Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): I honestly don't know where to begin with the number of reasons why New Zealand First and I know the rest of the Government will be opposing this bill. I think—I truly believe—that I'm going to be running out of time before I get to complete my speech.I'm going to start with a couple of things that Mr Hudson said—ridiculous in the extreme—and the worst part about it was it's quite clear that he didn't even read his own bill. I'll give him a little bit of a break because it's not really his bill—it was Mark Mitchell's bill—but he stood up in his first speech and he said that The public expect that those who are given community services turn up." which is fair enough I guess. Then in the same breath he said that "The public's expectation the consequences that they don't." Now if that's true why oh why is National promoting two separate pathways or two separate consequences for whether you're a beneficiary or a non-beneficiary?If it's all about ensuring that the Government who's in charge at the time holds the people who are on community service to account—not just the beneficiaries because that's what Mr Brett Hudson said—then why are there two separate pathways? That's the question that that member needs to answer. The second thing he said—oh and this is a good one—was "The origins of community service were because it was an alternative to a harsh fine that the offender couldn't afford." It's an alternative to a harsh fine that an offender couldn't afford. So what is this legislation doing? Going to the beneficiaries who can't really afford it in the first place and pretty much fining them—cutting them by up to 50 percent.If that's not a flip-flop and I'd like to say some other words but if that's not a flip-flop I don't know what is. This is a member who is the author of this bill or he was the guardian of this bill who was supposed to be standing up in the first reading or the second reading after he wanted it so badly to go through the select committee and he has absolutely spoken against it. He's given evidence about reasons why they should be voting against it. The last thing he said—well not the last thing but one of the last things I want to talk to him about was—the problem has been growing those who don't comply has been growing. Who's been in Government for the last decade? First of all who's been in Government for the last decade? That's been National. Who's been in control for the last decade? National. Who has had the chance for the last decade to put this bill in if it was such a great idea?Kieran McAnulty: Those guys.DARROCH BALL: Them. Why didn't they do it? Why didn't they do it? Look this is a nonsensical bill. It's not about tough on crime. It's not about soft on crime. To be fair if you listen to the speeches and I'm sure the speeches for the rest of the night from the National Party but definitely the ones prior to this they're caught in a sort of no man's land. You can tell they want so desperately to say this is being tough on crime—tough on crime—but it's just not. It simply is not. It's just ridiculous in the extreme. The National Party knows that this will cause—just like the Labour Party member who just spoke said—more crime in the end and they know that.I've got some evidence to show why the National Party didn't want this bill to go through. They didn't actually want this bill to go through even though they had every ample opportunity to as a Government. Here's the time line for this bill. So the first reading was in August 2016. The first reading when National was in Government when this got pulled out of the ballot was August 2016. It was referred to the committee on 10 August 2016 and the closing of submissions was 20 September 2016. So the member when it was pulled out of the ballot had two years to convince the Ministers of Justice and of Corrections and the Minister for Social Development to put it in his Government's bill. You've got to ask why.I went back and had a look at the minutes from the—no not the minutes; the letters that the Social Services Committee sent and Alfred Ngaro knows this because he signed it—well one of them anyway. The letter asked for an extension to the Speaker at the time Rt Hon David Carter—that's how old it is the Speaker was the Rt Hon David Carter—"It is due to be reported to the House by Friday 10 February 2017." This bill was due to be reported to this House in February 2017. They want an extension on 30 November 2016 right. Another letter: "It is due to be reported to the House by Thursday 13 April; now we want it to be extended to Monday 8 May 2017." Then another letter and this one's signed by Joanne Hayes because by that time she was the chair and Alfred Ngaro had then moved on to become a Minister that's how long ago it was. "It was referred to us on 10 August 2016. We have made substantial progress in our consideration of the bill."—yes we did because everyone knew that we didn't want this bill going through including the National Party. They wanted to push this through to 25 October 2017 after the election—after the election. It was quite clear to everybody sitting in that select committee that the National Party did not want the report to come back here to be debated because they knew that it was a rubbish bill. They knew it—they knew it. So now here we are—April 2018—20 months since the first reading and 18 months since the first due date back here in the House. Now if Alfred Ngaro wants to take a call I'm sure he will try and explain that when we didn't need to have those delays as a select committee I'll be very interested.If anybody who is watching and for that matter any of the National Party members including and especially Brett Hudson wants to know why no one should be supporting this bill just have a look at the report of the Social Services and Community Committee of March 2018. You only have to read the first page. You don't really have to read all of it because there's enough in the first page to justify why we shouldn't be supporting it. First of all I'd just like to point out that the first heading is "Reasons for recommending that the bill not proceed" and that goes on for one two three four pages. Then it comes to "Reasons for recommending that the bill proceed" and it's two paragraphs—if you can call them paragraphs it's probably about two or three sentences really. First of all some facts that Brett Hudson failed to mention: in 2015 there were 33000 people who were required to complete a sentence of community work. Of these 5 percent—that's 1500 people—did not comply with their sentence. It says "Compliance rates were in fact higher for those receiving a benefit at 77 percent compared with 67 percent for those not receiving a benefit." If this was such a law and order issue if this was such a piece of legislation that was supposedly ensuring the public's expectation of people on community work not breaching and turning up then why are we ignoring the largest proportion of them—the non-beneficiaries? What did the National Government do when they were in Government about them? Nothing. About nothing. Only 23 percent of those receiving a benefit—so 23 percent of the 5 percent—were breaching.Hon Member: Is that it?DARROCH BALL: Twenty-three percent of 5 percent. Of the 33000 people we're talking about 300 people. Now this doesn't go any deeper this is 300 people here but that doesn't talk about the highly recidivist offenders or breaches. So the 300 could just be one breach. So if this bill is looking and trying to dig down in to the high recidivist people who breach community service we could be talking about just dozens of people whom this bill is trying to target. They knew that. Brett Hudson knew that. The Ministers knew that. That's why they didn't put this through as a Government bill—that's why it didn't go through as a Government bill.Madam Assistant Speaker I told you that I was going to run out of time. I haven't even begun to get through it. I got through some of the main nonsensical facts and some of the things that Brett Hudson said. But New Zealand First will clearly not be supporting this bill—not because it's not tough on crime or because it's soft on crime or because it's in-between; it's because it's nonsensical because it will not work."