Ryall Tony: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Ryall Tony: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
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Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 Today in the court in Auckland a judge sentenced Mark Lyon to 280 hours of community work with the warning that this would be his final chance. It will not be his final chance because anybody sentenced to community work is given every excuse by this Government’s “soft on crims” justice system not to turn up. A judge said in Gisborne last week he was astounded that repeat community work absconders there are being given second and third chances to reoffend. Judge Tony Adeane said that in Hawke’s Bay offenders with a history of two or more breaches would be imprisoned but in Gisborne there was ongoing tolerance. That is because community work under this Government is being run on a Mickey Mouse basis where there is no accountability or responsibility whatsoever. 
Mark Lyon will not do 100 percent of his community service because under this Government’s rort of the system if an offender does 90 percent of his or her community work he or she is given the other 10 percent free. The situation is even worse because if an offender is prosecuted for not turning up for community work and is excused from attending he or she is taken out of the figures to make the percentages look even better. It is an absolute joke. The Government says 69 percent of people complete their community work sentences. I would say that not one person completes a community work sentence and that is another example of the wheels falling off this Government’s justice system. 
There are record delays in the nation’s courts. Today some defendants are waiting more than a year to come before a judge. Over the summer break the National Party released official statistics that show that under Labour the delays in the justice system are getting worse. In the Nelson High Court for example it took 11 days from trial committal to case completion 3 years ago but this year it took 300 days. In the New Plymouth High Court defendants will wait over a year to have their cases heard and settled. It is this Government’s mismanagement of the justice system that is denying justice to thousands of New Zealanders every day. These sorts of delays cause no end of anguish. They put the victims at danger of further violence and prevent the defendants from beginning their sentences or clearing their good names. As we stand here today in Parliament there are more than 32000 cases waiting to be heard before our nation’s courts—up 32 percent during the term of this Labour Government. Providing swift and fair justice should be one of the first priorities of any Government and simply we are failing to see it with this Labour Government. 
The National Party revealed tonight that even more wheels are falling off the justice system with the news that the people who provide judgments in our small claims courts are taking the unprecedented action of taking industrial action from next Monday. The country’s disputes tribunal referees are outraged at the way that this Government has treated them—incompetently and with no respect for judicial independence. I do not blame the disputes tribunal referees for taking this action. This Government has misled them at every turn. We have revealed papers that show they have been given undertaking after undertaking but Ministers were secretly slipping the timetable back further and further and providing empty promises without any substantiation whatsoever. We say that running a decent justice system is pivotal to any democracy. The Prime Minister with her one sentence about law and order in her statement is letting our system fall into disrepair. She was warned that the disputes tribunal referees would be taking action but she has chosen to ignore it. 
What is more I want to alert the House to three examples of the justice system in this country failing people in my region. Eighteen months ago in the Rotorua court a man was sentenced to 3 years for severely bashing his wife. Because of an administrative error in the Rotorua District Court that man was released only 5 months into that 3-year term. Within weeks he bashed his wife again incredibly seriously—because of an administrative error in this Government’s court system. Only late last year a patched Mongrel Mob member who had been involved in a serious assault was given leave to apply for home detention and the court forgot to advise the prison service that he had been given leave to apply for home detention. He was uncovered as being on the run only when he was picked up by the police in December and released again. Desmond Ngaheu is still on the run. He is a dangerous man a patched Mongrel Mob member and he still has not been caught because of an administrative error in the nation’s court system. Only last week the Ministry of Justice implemented yet another review of the way that the courts are being run in this country after another Rotorua man was accidentally let out of jail 6 days into a 3-month prison term because something in the system had failed to advise of the full length of the prison term he should be serving. 
Yet again the wheels are falling off the justice system. The Government cannot even provide the basic bureaucratic machinery to ensure that these sentences are enforced. I have to say the Mongrel Mob runs its businesses better than this Government runs the court system. When we live in a country where we can stand up and say that this Government should be ashamed. The Prime Minister must realise that the country’s justice system is fast falling into disrepair. When violent criminals can be released from jail early because the administration of the courts is failing when they can be released to their homes where they bash their wives again someone in this Government has to take responsibility for the failing state of the justice system. When 32000 New Zealanders are waiting for their cases to be heard before the courts and some judicial officers have to take industrial action to get this Government to deal legitimately with their concerns there is something wrong in this country. 
We are in the grip of a drug-induced crime wave in this country. Not a day goes by when south Auckland police do not go to a P-related domestic violence incident in their area. 
Jim Peters 
: And elsewhere. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: And elsewhere. This Government must realise that we need to support the New Zealand police with stronger powers to deal with these drug-dealing gangs. We need to change the Proceeds of Crimes Act in order to get the money the lifeblood of these gangs. We need stricter criminal non-association laws. But first and foremost we need a justice system that will actually provide the sentences that the judges give. What is the point of sentencing anyone if the system breaks down and the prisons do not know that person is coming? What is the sense of a system that sentences people releases them back on the street again and loses the paperwork? If these issues are happening in Rotorua they are happening elsewhere around this country. It is time the Government launched a major inquiry into the state of the nation’s court system. The administration is appalling and the wheels are falling off.