Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
Dalziel Lianne: General Debate 
[Volume:647;Page:16691] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Minister of Commerce) 
: 
 This Labour-led Government took office in 1999 in the wake of a referendum that said that National had failed the people of New Zealand. The referendum calling for tougher sentences was passed against a backdrop of 9 long years of a National Government and I think that people ought to remember the fact that that referendum was the direct result of National’s record not of this Government’s record. We were the ones who listened to the referendum because we were in Government when it was received and we acted on it. It was no wonder that the people of New Zealand voted so overwhelmingly against National’s record on law and order because when we got the briefing papers coming into Parliament we found out that National was going to cut the police numbers. That was what it was planning to do. It was going to reduce the number of police in this country as a direct result of its policies. I want to know why it is that National members have not been up front with the people of New Zealand and explained to them why they were going to cut police numbers. National was going to make the situation in New Zealand far worse than it had ever been in the past and it already had a bad track record of 9 long years in Government. 
Labour listened to the underlying message of that referendum which basically said to get tough on the worst crimes. That is what the people of New Zealand said about those crimes that offend in an aggravated way. These are crimes such as home invasion or the offending in the Norm Withers story. His mother was in a desperate situation which was the result of her being attacked in his shop. There was a dreadful picture of her face on the front page of the newspaper and that stayed with a lot of people over a long period of time. Norm was the face behind that petition with his mother as he traipsed from one end of the country to the other looking for support for the referendum which as we all know was supported overwhelmingly. 
Under a Labour Government the minimum parole period was lifted to 17 years for aggravated offences. When it is a home invasion with people going into someone’s home to offend then the clock starts ticking at 17 years not 10 years as it had been previously. Nobody can look at this side of the House and say that we have not honoured the intention of that referendum which was to ensure that the worst crimes were punished appropriately and we have certainly moved on that issue. But we said that work had to be done at the other end as well because if we focus just on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff instead of building a really strong fence at the top then we are prepared to accept that this level of crime is acceptable. We are not prepared to accept that. We said that we would be tough on crime but also that we would be equally tough on the causes of crime. The work needs to be put in at the front end. 
The kind of work we have done as a Government in communities makes a real difference. It is not about sending young kids to boot camps. I will just go back a little in history because I myself thought that it was quite a good idea a few years ago. The reason I thought it was a good idea was that I had been out to visit the Limited Service Volunteers programme as an Opposition member of Parliament and I thought that it was a very good idea to go out there and look at this programme. When I went out there I was awestruck by it. It was the most amazing programme. I thought that this would be great for young offenders because it would really get them on the straight and narrow and would really help them come to grips with their circumstances and change their evil ways. I wrote to the people who were running the Limited Service Volunteers and asked why we could not extend this programme to include people who are offenders because it was only for people who were volunteers and who had been unemployed for 6 months or more. The message I got back was that we would destroy this programme if we made it compulsory and that it works because it is voluntary. Those running the programme said that it works because the kids who go there although they might be going off the rails have not gone off the deep end and that the programme was not mixing the wrong people with the wrong people who then just simply reinforce the problems with each other.