Borrows Chester: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Borrows Chester: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:492] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 I rise in support of this legislation. It is something that has been called for by a number of people who work at the coalface of our judicial system. I have been approached by policemen prosecutors Crown prosecutors defence counsel and judges sitting in the District Court and I have spoken to judges sitting in the High Court and to victims. Every one of them says they need to have this change. 
Members on the other side of the House have quoted Professor Hall and Justice Heath—two people. None of them have quoted those judges at the coalface who sit in the District Court every day and deal with those people who present a threat to their victims on a daily basis. It is hard too to work out what Labour will do with this legislation because it has not said as yet. If Labour members are going to oppose it will they be opposing it because in their view it does nothing or will they be opposing it because of what they did in 2007 which did nothing? Those members cannot call it flimflam and they cannot say that it does nothing now if it really changed something back when they altered the phrase “risk” to “real and significant risk”. This legislation lines up very much with some of the changes that the Labour Government made earlier in its tenure. One of the changes it made of course was to take the time threshold for parole down to one-third of the sentence. Recently in the last few weeks we have seen Mr Shipton and Mr Schollum released on parole after serving just over 3 years of an 8-year sentence. They follow long after Mr McNamara who was released after serving about one-third of his sentence. Mr McNamara was not a prisoner who showed exemplary behaviour. Members may remember that he was the prisoner who fathered a child while he was behind bars—sentenced under the Labour Government—and then used as the reason for his parole application the fact that he had a child and wanted to be released so he could be with his child. That is the way Labour views the judicial system and the way it should operate. 
We have to remember too that under Labour we ended up with a system that in the last 12 months has seen 79 people charged with committing murder while out on bail. Who in their right mind believes that the place for accused murder offenders is out in the community? We heard a salient example from the ACT Party—an extreme example but salient—of someone committing further crime while out on bail. The previous Minister of Justice said it is not easy to get bail but we know that just about every offender who appears before the court does get bail. In fact the vast majority of prisoners who apply for bail have it granted. We know that a significant number of those people go on to offend while out on bail. We know for instance that while accused murderer Chris Kahui—who was later acquitted before the court—was out on bail for murder he breached his bail conditions on four occasions. We also know that the five offenders accused of the murder of Navtej Singh are out on bail and they have also breached their bail conditions. We know as can any idiot watching the television screen that the nature of that offending was something that happened spontaneously; it was out of control. We now know that those people are out on bail and we now know that they have breached their bail conditions on several occasions. When we talk to the District Court judges the Crown prosecutors the police prosecutors and the police who have to enforce the curfew conditions of offenders out on bail they say: “For goodness’ sake change the law.” The National Party had the courage of its convictions to campaign on that and it will do it. 
I will finish with a couple more points. National members have been accused of jerking around with the rules procedures and conventions of this House by bringing this bill before the House under urgency. We want to look back at what the Labour Government did under urgency. I will never forget standing here and listening to Labour members put through the bill that retrospectively OK’d $800000 of taxpayers’ money that was taken away. As my colleague Simon Bridges will know I have spoken to and interrogated a hell of a lot of people who have told lies and porkies in front of me. I remember watching Dr Cullen and I remember thinking to myself that there was a guy—and all his body language indicated it to the House—who did not believe a damn word he was saying. He was wrong to do it. That showed that the Labour Party is prepared to pour scorn over taxpayers and over voters; it does not care. Well here is National which is listening to the voters. Here is National which is prepared to put its money where its mouth is. Is it good legislation? Let us hear Labour members give 10 good reasons why they are not going to support it.