Mark Ron: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Mark Ron: Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:635;Page:6683] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It is really quite interesting. I sat up in my office listening to the Minister the Hon Mark Burton’s introductory speech. There has been much debate on this bill over the last few weeks. It is interesting because at first glance one can be forgiven for taking a similar view to Tim Groser the member who has just resumed his seat. That view is that there is nothing in the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill that really pertains to New Zealand other than feel-good policy and feel-good implementation of some international protocol that a bunch of back roomers have dreamt up in the United Nations corridors—and God knows those corridors are full of a lot of people who dream up wonderful ideas and expect the rest of the world to toe in behind them. 
I guess they spend many hours sipping their martinis their sherries and their chardonnays and congratulate each other on the reams and reams of paper that they fill up with ink and the numbers of forests they fell in order to come up with such agreements. They probably spend months haggling over the exact wording of one sentence and then rejoice and celebrate the fact that nations all around the world such as New Zealand are moving by legislation to ratify those agreements. 
It is wonderful and as a former military man—forgive me—when I first saw this bill I thought to myself it was an interesting notion. If one caught an al-Qaeda terrorist in Afghanistan and politely asked him to give the address of Osama bin Laden I guess according to this legislation he would gleefully hand over the address. He would need no encouragement other than a polite request to get him to accede to the demands or requests and give without the need for any form of duress or intimidation all the information needed to round up terrorists and would-be killers and mass murderers of that type. A part of me says that is fanciful it is interesting it will not really affect the lives of New Zealanders and it does not pertain to New Zealand at all except for one extraordinarily uncharacteristic blot on our record. 
I am holding in my hand the report for the State Services Commissioner into the Department of Corrections’ Canterbury emergency response unit. Has any member seen this big thick huge document? It is a document produced by Ailsa Duffy QC on 16 December 2004. I remind the House that much as we like to congratulate ourselves on being a civil society and a society and a nation that touts itself around the world as complying 100 percent with all the human rights legislation and protocols that the United Nations likes to churn out in this area when it comes to the way we treated people in our own prison in Canterbury this country and notably this Government failed. It did not fail on its own. 
It was interesting to hear the Minister Mr Burton give such a wonderful speech recognising and reaffirming the rights of prisoners who are detained by the State to be treated humanely and fairly. But this huge thick report which took me and New Zealand First 4 years to get the Government to agree to have completed by means of an investigation suggests that we are on occasion completely the opposite. What is even worse is that the issue was brought to the attention of the relevant Ministers of Correction of the Labour – Alliance or Progressive coalition—they had so many names I cannot remember which one it was at the time. 
The Hon Matt Robson a notable campaigner of human rights around this country—and in fact I saw him in the paper today again prattling on about the human rights of some particular group of people—failed in this area. When I met with Mr Robson in his office for a private one-on-one discussion about the goings-on of the emergency response unit in Canterbury prisons he did not want to know and he did nothing. 
I had discussions with the honourable Tariana Turia the other night. She was—and I said so in a speech—an Associate Minister of Corrections at the time. It is interesting that she now says that it was impossible for her to get the Government to accede to my request for an inquiry into the inappropriate conduct the inappropriate actions the abuse of human rights and the abuse of prisoners and inmates that had being going on in Canterbury’s prison for years. 
It is not purely a Labour Government problem; it actually started under National’s term. It is interesting that people like Brian Neeson had the fortitude to stand up and say that an investigation was needed. Then slowly a number of other MPs from the Law and Order Committee stepped up including Brian Connell. He said that what they were hearing about what was going on down there and the information he was receiving in Rakaia was telling him that something was not right in the kingdom. Despite all the rhetoric from the Government Ministers about respecting human rights and the rights and obligations of a State in terms of the way it treats those people incarcerated in its prisons precisely the opposite was happening. 
Mr Connell had many discussions as I did with good men and women of the Department of Corrections—officers who had subsequently as a result of their blowing the whistle found their performance reviews suddenly taking a nose dive. They found that their retention in New Zealand’s Department of Correction was suddenly now in question. 
I put it on the record here that I am still to this day appalled by this Government’s Ministers of Corrections—and there was a series of them; there were four of them. I ask members not to listen to all the rhetoric but to judge people by what they do not by what they say. It is wonderful to have Government Ministers and members standing up and saying that they will respect the rights of those people incarcerated and held by us in our prisons but those words do not match their actions. Their actions were those of a Government in denial. Their actions were those of a Government that did not want to know. Their actions were those of a Government that preferred to put the word of the officials and the departmental managers in the Department of Corrections over and above that of the staff in the prison and over and above that of the inmates who were writing and complaining and explaining their stories. 
The summary of findings on pages 1 2 and 3 of this report just about sums it up. Ailsa Duffy QC stated: “Allegations of inappropriate behaviour came to the attention of the department between late December 1999 and August 2000.” Is that not funny? It took 4 years of political pressure from Opposition benches led by New Zealand First and backed by people like Brian Connell to get the Government to finally agree to appoint a State Services Commissioner to investigate the matter. What did she say? “The Department failed to recognise the wider implications of the complaints certain prisoners made to the Prison Inspectorate and the Ombudsman about inappropriate conduct towards them by the CERU.” 
Guess what? To this day no manager has been fired not one. The men who were in charge of Canterbury’s prisons at that time Monk Rushton and Smith—not one of them has been fired. Let us not forget that a man died. I will say that again. An inmate died at the hands of the “goon squad”. The officer who was involved in the control and restraint who tried to get the team to stop their action and who tried to render assistance to the person still to this day—a fine young man—has nightmares of that incident. Sometimes it just annoys the living heck out of me and New Zealand First. 
I say to this Government that this wonderful piece of legislation the Crimes of Torture Amendment Bill has wonderful words of compassion. It is wonderful to hear that the Government is so concerned about inmates and about the rights of humans who are incarcerated. It is just a shame—just a pity—that it took 4 years of denial 4 years of inaction and 4 years of pretending that the very things this bill seeks to stop happened in our prisons and four consecutive Labour Ministers of Corrections refused to do anything about it. I again pay my respects to Brian Neeson Brian Connell and those in the National Party on the Law and Order Committee who came to our aid. But I do point out that all this happened in this country in 1999-2000 during two terms of Government and two sets of Governments denying that it ever took place. Members should read the report.