Moroney Sue: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Moroney Sue: Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 February 2013. Volume:687;Page:8079. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE MORONEY (Labour) 
: 
 It is indeed a surprise pleasure for me actually to be speaking on the Habeas Corpus Amendment Bill. It is not a bill I ever anticipated that I would be speaking on and I feel almost certain too that it is not a bill that Chris Auchinvole came to this House to deliver but such are the vagaries of political life that Chris Auchinvole has none the less put forward this bill as being his major contribution and major piece of work in this Parliament and I have found myself speaking on his work in this regard. 
 I want to just start my contribution by reminding people about what the purpose of this bill is. What the bill describes its purpose as is that the procedure for dealing with habeas corpus applications has been misused whereby some applications that should have been dealt with by other means have obtained priority hearings. Oh the irony! Oh the irony! In fact this bill which is designed to stop processes being misused when they can be done by other means is itself guilty of that. This bill has been used in exactly that way. This bill ought to be a Government bill. It ought to have been debated on any of those days that we get all of the time in this Parliament to debate the Government’s business. That is where this bill belongs but instead we are taking up precious time on a members’ day which—I will just remind members of the public listening—happen only on every second sitting Wednesday of the House. They do not happen very frequently at all. Yet this business which ought to be the Government’s business has landed on a members’ day. So in fact the bill is guilty of doing the same thing. This bill is being used for the very purpose that it actually says it is going to stop in a different regard. I think that is hugely ironic. 
I have been very disappointed by the contributions from the Government members. As I said this ought to have been a very simple piece of Government legislation but here they are taking up time on a members’ day—members whom I actually have a great deal of respect for and Chris Auchinvole is one of those. I have a great deal of respect for that member and I think it is a great shame he has been put in the position by his party of actually playing this game and having an insignificant bill brought before the House in his name. I know he is better than that. I know he is better than that. Then there is Alfred Ngaro whom I had expected to gain some respect for. I have heard quite a lot about his background from my colleagues. I had expected that I would gain respect for him in his time in the House. But we hardly ever hear from Alfred Ngaro in this House and when we do it is the 10-second contribution that he got up on his feet to give before. I think his community did not send him here to this place to give that sort of lack of regard to his role here as a member of Parliament by giving that sort of lack of contribution in the House. I think it is very disappointing. 
What is the Government really trying to hide here? What is it trying to do? What it is trying to do—let us make it loud and clear—is stop New Zealanders from seeing and hearing debated all the fantastic Labour policy that has been translated into members’ bills. The only opportunity as the Opposition that we have to actually put our ideas forward for debate in this Parliament is through members’ bills. That Government is so frightened of the public hearing our fantastic plan and policy where it has none that it has started putting these insignificant bills into the ballot to try to crowd ours out. That is what this is all about. It knows that it would be exposed as having absolutely no plan—absolutely no plan. Does this bill not exhibit exactly that? And the Government does not want the public to see that Labour has a very detailed plan some of which is actually described in some of our members’ bills. 
I think it is wrong that the Government is using members’ day in this way. I have been fortunate enough—it has taken 6 years but I have been fortunate enough after 6 long years—to have two members’ bills drawn out within 12 months of each other—two of them. I wish that that would happen for all of my colleagues’ bills as well but it makes it much more difficult when National Party MPs are using bills in this way.