Hughes Darren: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Darren: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12090. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DARREN HUGHES (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you for the opportunity to speak on the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. I want my colleagues to listen very carefully to my views on this bill because the words I am about to express are not necessarily the same ones that my colleagues have expressed. I am told that this bill is an appalling fraud that is being committed on the people of New Zealand. I am told that the fraud being perpetrated on the House and on the public will only re-traumatise victims. Those are not my words or my beliefs. 
Hon Member 
: Whose words are they? 
Hon DARREN HUGHES 
: They are the words of the Hon Tony Ryall. In 2004 the Hon Tony Ryall in the most extraordinary pantomime way possible told the House that this kind of legislation was an appalling fraud that was being committed on the public of New Zealand. Mr Ryall in response to an interjection from Labour members about what he would do said: “I will stop this kind of legislation when I get into Government.” That is what Tony Ryall said. That is the kind of consistency in the justice portfolio that we see from Tony Ryall. In the same way in the health portfolio at question time today we heard that in Opposition it is very important to close the wage gap with Australia for doctors and in Government it is an impossible thing to do. 
I will give the Hon Tony Ryall one piece of credit which is more credit than his own colleagues give him. He said that he only stopped these kinds of payments under a Government led by Don Brash—he regaled the country in December 2004. But of course do not forget that Tony Ryall was the man who used to scarper along the parliamentary corridors with a big folder under his arm saying “Te Puke bypass”. That was when he was organising the coup for Jenny Shipley to roll Jim Bolger. So he was on Jenny Shipley’s side. When it came to this legislation before Parliament he was on Don Brash’s side. He thought he should be the Prime Minister of New Zealand in respect of this bill. But now that it is back before Parliament all of a sudden he is in favour of it. But the most amazing thing is that not only did he say those things in Opposition but he sat in the chair tonight as Minister in charge of the bill pushing it through Parliament; that is what he did. 
I want to say one thing. When Dr Wayne Mapp who is a Minister I know that members opposite are so proud of gets up in the House to answer questions we can feel the pride radiating from Government members. It is like a rerun of the great BBC drama when the Rt Hon Jim Hacker Minister of Administrative Affairs gives his answers. Wayne Mapp said that this bill is a bizarre lottery. Wayne Mapp probably never having won many prizes in life would know. Georgina te Heuheu is an extraordinary answerer of questions with regard to legislation on appropriations. No one is better in the House. In fact to be fair the only place where the Minister of Pacific Island Affairs is better at answering questions is on  
Morning Report 
. She is pretty good there; she answers good questions on that programme. But in the House she tells it like she sees it. She said this was a fraud perpetrated not only on the House but on the public. 
In 2005 Simon Power got up in the House as the Opposition shadow spokesperson on justice. By the time Simon Power spoke there had been yet another leadership change in the National Party. Don Brash had gone and John Key had arrived. Simon Power was reinvented in the justice portfolio. He said that the problem with this bill is that it re-traumatises victims and National will have no part of that as he led the National members into the Noes lobby. Do members know what Tony Ryall said? He said: “I will not let a figment of the United Nations decide what happens in New Zealand.” Well the United Nations was going to decide whether we passed the original legislation which through this bill we are now turning into a revalidation. We were not going to kowtow to the United Nations convention on torture. But of course when it came to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples not only were we going to sign up to it but we should do it in secret. We had the stealth jet flying from Mangere Airport and landing at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York and the Minister of Maori Affairs scurrying across the tarmac and signing up to this declaration because by that stage Tony Ryall believed that declarations like this were aspirational. But of course when it came to this bill he was not going to have a figment of United Nations law taking any part in what we should say about this. He said legislation like this was window-dressing. 
I am trying to explain why members before they commit to the third reading should decide whether they vote for it. Members opposite I know are such staunch researchers of their own party’s history. The great thing about the 2005 and the 2008 intakes is that they have no idea what National has done before which is why they clap and cheer like performing seals whenever their leaders speak; it is because they are hearing everything for the first time. 
One man with a future in the National Party—and I say this to make sure he does not have one—is Simon Bridges whom I endorse. He spoke with such pride on the Government’s bill but he would have no idea that his neighbouring MP Tony Ryall had said those things in 2004 and 2005. Get this. Do members know what Tony Ryall of all members said? He said of this legislation: “This is nothing more than a public relations exercise.” yet here we are today passing this law. At least our bill was several clauses and several parts long. This bill has only two parts and seven discrete clauses—seven deadly sins one might say. 
National finished up by saying that this bill should be blocked stopped and wiped which is exactly what the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Date) Amendment Bill does does it not? Oh no sorry. What it does is to give the Act new life. It resuscitates and breathes new life into it. I tell you what I would not want to take any advice from him. 
I will finish by saying that we should quote somebody who is a man of great substance and a person who is always over the detail. I can quote no other such person than the Leader of the House Gerry Brownlee. He said: “Why would you vote for a bill that just lines up New Zealand with other countries? This bill is out of touch and should not be supported.” He also said that this bill was a load of rubbish. Well we have heard a lot of rubbish from members on the other side of the House tonight as they have got up and tried to say why they are revalidating legislation that just a few years ago they said they were against. I do not mind that they do things like that. I understand that conservative politicians are always years and years behind where they need to be. No matter what the issue is they wait 10 or 20 years and then they say: “Oh yeah that is status quo now. I am conservative. Status quo is for me. I am all for it.” All that the Opposition asks tonight is if those members are going to flip-flop on a bill then they should at least have the good grace to get up and say that they might have been wrong.