Heatley Phil: General Debate 
Heatley Phil: General Debate 
[Volume:637;Page:7985] 
PHIL HEATLEY (National—Whangarei) 
: 
 William Duane Bell killed two New Zealanders in the Auckland RSA and New Zealanders understand that. Another killer killed the New Zealander Liam Ashley a young man in the back of a van and Kiwis understand that. Graeme Burton another killer murdered Karl Kuchenbecker in the bush not some months ago and Kiwis understand that. What they cannot understand is why this Government is putting up speaker after speaker in this House today to talk about everything else but those murders that have occurred in this country because of the Department of Corrections making error upon error because of the Ministry of Justice and the Parole Board making error upon error and the lives of those New Zealanders being lost because of all the mistakes in those Government departments. 
It is not that Bill English said that the Government the Prime Minister Dr Cullen and Damien O’Connor were not taking those seriously. Mr English knew they were taking the murders seriously. What he said was that they were taking the murders seriously for all the wrong reasons. The Government should be protecting Kiwis. That is what the Department of Corrections should be doing—protecting everyday Kiwis like Liam Ashley Karl Kuchenbecker and those at the RSA. It should be protecting those everyday Kiwis from murderers like William Duane Bell Graeme Burton and that murderer who killed the young Liam Ashley. 
The Government should be protecting Kiwis from murderers but this Government is not. It is protecting its own Ministers. It is protecting Damien O’Connor. It is protecting its own reputation. It does not care about those being murdered but about its own reputation in the public arena. We heard today that the Parole Board heard five times that Graeme Burton was a deadly killer and dangerous. Yet the board let him out on the streets. We heard today that the armed offenders squad was even alerted to Graeme Burton being out on the streets. When the squad visited his home this Government’s probation officer said: “Well you may not find Graeme Burton at home but we know he’s OK. Just check the fridge.” They checked the fridge and found food in it. So because this killer was not home but there was food in the fridge they figured he was safe and Kiwis were safe. 
I am wondering whether the probation officers rather than seeing whether convicted killers are safely in their homes out amongst the New Zealand public just check the fridge or do they want the killers to front up to them as they should to the probation service—or do they just check the letterbox and if the mail has been collected then the killer is home and everyone is safe? Do probation officers just ring up and if the phone is engaged do they assume that he must be home and that New Zealanders will be safe? What is the probation service relying on? We discovered that Damien O’Connor has a department that is running around giving the armed offenders squad advice like that. 
The newspaper today states that the Prime Minister described Damien O’Connor the Minister of Corrections as being humane and compassionate because he keeps saying that he will make sure that it will not happen again. When William Duane Bell killed at the RSA Mr O’Connor said that he would make sure it would not happen again.