Power Simon: Corrections Bill — Third Reading 
Power Simon: Corrections Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:13353] 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I wish to make a short contribution on the Corrections Bill that if I time it correctly should end just prior to 6 o’clock. The matters relating to the ideological nature of this bill have been well canvassed by those who spoke before me in particular the Hon Tony Ryall Dr Wayne Mapp and my colleague from New Zealand First Ron Mark. Many of those issues have been well canvassed. 
I want to concentrate on two issues. The first relates to the bizarre and ongoing oddity that is United Future’s support for bits of legislation—when its members stand in this House and tell the New Zealand public that they detest the direction the Government is taking in respect of for example the canning of a private remand prison contract and when tomorrow they will march in here and at 2.40 p.m. to 2.50 p.m. provide the Labour and Progressive parties with the necessary numbers for confidence and supply to continue to run this Government. 
I want to give the United Future members a very clear message in very simple terms—a message I am sure they will understand. I know that Marc Alexander who will be listening carefully to what I have to say on this issue will share this view given his contributions on this bill. I say to United Future members that the public will not distinguish bill by bill when they are standing on the platforms at the next election—[ 
Interruption 
] Jill Pettis is having a little chuckle over there. That is because she knows I am right that the public will not make that distinction. The only conclusion the public will come to is that United Future provided the votes and the support for legislation like this to pass through the House. In the public’s mind the Government’s ideology is United Future’s ideology. It is as simple as that. 
I know there are United Future members who feel extremely uncomfortable about that course of action. Let me offer those members an option—an option that will solve the problem of the Government’s ideology being completely indistinguishable from United Future’s ideology. The option is this: do not vote for the Budget tomorrow. It is very straightforward. If the United Future members who come down to this House and preach to this Parliament about virtue honesty and choosing the right road which we heard in the general debate today stuck to their guns and voted the Budget down tomorrow then they could hold their heads high in this Parliament and say that they are different from the minority Labour-Progressive Government. They could then go on the platforms around this country during the election campaign next year and say that they held the Government to account. But they will not do that and that is a sad indictment on a party that says it believes in honesty principle virtue and more important common sense. I have a message for those members: watch the worm turn the other way. At the next election their ideology will be indistinguishable from that of members sitting on the Government benches. 
I conclude my short contribution to this debate by saying that when legislation reaches the Committee of the whole House—and in respect of this bill I to refer to what is commonly known in prison lingo as the “Prebble section” which is clause 71 relating to bedding—and members of this Parliament have to amend a substantive section of it at that stage then that says to me that it is sloppy law. It is sloppy ideological law that needs to be amended on the way through after the select committee process. The public will remember that at election time. They will remember that United Future passed this legislation because its members supported the Budget that will be delivered tomorrow.