Mark Ron: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
Mark Ron: Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee Procedure 
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RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 Thank you for the Committee’s indulgence. I do appreciate this call as I was not able to get a call on earlier parts in the debate. I want to continue on with a couple of observations I have made. This bill and we are discussing the title could truly be called the “Lying in Unison Bill” the “Right to Perjure Oneself Bill” or the “Great Green Con Job Bill”. 
The reason the bill is here is that Labour is allowing itself to be forced into a situation promoted by the Greens. When I say that this legislation could be called the “Great Green Con Job Bill” I ask: is it not interesting that today the Green MPs were out on the forecourt of Parliament telling students that the most important thing out there to them was getting students an allowance? Yet the only thing they have really pursued to fruition in this House is this sort of stuff: the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill advocacy for legalising marijuana and cycleways and footpaths from one end of the country to the other which probably will not be used by anyone except Mrs Brown’s cat and two or three kiddies on their bikes maybe. It is like the cycleway that will go between Rangiora and Kaiapoi. I do not know who the heck rides a bike down there; nobody is stupid enough to. But it will be a very expensive unusable not used road when the very things the Greens could have been concentrating on were student allowances as they told everybody today they were but have not been. That is why I say that this bill could be called the “Great Green Con Job Bill”. 
I point out to the Minister that when we talk about people who will be able to conceal their convictions and consider the comments made previously about the insignificant nature of those convictions we should get it firmly in our heads. Mr Franks said that the average inmate who gets his first jail term has committed nine previous offences. He said that to get an average of nine offences they might well have committed 11 15 or 16. The Minister should take on board that many youth offenders we are dealing with in cities today—the recidivist offenders—who finally get a conviction have between 40 and 80 contacts with the police for breaking the law. They have had between 40 and 80 contacts with various youth agencies for criminal behaviour before they ever get charged let alone get convicted let alone get a jail term. 
So what I will be faced with and what every other small businessman out there will be faced with is not only having to deal with the vagaries of the youth justice system that already conceals through the Privacy Act and through the Youth Court— 
Stephen Franks 
: Suppression. 
RON MARK 
: The laws of suppression already conceal their 40 to 80 conflicts with the law for breaking the law but now this legislation will conceal the convictions they had subsequent to that—unless of course they have finally clocked up so many they have to go to jail. I say God help any small employer who runs foul of this because he will have no recompense. The Minister will not be there saying: “We’re really sorry. We know you’ve had embezzlement and we know your garage has been ripped off and half a dozen cars stolen. Yes we know this person had a track record.” He will not be there to help the businessman pay his new increased insurance levies. He will not be there to help that business recover loss. He will not be there to counsel staff who will lose their jobs because the business has suffered embezzlement. He will be sitting back here congratulating himself for passing this “Lying in Unison Bill”. 
That is what the bill is. It is touchy feel good fluffy legislation that does only one thing. It promotes lying legalises lying and dissuades people from the simple policy that most educated people are brought up to accept—that is that honesty is the best policy. 
Every day in this House and in select committees we are dealing with youth crime. We know the problems we are facing there. Any legislation passed through this House that enables people to conceal crimes that I believe that an employer trust or social welfare agency has a right to know about and make a valued judgment on is wrong. Further I ask what it is about the social welfare system the public service and businessmen that the Minister does not trust. Why can he not let them make that valued decision as they rightly should be allowed to do? 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 175 in the name of Murray Smith to clause 1 be agreed to.