Hide Rodney: Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hide Rodney: Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 24 November 2009. Volume:659;Page:8256. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 The ACT Party opposes this Parliament’s removing the defence of provocation with the Crimes (Provocation Repeal) Amendment Bill. When Parliament moves after a particular case to remove elements of our jurisprudence in our criminal code that have been there for many many years and have stood the test of time we should give it careful thought. Looking at just one or two cases where the provocation defence was attempted and then from that drawing the general principle seems to us in the ACT Party to be an unhelpful way of thinking about this issue. 
The question Parliament is considering is whether a reasonable person could be provoked sufficiently to commit a murder or to kill someone in a way that we would not normally regard as a murder. I am a simple person and that seems to me to be entirely reasonable. I can imagine—and I do not think Labour members can appreciate this—being provoked to do some truly terrible things. The case of poor Sophie Elliott has been spoken of. She was killed by Clayton Weatherston in a premeditated way with a knife. She was stabbed 216 times cut with scissors and disfigured. It was premeditated and she was brutally murdered. The country was rightfully horrified by this vicious and brutal attack on a young woman. We were mortified that Clayton Weatherston would attempt the defence of provocation. But does it follow that we should get rid of the defence particularly when that defence was not successful? 
I ask members to turn the situation on its head and to think of themselves as maybe a brother of Sophie. I ask members to think of themselves going into that room; hearing the murder of their loved sister her screams and her cries; getting into the room; and seeing her cut to bits on the floor and Clayton Weatherston standing there with a dripping knife. What would members of this Parliament do? We do not know actually what we would do. 
Chester Borrows 
: Kill the bastard. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Chester Borrows calls out that he would kill the bastard and I think that I might too. I see Michael Woodhouse nodding his head. We do not know what we would do. I cannot imagine what it would do to someone’s mind to see his or her sister daughter or loved one at that moment so brutally and terribly butchered on the floor. It seems to me that a reasonable man might in a fit of rage as Chester Borrows of National quite rightly says “kill the bastard”. And then that man is on a murder charge. But does he not have the defence that he was provoked to commit the murder by the actions of that terrible man and that he did as a reasonable man would do? He responded not necessarily in a wise way and not necessarily in a sensible way but in a truly understandable and perhaps human way. It seems to us in the ACT Party that in such a circumstance that man can surely say that he was provoked. But this Parliament is saying no. Parliament is saying that if I was in that situation I murdered the man I must be charged with murder and then I must defend the murder charge without the obvious and long-held defence of provocation. That seems to the ACT Party to be wrong. 
By my taking that extreme example I think we can understand that a reasonable person can be provoked to do some very unreasonable things and that there may be some wisdom in the law as it stands in the defence of provocation and in a jury considering that defence—and it is only a partial defence. I ask members speaking here tonight to stand up and say what their reaction would be as a mother a father a brother a sister a friend or a loved one as they walked in on that room. If they committed the heinous act of killing that butcher what would they say to the court? 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: They’d probably get off completely with self-defence actually. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Lianne Dalziel says they would get off with self-defence. Actually they would not. They would get off with self-defence only if that man attacked them. If he is standing there having butchered the sister there is no self-defence. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Protecting the sister is self-defence. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: I say to Lianne Dalziel that she is dead already—that is the point. The person does not have the defence of self-defence because the horrible deed has been done. 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: Who’s going to prove that? Good grief man! 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: Lianne Dalziel adopts the Labour Party position which is to ask who will prove it. Because Lianne Dalziel does not like the defence of provocation the person has to go to the court and lie. He or she has to say: “I thought he was going to attack me.” rather than say what truly was the case. 
The actual defence that that person needs is simple to the ACT Party—it is a defence of provocation. That is what it is. I say that National Labour the Green Party and the Maori Party are making a mistake in removing that defence. I think we can quite easily understand as human beings—maybe Lianne Dalziel has trouble with it— 
Hon Lianne Dalziel 
: He would get a light sentence as well you know. 
Hon RODNEY HIDE 
: He would get a light sentence but he would not have the defence of what genuinely and truly happened—that man was provoked.