Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:8986] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 If I were a member of Parliament in the Zimbabwe Parliament I would believe what is happening today. I believe that President Mugabe would ram through legislation of this kind to deprive the people of that country of the right to hearings at one of the best courts in the world free from any interference from local people. Now that is if I were in “Mugabeland” in Zimbabwe; but no I seem to be in “Helengrad”. I am in a place where there is little regard for constitutional principles and no regard for democracy because this minority Labour Government has no democratic right to have this bill passed through the House. It received no mandate from the general election last year. In fact the statistics for the Labour Party show that at the last election it received the lowest number of votes of those eligible to vote at a general election since 1935. It received about 31.9 percent of the votes of those entitled to vote at the election so this bill is going through with a mandate of about 31.9 percent of those entitled to vote at an election. That is from the Labour Party viewpoint. 
This bill should be called something like the “Pro-Mugabe Bill” or the “Breakdown of the Westminster System Bill”. It certainly is not a bill to which the people of New Zealand have given support. If the Labour Government thought the people of New Zealand supported this legislation it would have had a referendum. There is absolutely no doubt that if it thought the people of New Zealand supported this bill it would be out there with the very simple question: “Should we abolish the right of appeal to the Privy Council?”. There would have been a 1 or 2 year programme by the Prime Minister herself basking in the democratic glory of putting things to the people. 
More time has been spent on hui on the foreshore and seabed than on this legislation. This legislation has been pushed out the back door and rammed through this Parliament in the same way that one would expect Mugabe to ram legislation through. We have Supplementary Order Paper 151 before us with eight pages of stuff to be rammed through with this legislation. We barely have time to understand the legislation in so far as some members are concerned and now there are eight pages of a Supplementary Order Paper to try to fit into this bill. 
This Government has no regard for the people of New Zealand. This minority Labour Government with the support of about 31.9 percent of those eligible to vote in New Zealand is imposing its will on the people of this country despite the fact that the vast majority of people making submissions to the select committee said they did not want this legislation. This is a sad day for democracy in New Zealand. Really it is a sad day for democracy—that is the key to this legislation. The bill itself is almost irrelevant in that sense. This is a very very sad day for democracy for proper constitutional Government and for the operation of the Westminster system in New Zealand. 
If the Labour Government is not frightened of the result of a referendum then why is it not having a referendum? It is as simple as that. There is nothing to be lost by spending another year or two on putting this through the referendum process; but no this Labour Government wants to ram this bill through the House probably by the weekend. It knows that some members of the Green Party are looking at this matter very carefully and very clearly and that they might possibly change their minds next week because their voters will have got hold of them and said: “No think about it.” Over the weekend Green Party members might change their minds and that is why this Labour Government insists on ramming this legislation through the House now. 
The last time I spoke on a bill like this was with Sir Robert Muldoon and I as a National Party member voted against him. I crossed the floor with Derek Quigley and Ruth Richardson because the matter was totally wrong and the way it was being handled was totally wrong. 
 If those seven Maori Labour Party members had any concern for their people they would vote against this bill. Instead we have Huka Ma me nga whena e whitu—Snow White and the seven dwarfs. That is who we have in the Labour Party. The Maori members are seven dwarfs who have been cut down in their prime—if they ever had one—and who have no concern for the Maori people of New Zealand. In fact this bill should be called the “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs Bill” because that is all we have from those Maori members. Mita Ririnui could not even finish his speech on the second reading last night. He spoke for about 4½ minutes and did not come back from dinner to finish his speech. He was too busy filling his stomach to finish speaking on the bill.