Sharples Pita: General Debate 
Sharples Pita: General Debate 
[Volume:643;Page:12857] 
Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Maori Party) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. Seven years ago in November 2000 former Minister of Justice Phil Goff issued a dramatic statement saying that it was in the interests of all New Zealanders to bring down the rate of Maori offending and in particular the rate of Maori youth offending. He said: “The social statistics are pretty appalling. We cannot be relaxed about the fact that 51 percent of people in our prisons are Maori when Maori only make up 14 percent of the community.” 
Seven years later the Hon Eddie Taihakurei Durie told the New Zealand Parole Board conference that although Maori are only 14 percent of the population they account for 51 percent of those in prison being overrepresented in prison by 3.5 times. So what has happened in the last 7 years for absolutely no progress to be made in achieving a more equitable justice system? Mr Goff was absolutely right: Maori rates of apprehension incarceration and reimprisonment are appalling; we cannot relax. 
Justice Durie laid the challenge of establishing a school for the study of Maori offending. It is an inspired suggestion which seeks to find solutions other than what he describes as pandering to “our national preference for imprisonment”. Such a school may give us all an opportunity to ask the hard questions about whether the present system of justice is actually impartial to all. How can it be that when one taps into the police website one finds a statement about “identifying organised crime by ethnicity”? How can it be that that remains a useful way for police to deal with organised crime? What is meant by that—that we target Scottish fraudsters Indian criminals involved in money laundering Pakeha people committing wildlife smuggling? Is this not classical racial or ethnic profiling an exercise the New Zealand Police has typically denied it is doing? Is this the ethnic profiling based on the type of thinking that former policeman and National Party MP Ross Meurant refers to in his most revealing essay “Deep in the forest:” the type of thinking that Meurant claims has resulted from bias and subjectivity the type of thinking that produces the facts to suit the bias in the thinking? 
An inconsistent application of the law is an act of injustice. For Maori the pursuit of justice te whainga i te tika has always been fundamental to our world view. We recognise that kaupapa and tikanga are the first law of this land and that justice in its broadest sense covers matters from the wrongs people may do to one another to the rules that determine how the land should be cared for. So we welcome the wisdom of Justice Durie and are motivated by his concerns that “harsher penalties mean harsher criminals the more inmates the more there are to be infected by an experienced core and denunciation can lead to defiance not reform”. 
We need to draw on the best advice available to achieve effective rehabilitation of offenders in order to curb our dramatically spiralling costs that flow from the hobby of building new prisons while also aiming for a declining prison population muster. I have spoken before about the value of restorative justice and the experience that we lead at Hoani Waititi Marae in encouraging the local community to take its own control of adverse behaviour a programme that was drawn upon extensively for the design of the family group conferencing that was introduced into our courts and indeed into the courts of the world. I have seen the most formidable offenders crumple under the confrontation of their elders. I have observed the shifts in community compassion that emerge out of the blossoming Maori pride and autonomy. Valmaine Toki of Ngapuhi Ngati Wai and Ngati Rehua has pioneered research into “therapeutic jurisprudence” as a means of reducing the disproportionate number of Maori offenders. She envisages a specialist court that embraces Maori custom ethics values and norms. 
This House must take seriously this growing body of evidence that examines possibilities for preventing criminal offending by the restoration of mana as the central concept in Maori tradition. The essential strength of our value system our kaupapa and our collective commitment to justice must be drawn upon to invigorate Maori communities in taking control of the situation before it is too late. Thank you.