Cullen Michael: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Cullen Michael: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
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Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN (Labour) 
: 
 I will take I hope a relatively brief call. This must be an awful day for Government members. Today they have found out that practically none of their backbenchers can move a closure motion correctly so the crusade for literacy starts there. They cannot even read: “I move that the question be now put.” I saw them: they had it in front of them and they could not even read it. 
Then Government members found out that their coalition partners give fruit cake a bad name. That speech really was a worry. Anybody who knows my background will know that I have been a rather staunch critic of Marxism as an intellectual theory but Marx had the insight that lots of groups have what is called false consciousness—they tend to argue what is actually against their own intrinsic interests. I say to Mr Boscawen that a large amount of the choice seafront property in New Zealand is owned by the supporters of the ACT Party so ACT had better be right on global warming because if it has got it wrong it will be a classic case of false consciousness. ACT is about to drown its own supporters progressively over the coming generations. 
Coming back to the Bail Amendment Bill I say that during the election campaign Mr Power flew around the country like some kind of superhero. He was “Justice Man” with a big “J” on his chest and great wads of cotton wool stuffed elsewhere on his body and he was going to deliver justice to the country. He was going to clamp down on crime. He was going to wipe out everything that everybody hated about crime. He laboured mightily in the vineyard and he brought forth—well it is flattery to call it a mouse. It is actually a little tiny bill that is not new as he said in his first reading speech of roughly 200 words I think it was at most. It is an old bill. It is what the Labour Government legislated for previously. It is not even a new idea; it is an old idea with a Labour stamp on it and it will not do anything of any significance at all. As a kind of law and order man he is now going around the country like Wyatt Earp with no horse and no guns and it will not be a good way to go I can tell Mr Power in that particular contest. 
We are told even in the notes prepared for us by officials that this bill will have very little effect. Very few people will be affected by this bill at all. If it keeps one serious violent offender from committing another violent offence then that is obviously an advantage of the bill but that will depend on the judges getting it right. As I said before there is a matter of difficult judgment. People have the right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. The default position is that people have bail unless there is good reason for them not to have bail and that must be the position. Otherwise the presumption of innocence has no meaning because it means that any of us are liable in effect to serve a period in prison even if we are totally innocent of the charges that have been brought against us. 
This bill is all the Government can do in this first great burst of the 100 days in order to address law and order issues. That is not what people were led to expect during the election campaign. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Don’t worry. More is on the way. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: Well I ask Mr Power whether what is coming is what Mr Boscawen suggested—something that says people have to serve the full sentence. Mr Boscawen clearly does not understand how judges work. If a judge is faced with the position where whatever sentence he or she gives is the full sentence that must be served then the average full sentence will drop for any given set of offences. That is precisely what judges will do because they will take into account the fact that the full sentence must be served and there is no possibility of parole. It also means that prisoners will be less well prepared for release into the community and when finally released they will be more likely to reoffend. So that measure is very unlikely to protect the community better against violent offences. 
This is a classic case of the idea that if a party puts together enough bumper stickers it can make a car but it does not actually work that way—not even for a non-turbocharged car. 
Jacqui Dean 
: Oh they still laugh at his jokes. 
Hon Dr MICHAEL CULLEN 
: I am glad Jacqui Dean interrupted because one of the things I have not understood is why she is not the Minister of Finance. As the only member opposite who knows how to get money without borrowing it from overseas she is precisely the person we need to be Minister of Finance at the moment when the Government is in great need of money without having to borrow it. But of course she does not actually have a clue how to do that. 
Let me say to Mr Power that this is a trivial bill. It is a bill that will not achieve its stated effects. It will not reduce crime. It will not protect the public from violence. It may lead to some marginal increase in costs and—as Ms Turei quite rightly said—if that happens given the cap on spending that money will have to come from somewhere else and it may well come from the provision of rehabilitation programmes. At the end of the day we will support the bill because actually it does nothing but what a waste of time it is to pretend that this is the great measure under urgency in the first week of Parliament to deal with law and order issues.