Connell Brian: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
Connell Brian: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Bill — In Committee Procedure Third Reading 
[Volume:626;Page:20966] 
BRIAN CONNELL (National—Rakaia) 
: 
 The speech made by the Hon Rick Barker was probably the most pathetic PC nonsense I have heard in a long time. His message is that the rights of prisoners are more important than the rights of victims. If that Minister had got out of his office more often and come down to the Justice and Electoral Committee and listened to the parents of some of the victims of those lowlifes he could not possibly hold the opinions he holds now. He typifies why there will be a change of Government when we go to the polls on 30 July this year. 
A mother of one of the victims who lost her daughter to one of those lowlifes came to the select committee. She said that a gentleman—although I cannot use that term; a prisoner—by the name of Sam Te Hei had beaten her daughter so severely and so badly that she her own mother could not recognise her. If the Minister in the chair Rick Barker had been at that select committee I daresay that he like everybody else there would have had a tear in his eye because— 
Peter Brown 
: Like John Key. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: Well anyone in that select committee I believe would have had a tear in his or her eye. The mother said that she could not recognise her own daughter because she was beaten that severely. I say to Mr Barker that her daughter’s “crime” was that she would not have sex with Te Hei a stranger when she was walking by. Mr Barker now proposes that Te Hei get compensation. 
Judith Collins 
: It’s a disgrace! 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: It is a disgrace. That is what the Minister is proposing. Following that mother into the select committee was the mother of the Sanson hotelier in the North Island who had his throat slit from ear to ear by one of the thugs that the Government now wants to give compensation to as well. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: That’s disgraceful. 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: It is disgraceful but what is worse is that when the act was perpetrated that thug then tried to blame the victim’s son. The Minister is saying that that family having been dealt those savage blows can then go to court and sue that prisoner for the money should he get it. 
Are people going to get money out of prisoners? Yeah right! Are they going to get money out of those thugs? Yeah right! Does the Government have any regard for the law? Does it have any regard for the human rights of victims? Absolutely not. The only regard for human rights it has now is for those of prisoners. It is suckers like the Hon Rick Barker and his cohorts and the Green Party which says that this is bad law who have come to the House and said that it is bad law but that they will vote for it anyway. 
We in the Opposition parties are not unreasonable people. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: Soon to be Government though! 
BRIAN CONNELL 
: We are soon to be Government because we are seen as reasonable people. If prisoners do not have their rights or sentences adhered to in a fair and just way then sure there is a problem. But we should fix the problem rather than give compensation to prisoners. We should fix the problem. We should go and talk to the prison authorities and make sure that they conduct themselves in a way that is appropriate. We should deal to those prison authorities and take them before the courts if that is the case. 
 But to stand up as the Minister is now doing and say that prisoners have more rights than the victims against whom they perpetrated the most unthinkable acts is absolute nonsense. The Minister should not look me in the eye; he should hang his head in shame. He is a disgrace to the House and the people across the country who are listening to this know that he and his cohorts will get turfed out on their ear because they have had a gutsful of this type of PC nonsense. 
It gets worse. I will come back to what we are being told about victims.