Mark Ron: General Debates 
Mark Ron: General Debates 
[Volume:608;Page:5478] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 I rise in this general debate to voice the anger and frustrations of ordinary people of New Zealand at the inability of this Government to face up to and tackle some of the real problems that face us today and at the continuing insistence of this Government to pander to criminals and to the alcoholic self-destruction of our young people. 
I have often heard about the country and in this Chamber that New Zealand has become a nanny State. That is said because of this Government’s propensity to continue to pander to the politically correct sensitivities of the minority as opposed to making sane sensible common-sense decisions. Indeed one could go further and say that we are no longer a nanny State; we have become a “nancy State”. Indeed in this Chamber last night I reiterated the words of some people down south who said that this country is now run by a bunch of Chardonnay-sipping spa-bath socialists who are more concerned about the political correctness of things than dealing in real terms with the real problems that face us. 
I refer to two issues that have gone through this House this week. One is home detention and the other is the liquor laws. 
Home detention has become the most sought after punishment available from our courts. Why is that? Because it is not punishment at all. Why do I say that? Well because now we have a situation under this Government where people sentenced to prison—not given diversion but sentenced to prison—are actually let out for a couple of months while they seek home detention. We have the absolute absurdity of a robber who is now a prime suspect for further robberies who has been let out on a deferred sentence—he is on leave at loose—and now the police cannot find him because the system has lost him. How patently absurd! We now have a home detention system that allows people convicts some of whom are rapists some of whom have bashed children and some of whom have bashed women to go to the gym to go on entertaining outings and to go shopping. We now know that there is no real monitoring of their activities. Basically they are free to do as they will. They can vote gamble and drink. They are at home with their partners of a day and if they choose they can have sex. It is a wonderful lifestyle. 
Then we come to the other issue—the drinking. Last night we witnessed the passage of a bill that supposedly will deal with the drinking problems of our youth. I am here to tell members that only New Zealand First has stood firm on all aspects of such legislation and voted consistently against the lowering of the drinking age. It was that issue that gave us the problems we face today and no amount of politically correct pandering will deter me nor anybody else out on the street from that view. 
It is absolutely pathetic that this Government does not have the strength or the ability to face this issue and deal with it head on. What does it do instead? It jacks up the prices. It jacks up the taxes on nana’s sherry that goes into the Christmas trifle and it has the nerve to tell us all that that will solve the drinking problems of our youth. Well our youth are laughing at this House. 
One thing I can tell this House about youth is that they look for parameters for boundaries. They respect discipline and they respect people who can see a problem for what it is and make the hard call. Young people respect that. They do not respect the sort of nonsense that we have seen going through the House. It has been an expensive mistake. We have seen the lowering of the drinking age we have seen an explosion of drink-related offending by large numbers of our young people and we have had Maori consistently calling upon the Labour Government which got the mandate to deal with it. 
I have to ask the Maori MPs where they were last night. Where was the warrior status the ability to stand up make the hard call and say no to a pathetically useless bill that will not in any way address the drinking problems of our youth? Where was it? Where were the Maori MPs? Why were they not standing up and saying that home detention is failing that home is not the place for people who rape women? [ 
Interruption 
] Tariana Turia can say what she likes but can she tell me that home detention is appropriate for a man who raped a child between the age of 12 and 16? Hello? Well I say it is not. This Government with all its politically correct misfits its Chardonnay-sipping spa-bath socialists seems to think it is and nobody out there in Belfast in Christchurch agrees with that.