Mark Ron: General Debates 
Mark Ron: General Debates 
[Volume:611;Page:8355] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 It is good to see the Minister of Defence here today; I am just hoping he will take a call before the end of the day. We can probably help him out a little bit. The leaves are rustling and we are starting to hear some movement in defence. I hear that he is about to announce the purchase of a very expensive vehicle the Humvee and he may like to take a call to tell us about that. But what I would like to ask him to do is to cancel the motorisation plan go back to square one and let us have some sensible decisions. We have a better plan than that— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Do nothing! That’s all you want to do. 
RON MARK 
: The Minister should listen to his colleagues and do the right thing. The Minister from Taupo who leads a peacenik organisation is touted internationally as our Minister of Defence—what a joke! We have the founder of a peace movement leading our defence forces. 
Today I want to talk about another group of people who have been poorly treated in this country. Today I asked the Prime Minister whether she had confidence in the Minister of Health and the people responsible for running mental health services and she said she did. How can the Prime Minister have confidence—[ 
Interruption 
] They do not like it up them do they? How can this Government have confidence in a mental health system that spends 26000 hours of good police time chasing mentally unwell people in our community who should not be there? How can the Prime Minister have confidence in a health system where 6175 mental health cases are in the hands of the police force? How can we have confidence in a Government that shoots its mouth off in elections tells everybody it cares about people then locks up mentally unwell people leaving them to rot in jails? 
Former Prime Minister Mike Moore said: “We have closed down hospitals and are now planning to rebuild similar wards inside prisons.” I ask Labour whether it is proud of that. We have people all over this country whom this Government does not care about—people who suffer the daily trauma and rigours of watching their loved ones being subjected to the mental health system. An article entitled “Woman Wants Staff Charged Over Death” talks about a woman who asked that her son not be released. She asked that he be taken care of because he was suicidal. His brother also made representations and where is that young man now? He is dead—suicide. Failure! Who is responsible? Annette King is responsible. Who is responsible? Helen Clark who started the whole stupid total deinstitutionalisation plan which was supported by Jenny Shipley. What greater credit could the Labour Party bring upon itself than to get plaudits from Jenny Shipley on mental health care? 
What else is happening? In the last week—[ 
Interruption 
] Steve Chadwick is shooting her mouth off but it is her Government’s failure. In the last week a man in Masterton was involved in an axe rage attack; that man should not have been out in the community. In another case a young woman in Porirua threw herself in front of a train. And what do I hear coming out of the mouths of Labour MPs now? “Oh we don’t care. It’s just another one. We’d have to lock them all up.” What about the case of the man who was found walking the motorway with a replica pistol? Had it not been for the professionalism of the police force he would be dead. The police would have been justified in shooting him dead but they did not do that. They talked him through it because they know that this Government has turned nutters loose all over the streets of this country. This Government does not care; it just says: “We can’t do anything else.” 
This Government promises big but it does not deliver. It does not care about the trauma faced by the Burton family down south. Where is the accountability? Helen Clark was big in the mouth when she promised—she was reported as promising—a hard line on accountability saying she would go all the way to the top including sacking bungling Ministers. She was going to usher in a new standard of accountability. Where is it? People are dying in our streets and dying in community care and this Government does nothing about it.