Mark Ron: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Mark Ron: Criminal Justice Reform Bill — Second Reading 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to indicate that at this point the second reading we support the Criminal Justice Reform Bill. I think we have made it clear along the way that although there has been in the initial stages of formulation and production of this bill some discussion with New Zealand First particularly around issues such as community sentencing and home detention we have not had a member on the Justice and Electoral Committee and we were not privy to the evidence that was presented or to the discussion that took place. I guess it would be fair to say that I will be listening with interest to Chris Finlayson who has a pretty powerful reputation as a lawyer. At the outset though as I have already said to the National team New Zealand First does not have a great deal of issue with the Sentencing Council. 
But to go through and just recap on some of the things that have been said during this debate let us be clear: we have had many people from the Government consistently parrot the line that crime is down. Reported crime—reported that is not the national victimisation statistics that say that crime is three times higher than that which is reported and escalating—may well be down but violent crime is not. Violent crime serious violent crime is still rising and New Zealand First takes exception to those members of the Government who would seek to minimise the discussion around crime by focusing on reported non-violent crime. It is the level of violent crime that we have in our community that dictates whether we have a safe community—and might I suggest that we do not. 
Also those people who continue to parrot from the Government benches that crime is down do so whilst turning an absolute blind eye to the youth crime statistics. Again in this debate we have dealt with people saying that youth crime is no higher than adult crime. Well New Zealand First has now gotten hold of and published the crime statistics from the Youth Court and from family group conferences and the results are horrendous. In some areas we are talking about a 63 percent increase over 3 years yet Government members still parrot that youth crime is not climbing. I tell these people to wake up; forget the spin. Nobody is doing anybody in the community a favour by trying to hide the reality by trying to hide the truth of the matter and by minimising the effect that this unacceptable escalation in violent crime is having on ordinary New Zealanders. My mind turns immediately to a 90-year-old man bashed in a home invasion and a 65-year-old lady left bleeding on the footpath by two youths who escaped on bicycles. As long as we continue to deny that we have a problem we will always have a problem and it will only get worse. 
 I listened with interest to people saying that we have the most horrendous crime statistics that the number of people incarcerated in our prisons is totally unacceptable that it reflects badly on New Zealand and that it has to be the driver for passing this law and getting the number of people in prison down. Well New Zealand First would say if they are that keen on getting numbers in prison down then they should let prisoners out—all done finished—and bear the result of that. But that is not the answer. 
The real problem the real reason we have these unacceptably high numbers of people in prison lies in the Government’s performance in the handling of prisons. We are sick of saying that if the Government does not like the number of people in prison it should stop running pathetic prisons stop running pathetic rehabilitation programmes and stop ignoring the fact that 80 percent of the people in prison are there because of drug or alcohol-related issues. The Government should reinstate places like—oh let me pick one—Queen Mary Hospital the drug and alcohol rehabilitation centre in Hamner Springs. Who closed it? Labour closed it. Who closed it? Jim Anderton closed it. Who closed it? The Greens closed it with their confidence and supply agreement in the last term. That is who closed it. And it was not just Queen Mary’s; it was all the drug and alcohol rehabilitation centres throughout the country that were delivering a fine services. But now we sit here and say: “Oh we’ve got more people on DIC in jail.” Well I say “Hello—wake up! It isn’t rocket science. My 9-year-old grandson will tell you that.” 
If we do not run effective drug and alcohol rehabilitation courses and programmes in our prisons then we should get ready to receive the same people back again—because they will be back there and they are. If a member is Maori in this House one thing is for sure—that member will have whanau in prison. That is it; we do and we see the results. But do members want to know why we have so many people in prison? Let us talk about the two decades of not focusing on drug and alcohol rehabilitation and now only after we have had a bit of cross-party korero—Nandor Tanczos myself Pita Sharples and a few others talking to Damien O’Connor—has the Government announced is it a three-fold increase in drug and alcohol rehabilitation I ask Mr Tanczos? 
Nandor Tanczos 
: Yes. 
RON MARK 
: Well that is better—too late but better. It should be doing more but that is better than it was. Yet it is still not enough. 
Do we want to talk about why we have so many people in prison? Let us try mental health services folks. Twenty-two percent of the people in our prisons are there because they have mental health issues and our mental health services consistently fail them. We could talk to the Burton family—to both the Burton families. We could go and talk to the victims of the Burton families. Well we cannot talk to one of them because she is dead and her husband and her family still mourn that. But do we see any great serious changes in mental health? No! The same few people who championed deinstitutionalisation as the bright new light on this nation’s future in handling our poor sick and mentally unwell—Labour’s Helen Clark National’s Jenny Shipley—are still doing nothing and the mentally ill are 22 percent of people in our prisons. 
I tell the Government that if it wants to get the prison population down by 22 percent it should reform some of its mental institutions deliver better health services and look after those people in the manner in which they are entitled to be looked after and in which their families who have paid taxes are entitled to see them looked after. Then the Government would watch the prison population drop. And here is the real rub: people who are in prison for reasons of mental health are probably likely not ever to go back again if they are treated and looked after appropriately—unlike the other lot. 
Why else does the Government have so many people in prison? New Zealand First says we should nail the gangs—crush them make gangs so unattractive that nobody wants to join and cut off the supply of young people joining gangs. The Government should make being a member of a gang illegal. Government members should not tell me that other countries have not done that. Ireland has done it Canada has done it and the United States is doing it. Hong Kong has done it Singapore has done it and one does not see any gangs in China. There are still triers but we do not see them on TV on the 6 o’clock news out there giving Sieg Heil salutes. But 25 to 30 percent of our inmates are gang members so why would this House not crush gangs? 
Does the Government want to get the population of prisons down by 25 percent? It should deal to gangs. Does this Government want to get the prison population down by 22 percent? It should deal to mental health. The reason we have people in prisons and the reason prisons are bulging at the seams is that we still fail to deal whilst they are in prison the first time with their fundamental health problems. Inmates go in there with eyesight problems and hearing problems. They cannot read cannot learn and were disenfranchised from schools. Does the Government want to get the prison population down? It should deal to truancy. 
There is plenty more I could say but I have the nod for 2 more minutes so I will say that New Zealand First will watch and work through the discussion of this bill at the Committee stage with interest. We do not have such a serious problem over the proposed Sentencing Council. We welcome the changes to home detention which is something we have campaigned on long and hard. We laugh at the changes to community service because you know this Government passed the Sentencing and Parole Acts in 2002 and said that everything it would do in community work was right and that repealing the periodic detention provisions was the right thing to do. But the Government was wrong. All those community officers and probation officers who have been tearing their hair out for the last—what—4 or 5 years have finally got some reprieve coming via this bill. How ridiculous is the situation when a person who has offended and then been convicted should themselves determine when they might do community service and then suddenly find with 30 days to go out of a 12-month period they have not done it. They do not do it and it gets remitted. 
 The Supplementary Order Paper in respect of the Criminal Justice Reform Bill and its proposed amendments which are specifically focused around the Burton case are good—about time. But hey have not some people in this House been screaming about these things and saying parole is a privilege not a right? And what have people done for the last 10 years? Well unfortunately—and let us be clear about this—it has taken the death of a man for something to be done. I will say that again. This Government did nothing in terms of listening to what other people were saying until a man was killed. Well the only question that now remains is how many more people will have to be killed before we get some more sensible law changes around here. I ask the Government just to put a figure on it—one two five? How about we just start working together on some of these issues and start accepting that we do not have the franchise on intellect we do not individually or personally have the franchise on what is right and what is wrong? 
New Zealand First has taken part in some cross-party discussions with alternative parties in this House and we are astounded at the things we share in common in terms of views but we get to that point only by talking to each other and listening to each other. The parties who have yet to learn how to listen and how to talk are Labour and National and we would welcome a change in their direction.