kids. 
I have chewed this issue over and have eschewed speaking on it to date. But I support the amendment that has found its way into the House and is to be included in the legislation. I agree with earlier speakers that it was never the intention to criminalise those people who travail; who in the ordinary course of raising their families and parenting might come to the attention of the ill-informed panic-stricken or confused police force. So I think the amendment is a step in the right direction. 
What pained me in particular recently was to hear upon my return from Australia of a sample poll that apparently stated that 80 percent of the Maori families of Aotearoa did not support this bill. I thoroughly reject that poll. I thoroughly reject the manner in which the information was gathered. I have no doubt in my mind that the people who participated in that poll were ill-informed and were served up incorrect information. 
I invite any Maori family in Aotearoa who does not believe that we are afflicted—indeed possibly crippled—by the culture of violence to come with me to Ngawha prison. I invite any well-educated and very well-off middle-class Pakeha people both in and out of this Chamber who think this bill incapable of making a positive contribution to the problem of violence that disproportionately affects our people to come with us to the whare herehere—the jails—and watch the blighted lives of our young men. Those people should go to the refuge centres and look at the bruised dazed highly hurt grieving and lost women and the kids who have lived in unimaginable hell. Not for them the comforts of a two-income two-parent family; for far too long they have been lost in this culture of violence. If this bill enables the authorities and us as politicians to drive an agenda to shrink the amount of violence amongst us in Te Ao Maori then I say “Bring it on.” 
Today we heard the bishops of the Church that I was baptised into and confirmed into—known in our language as the Mihingare or the Anglican Church—and people from the other larger religions say that the bill for all its transitional difficulties was not only a step in the right direction but also forged an agenda that would make us a more thoughtful caring and responsible society. Many of our young Maori families today followed Pastor Tamaki who stated that this was a very bleak day. I am very proud that Parekura Horomia stood and challenged them to deal with the facts confronting us about Maori family violence. But our agenda will not gather pace if we get into name-calling. 
Through this amendment it can no longer be credibly stated that the legislation—which after all is an amendment to the Crimes Act—will cause people to find themselves unnecessarily ensnarled in the court. What it does is enable us to strip away all doubt. I have seen too many young Maori boys in the hinaki—in jail. I would ask them what made them do it. They are serving 9 12 15 18 or 22 months. If we scratched beneath the surface we would find that a humiliatingly large number of them—humiliating in my view for Te Ao Maori—would tell us that they came from homes of gross abuse. 
So not for me the great speeches of kaumatua chiefs waka leaders etc. who are constantly arguing about Treaty settlements and fish; the challenge as a consequence of the passage of this bill is for every Maori parent and Maori leader—both in the community and in the economic sphere—to take responsibility own the problem and drive solutions to challenge the violence visited on a far too regular basis on our mokopuna our tamariki and our wahine. Every time a family suffers this misfortune this calamity it degrades the entirety of tikanga Maori and mana Maori. There is no mana while people such as our women and our kids suffer disproportionately. A thousand economic deals and Treaty settlements in my view will amount to minimal good effect for as long as that violence blights us as a people. 
I commend this legislation despite the misgivings that my own parents have my own whanau have—and I have tossed it around. But after having participated vigorously in our own discussions within the confines of our own caucus I stand today with pride as a father and as a member of Te Aupouri iwi and as a proud member of this esteemed institution to support this bill. Kia ora tatou.