Tirikatene RinoRINO TIRIKATENE (Labour—Te Tai Tonga): I am pleased to speak on clause 3. We are dealing with the substantive repeals in schedule 1. I want to focus on the Sentencing Council Act. I agree that you know there are many historical or redundant pieces of legislation here that quite literally we can do away with. But the Sentencing Council Act is sort of tucked in and I believe the Government surreptitiously snuck it in there just to see whether it could get it quickly repealed. I think that is wrong because that is a really important piece of legislation.As addressed by my colleague the Hon David Parker earlier we need to really look at the high incarceration rates of Māori. A lot of that stems from obviously the sentencing from our judges in the judicial system. If we just look at the numbers they are appalling. New Zealand is renowned as having a high incarceration rate among OECD countries. When we look at it we have got a population of 4.6 million we have got a prison muster of 9400 and 50 percent of that prison muster is Māori. So we have to really look at this because Māori make up 15 percent of the population. This has been happening for generation upon generation. I would have thought that the sentencing council would have been an ideal mechanism to provide the judiciary not just with out-and-out directions—no—but to provide guidelines and principles for those judges to apply because we are talking about a lot of regional variation. We are talking about from Te Tai Tokerau up in the Far North right down to the Bluff. There are a lot of different judges a lot of different jurisdictions and a lot of variation in sentencing. Who bears the brunt of that sentencing? The numbers speak for themselves—50 percent of our prison population is Māori and yet Māori make up 15 percent of our total population.If the Māori prison population were to reduce to the average rate our prison population would halve. That is all we would want as a society: to see that prison rate come down so we could see a reduction. We would not be needing to build $1 billion prisons. We would not be needing that. We would be closing prisons. The sentencing council was a critical part in that. For this Government to sneak that piece of legislation—sure it has not been activated but it has been passed and it is law. What the Government is really showing is that there is a total lack of policy. You know there is a screaming-out area where policy and leadership is required to address the high incarceration rates of Māori and the disproportionality. And what does this Government do? It is more concerned with building more prisons than supporting a sentencing council. And if it does not support the sentencing council then what is its alternative? What is its policy? It should be instead of repealing this Act outright debating this. It should at least be amending the Sentencing Council Act or at least having the debate. I mean there were four submitters on this bill when really this is a critical piece of legislation which they are just quietly wanting to wipe off our books.The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.RINO TIRIKATENE: To conclude I would like to just implore the Government to support Mr Clendon's Supplementary Order Paper 319 which retains the Sentencing Council Act. It would be a very important institution if it were given life to. I would encourage the Government to do something. This is a serious problem around the high incarceration rates of Māori. We could do with a sentencing council or if not failing that we could come up with something because too many Māori families are affected. The numbers speak for themselves; they are appalling. Thank you.