Mark Ron: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee Third Reading 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise again to offer the New Zealand First contribution on the third reading of this bill and I want to reiterate for the record the points we have made. New Zealand First has given its support to the overall intent and purpose of the bill. 
We acknowledge the work of Dianne Yates in ensuring that the drug rape issue was brought to this House. She is an MP who put a lot of work into researching the issue and bringing the facts to the Law and Order Committee and an MP who was prepared to allow her member’s bill to be put to one side—accepting of course that its provisions would essentially be incorporated into this Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2). It was one of those times we get to see frequently in select committees when MPs across parties are able to work together for a common good to ensure that we get good legislation. It is probably a little sad that we rarely hear talkback hosts promoting MPs on such occasions—when they work cooperatively across party lines in order to produce better law for the country. I guess it is more fashionable and popular to talk about how we squabble in the House and behave like schoolchildren than it is to acknowledge and give credit to people who do what Dianne Yates has done with the assistance of the select committee. 
But New Zealand First has to say that this bill as it currently stands is inconsistent with three of the Government’s stated aims for the bill: to ensure that the law relating to sexual offences reflects changes in societal attitudes to ensure that the law is streamlined as much as possible and to ensure that offences provide for all victims of sexual abuse regardless of their sex and the sex of the offender. This bill was touted as being gender-neutral. It was touted as being put before the House to ensure that differences on the basis of gender were eliminated and that there was uniformity in the interpretation of the law. 
Yet this bill is presented at the behest of what is clearly a very powerful group within the Labour caucus a group that did not have the unanimous support of that caucus but that has been able to force its will against every other party in the House. How bizarre is that? I listened to Mr Goff’s statement on the third reading in which he said that the National Party was out of step because it was the only party that was not voting for this bill. I have to remind Mr Goff on the record that the Labour Party is out of step on this bill in that it is the only party that does not believe that the crime of rape should apply to men who commit crimes against other men. 
Marc Alexander 
: Neither does National. 
RON MARK 
: That is not what its members said at the select committee. The Government has chosen to keep the crime of rape the preserve of a crime committed by men against women. It has chosen not to accept as rape things the public would consider to be rape: the violation of a woman with an object or the violation of a man or a boy with an object—as happened in Napier in the infamous “broom handle case”. Most men would consider the insertion of a broom handle into the anus of a boy as being an act of rape. The ACT party agrees that it is so the Greens agree and New Zealand First agrees but Labour does not seem to—for whatever peculiar reasons it has. We do not accept Labour’s rationale. 
We will support the bill because in general its thrust is in the right direction but we predict that there will be amendments to it. We predict that this is not over. We said quite clearly in our minority report that in the light of further evidence continually being brought to the committee and in the light of continued discussion and a general feeling of discomfort throughout the entire committee there was a need for further wider public consultation. Clearly the other parties did not have the weight of numbers needed to force that to happen so we are where we are today. That is to be regretted. We have said so before. I truly believe that we will be back addressing aspects of this Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) further down the line possibly in the next term of Government. Whether Labour members will be sitting in the Government’s ministerial cars at that point in time is a question yet to be answered but whoever is in Government will be looking for the support of New Zealand First and will need to understand what we are saying today. 
I cannot let the third reading pass without again referring to comments I have made previously. This Government has a habit of passing laws and then telling the nation that it is making communities safer because it has passed laws when it has no intention whatsoever of resourcing the police so that they are able to enforce those laws. To pass laws that one has no intention of enforcing is meaningless. It is deceiving the public; to say that the Government is truly concerned about public safety and well-being is in fact to lie to the public. 
The Government wants to pass laws that sign us up to some spurious UN protocol. We had the bizarre situation where the Deputy Prime Minister himself criticised a poky little United Nations committee put together by a bunch of Third World punters when it dared to suggest that New Zealand was not acting in accordance with UN principles by passing the foreshore and seabed legislation. This Government was quite keen in that case to come out and say to that committee: “Pull your head in; we’re not actually beholden to you people in the United Nations; we don’t have to listen to everything you say.” yet here is the Government once again toadying and kowtowing to a United Nations convention that we do not even need to acknowledge. 
What is that convention about? It is about protecting the rights of children stamping out child abuse and stamping out the exploitation of young girls as prostitutes. How does that sit with reality? The reality is that any member of this House can go tonight to Manchester Street in Christchurch and find a child prostitute. They are on the streets in Christchurch and in the Minister of Police’s own electorate as was revealed in the papers. Does anyone in this House truly believe that the passing of this legislation will stop that tomorrow? Obviously they do not. 
What will stop it tomorrow? Quite clearly resourcing the police is the first step. If we recognise and accept that child prostitution is unacceptable in this day and age and if we are truly to abide by those funny little United Nations conventions then we must mean what we say. We must have a Government that will resource the police—such that they can put detectives on the street such that they can identify the people who are putting those young girls out there such that they can identify the men and the boys who are using those services because they are cheap and affordable and such that they can identify the people exploiting those young girls prosecute them and bring them to the courts convict them and jail them. Anything less than that makes clause 6 of this legislation spurious meaningless lip service. 
I am waiting to hear someone—maybe Mr Tim Barnett or someone else from the Labour caucus—stand up and say: “Yes we have taken this seriously and we do mean to make sure that this law is enforced that there will be more police on the beat that the police will be targeting prostitution and that we intend to put all those people—the pimps who put young girls out there and the men who exploit them—out of business.” But I do not hear that just as we do not hear the Government announcing that it will give more resources to the police to enforce the lowering of the drinking age. There has never ever been a time in this House when the Government has allocated to the police force the resources necessary for it to enforce the laws being passed—and here we go again. 
I conclude by saying that New Zealand First has lent its support to this bill. We acknowledge the work done by Dianne Yates and the Minister’s attempts to modernise these laws but we say there is still work to be done. Part of that work involves enforcement for without enforcement all the work that has been done to date is meaningless drivel.