te Heuheu Georgina: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) — In Committee Third Reading 
te Heuheu Georgina: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7103] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the third reading of the bill. I address my remarks to the general background and the environment in which the bill was introduced. I do want to comment on the Hon Phil Goff the Minister of Justice. I think we should be very grateful indeed that he found time to come to the House in between flying between international destinations to introduce the third reading. I just do not know how the Minister does it. He so busy in his foreign affairs portfolio: holding hands with foreign leaders with Yasser Arafat. My goodness is that not such a wonderful thing for him! It just underscores his burning ambition to be the leader. I guess he thinks that making more visits and holding more hands will eventually get him there. 
He is absolutely mistaken is he not! Because he is not even allowed to run his own portfolio. Instead it is done by that person whom we shall not name but we know who she is. She has her nose and her hands in every portfolio and she certainly has her hands in this one. The Minister of Justice the Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade is reduced to making trips all over the world looking busy holding hands with foreign dignitaries pretending he is— 
Hon Tony Ryall 
: Who with? 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: Who? One might think that maybe he would go and hold Bush’s hand maybe he would go and hold Tony Blair’s hand. But no he went and held the hand of Yasser Arafat. My goodness did not our country’s reputation soar when he did that! As I say I am amazed that he has the time to come into the House and attend to the unimportant justice portfolio. That is the way he treats the issue of crime and the real concerns of New Zealanders. As I say he has this other big job to do—being seen on all the international stages because he has a burning desire to be the leader. No doubt having made his speech he is now on his way to some other foreign destination to find some other hand to hold. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Pyongyang. 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU 
: We will see. We await the photographs in the papers and the image on television—on CNN. We wait in anticipation to see whose hand he will hold next. We really do need our reputation enhanced some more! 
Having said all that I want to say that National supports the bill. It covers issues of absolute importance to New Zealand and to New Zealanders. I was quite amazed at Steve Chadwick the member for Rotorua thinking that she had to stand up and try to find an excuse as to why the bill has taken 4 years to wend its way through the process. She babbled on about advances in computer technology and that we had to wait and see what those were so that the law could be drafted accordingly. What a load of crock! What a load of hogwash quite frankly. 
The Minister made excuses about why the bill has taken 4 years to reach this stage but the public should be aware that the bill we will pass into law today is no great advance on the bill that was already there which was introduced by my eminent colleague the Hon Tony Ryall who was a very good Minister of Justice when we were in power. He reacted very swiftly to issues. He was on top of his job and gave the justice portfolio the due focus that it requires. The provisions contained in the bill today were introduced by Tony Ryall 4 years ago. The Minister came down to the House and made some lame excuse for why it has taken so long. 
 He was followed up by the member for Rotorua Steve Chadwick making some more lame excuses as to why it has taken so long but it will not wash. They might think they can use those excuses in this forum but those sorts of excuses do not wash out in the real land where New Zealanders live. 
The whole thing is symbolised in a  
Dominion Post  
byline from earlier this year that states: “Hacking bill gets dusted off”. It has been sitting there for 4 years gathering dust. Phil Goff comes down to the Chamber and pretends he had a good reason for it sitting around but he did not. 
I also comment on something I find to be a real anomaly with the Government. It talks the talk but does not walk the walk. It is interesting is it not that a number of women in the Labour Government are prepared to stand up and support the Minister and pretend that he is doing a great job in that area yet they do that against a background of this Government allowing paedophiles and rapists out into the community to rape abuse and violate women and children. Those women just sit there and let it happen. That is an indictment on the women in the Government who sit there and let that happen. They yell out across the Chamber and try to make negative aspersions about us when we were in Government yet they sit there in 2003 and let these awful awful people back out on to the street. 
There is also the issue around the cervical-screening proposals. Not a lot has been done on that. This Government has a significant number of women who sit there and pretend that they are walking the talk. They are not. It is a scandal when they come down to the Chamber to support a Minister of Justice who is not addressing that area in any comprehensive way at all and who probably cannot address it because he is so busy travelling overseas. In any event if he cannot address the issue they should be advocating on behalf of women and children in this country. But do we hear them doing that? No. The most that we see them do is to come down the House rise to their feet and say: “I support this bill. It is a good bill.” and sit down. In the meantime paedophiles and rapists are out in the community doing what they do best because raping abusing and violating women and children is all they know. The women in the Government should be ashamed of themselves. 
The environment in which we live requires that we address those matters seriously in a considered way and in a timely fashion. The passage of this bill into law today does not have any of those features. But the substance of it is serious and that is why the National Party supports it.