Worth Richard: Budget Debate 
Worth Richard: Budget Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:20850] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National—Epsom) 
: 
 I am always a little distrustful of people who read from notes in a fully prepared way. 
Hon Marian Hobbs 
: You can read them if you want. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: The honourable Minister has just offered me her notes to read. I will not take advantage of that but I can see that they are very fully scripted. I think that on occasions it is really important to speak from the heart. National is running some very simple lines. They are lines that the Minister for Ethnic Affairs in whom I repose great confidence and trust has offered and they are very much lines that are part of National Party philosophy. 
 I would like to talk about some aspects of justice that this Government seems prepared to overlook. They are not tricky issues. They are issues that this Government for some reason has chosen to ignore utterly. Now this is not an opportunity to talk about National Party policy and I will refrain from doing that. However I will try for a moment to accentuate the differences between the sorts of positions that Marian Hobbs espouses and that so divide National and Labour. People ask: “Well what’s the difference between the two parties?”. The difference is palpable. It may not be on the issues Minister Carter espouses; it is not. But on issues of law and order and justice which I am tasked to talk about the difference is huge. I look at what this Government has done in the context of law and order and justice and against a background of my experience on these issues I pause to reflect on where these guys are going. The answer to that rhetorical question is that they are going absolutely nowhere—in fact nowhere good. So I thought I would talk about these issues in the short time I have remaining although it is my hope that the House will permit me extended time to talk on them in greater depth. 
This is a Government that has spurned opportunity. One talks to people in the street and they say that this Government has lost an opportunity. I think it has and certainly the economy drifts down in a setting where it has been healthy and is now destined to be less so. But I would like to talk about a couple of issues on the law and order programme. It seems to me that one of the challenges that faces any party is to say: “This is where Labour is at.”—nowhere I would say—and “This is where National is at.” I will talk about where National is at on law and order and about the funding the Government has provided for justice. 
There are some players who do not believe that justice is really important and I understand that. I look at the Hon Michael Cullen an economic historian. He has no interest in this stuff. It is not his stuff. He has been made Attorney-General by default. There are competent players whom the Government deliberately decided should not be chosen to fulfil that role. I look at the Minister for Courts Rick Barker—a very prominent tough trade unionist on the East Coast—and wonder what he knows about the court system. Members of Parliament and listeners know the answer: absolutely nothing. Then we have the third player Minister Goff. After calling himself Phil Goff since he began in Parliament he is now calling himself Philip Goff. I guess it is all part of an agenda advancement programme. However it is great that he is calling himself Philip Goff His background is in political studies. There are crunchy issues in justice and a whole lot of really simple propositions. [ 
Interruption 
] I see Mr Jones resplendent in his red and black tie leaning back and looking for advancement in his party—and he is probably about to be granted it. But there are some very simple propositions in justice. One of the key things is access to justice. The Government espouses that—at least it pays it lip-service but in reality no way. 
So what will National do? Well I will talk about just one thing—about a guy called Abe Wharewaka. Some members may have heard of him; others may never have heard of him. 
Hon Chris Carter 
: I went to school with him. 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: The young Minister across the way said that he went to school with him. I do not know whether he is trying to be part of the Wharewaka team; maybe he is. I do not know about the Wharewaka story in terms of what the Hon Chris Carter has to bring to that debate but I say this: we know the facts. The facts are very simple. He was convicted on charges of possessing manufacturing and supplying methamphetamine. What was the penalty? It was 8 years. What did the judge say? The judge said: “Mm OK—minimum sentence under the Sentencing Act of this Government: 3 years 4 months.” Is that reasonable? Do the guys across the Chamber from me in the Labour Party think that is reasonable? Would that not be a 20-year sentence? I shall leaven it with a bit of factual material. That particular person in the period the charges ran over had made $13 million in revenue. I think we need to reflect on those aspects of sentencing policy. 
So what would National do? People ask: “What would you do? It’s all very well criticising others but what would you do?”. We are absolutely determined—and we have costed this into our budget policies—that there will be no parole for those types of people. 
Dianne Yates 
: No what? 
Dr RICHARD WORTH 
: I am saying that there would be no parole. That would mean that someone who was sentenced to 8 years in jail would spend 8 years in jail not 3 years 4 months. I am completely undeterred by those comments coming from Government members. I know that Government members do not understand the issues. I tell them that methamphetamine is a real curse and that this Government needs to get very serious about dealing with the problem. That is the first thing we will do. We will deal with the issues relating to parole to organised crime and to the whole raft of issues that flow from that. 
Another one of the justice issues relates to DNA testing. [ 
Interruption 
] I think this is really interesting because as one looks across the debating chamber one sees the interflow of intervention and interjection and a young woman from Whanganui—or from wherever her electorate is; it is probably Whanganui—who knows nothing about anything. The only thing she can say to her credit is that she married into the Navy. That is pretty meritorious; I am not condemning her for marrying into the Navy. 
National will deal with parole. We will deal with this stuff relating to organised crime. We will pick up the issues covered in the Western Australian Proceeds of Crimes Act and we will go for it. We will run a very simple line because I think members of the public know that the two things that burden a criminal are first being caught and second being imprisoned. We will quietly deal with that and very determinedly so.