Franks Stephen: Police Complaints Authority (Conditional Name Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Franks Stephen: Police Complaints Authority (Conditional Name Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7470] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to say sorrowfully that we cannot support this bill. It reflects the kind of opportunism and pitiful analysis that has scarred so much of our law and this kind of response although it is well meant in effect has delivered over policemen—like the policeman we are so concerned about—to the threats of villains. The reason we are considering this bill is that villains no longer fear the law. Even policemen doing their duty can be harassed out of a town by a mob encouraged by the Prime Minister. In this country— 
Hon Phil Goff 
: Oh rubbish! Grow up. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Mr Goff says: “Grow up.” Mr Goff made a speech in which we did not know till the very end whether he was for or against this bill. Mr Goff tried to curry favour by saying how sympathetic he was and then by saying he would not support it. Mr Goff of course has to try to curry favour because this bill arises purely because the Prime Minister stirred up the hatred of the community in Waitara against the police. The Prime Minister encouraged the people of this country to think there was some sort of racist cover-up and the best reason for publishing the name of that policeman and for getting rid of the miasma the smog of suspicion was the fact that the Government and the establishment looked as if they were trying to cover something up. 
 That is the reason ACT is tougher on crime than any of the other parties in this House and it is the reason that ACT cannot support this bill. We believe that the law must prevail not expediency not threats the fear of insult or the fear of a family who thinks that if it foams at the mouth and runs wild it can encourage everyone else to terrorise anyone at all. 
This bill would be utterly unnecessary if the Government were able to establish the kind of respect for the law for justice and for the police that any healthy society would expect. It is a problem only because of the loss of control. Criminals and their families should be in fear of the consequences that this policeman has had to suffer. This bill cements in a situation where society is on the run instead of the criminals. It cements that in by saying that even the police have to hide from the community. A policeman who is doing his duty—and who is wearing his number on his uniform because Sir Robert Peel established so many years ago that the police ought to be identified that we ought to know who they are and that they should be citizens doing what any other citizen could do on behalf of us all—should not be afraid when he or she exercises the right of self-defence. That indeed was the court’s outcome. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: What about the family? 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The family is in the same position. If the family of a policeman is scared when a policeman does what any citizen should be able to do then we have lost the game. There is no point in putting a band-aid over it by telling the media that they cannot report it; if the families are scared in Waitara today they will be scared tomorrow when the  
New Zealand Herald 
 cannot publish because everyone in Waitara will know who the policeman is. This will not protect a single policeman’s family. The villains will know who it was. What we should be doing is spending the time of this House debating proper remedies for those who threaten justice and for those who threaten the agents of justice who are acting on behalf of us all in the street every day as we have said. 
We do not sacrifice one vital freedom because we are not prepared to protect an even more vital freedom which is the freedom of every one of us from being afraid of threats from villains. We should not leave it to the experts. Police should have freedom from the insult of swaggering criminals but the police are afraid to exercise powers because they believe the Government will not back them up. They had to face the Prime Minister bringing down condemnation on them and they had to then get the Race Relations Conciliator down from Auckland to try to calm the situation down because the Prime Minister had stirred up racial hatred. 
Ron Mark 
: That’s exactly right. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: That is exactly what happened. ACT cannot vote for secret justice. We do not believe in name suppression now which we believe is used mainly to protect the powerful. We cannot vote for this bill.