Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Speaker. The demise of a Labour Cabinet Minister today started six years ago. One of the issues that he raised on the Mike Hosking show today and I'll come to that in what was a desperate call to the show to ask if he could go on—to raise the point that my colleague David Seymour made—to try and show in a desperate attempt that he was tough on crime. And the reason why he did that and I said to my own team when he took over as police Minister is that they're under so much pressure that he is going to overreach that he is going to do something and step outside the bounds in trying so hard to show that they aren't soft on crime; they're tough on crime. That is exactly what we saw as a country play out today. What happened was he got up and he talked about how he had tried to have some influence over the Police Commissioner in terms of going back and appealing a decision that was made by the courts. But instead of looking at the courts or the police he should have been looking at himself and his own Cabinet his own Labour Cabinet. Because if you go back six years to when they came into Government their priorities were quite simply this: Let's repeal the three-strikes legislation"—the only tough piece of sentencing law that we actually had on our statute book. "Let's go for a 30 percent reduction in the prison muster"—a 30 percent reduction in the prison muster. That was the signal that this Government was sending to our judiciary. "Let's go for alternative actions." What do alternative actions mean? By the way they've blown out in their thousands now inside our criminal justice system. Quite simply an alternative action is a slap on the wrist with a wet bus ticket. We can all see in this country that one of the great frustrations of our front-line police officers is that there are no consequences for the offenders that they're putting themselves on the line to arrest charge and take to court. Offenders that they are catching on a Friday night are back out re-offending the next day. We know that there's an issue. We know that there's a problem around no consequences. Today the Minister tried to talk tough tried to show that he was trying to do something about that was taking it seriously. He shouldn't have been talking to the commissioner about it. He shouldn't have been pointing the finger at the judiciary. He should have been back in his own Cabinet room discussing what they need to in terms of policy changes to actually send a signal that there were going to be consequences that there was going to be proper sentencing. So that was the first thing. The next thing that happened is that they held a justice summit. And in the justice summit they forgot about victims. They forgot to ask victim advocacy groups to attend. And Minister after Minister—I was there—got up and said the real victims are the gang members; that's where the focus is. That's the mind-set. That's the mind-set of this Government from six years ago and that's why in the last six years we've seen an increase a 50 percent increase in gang membership we've seen a 35 percent increase in violent crime while at the same time there's been a 25 percent decrease in the prison muster. That's people that aren't being rehabilitated and are let out. That is transferring the risk back into the community. That is asking our already stretched thin blue line to step up and do even more. And this is the background in which Stuart Nash came in and took over the police portfolio; by the way the third police Minister in the last 12 months and he was desperate to get out there. We had questions in the House yesterday to him about the numbers—that retail crime has gone up 39 percent in one year; over 100000 reports of retail crime. And then the Herald did a story around some of the numbers that they were presented with the data they were given and realised that actually maybe there's something wrong here and they came back out and they corrected that. It wasn't a good story for the Government at all. It was completely consistent with what they've been doing in the last six years. So what did the Minister do? In desperation he rings Mike Hosking and says "Can I come on the show and can I lay all my data out there and show you how tough we are"—Hon Paul Goldsmith: "And beat my chest."Hon MARK MITCHELL: —"and how good we are on crime?" Beat his chest—that's right. And now literally eight hours later he's had to resign as a Minister. Chris Hipkins as the incoming Prime Minister appointed Stuart Nash into that role because he understood how critically important law and order is going to be in the campaign this year for the general election. That was Chris Hipkins' appointment. It's not a great way for a new Prime Minister to start losing one of his most senior Ministers. And by the way has he been strong? Has he been decisive in dealing with the situation with Stuart Nash? No he hasn't. He's tried to look like it. He's removed him as police Minister. But the problem is that Minister Nash's complete and utter lack of awareness of actually just how wrong it was the things that he did the breaches that he made of the Cabinet Manual—and by the way the terrible situation he's now put our Police Commissioner in. By the way I don't agree with everything our Police Commissioner does. I've been very public about that. I don't like the approach he's taken. I think it was the wrong time for us as a country in terms of what we're trying to deal with. But the Minister has put him in an awkward position that I'll come back and address in a minute. But the reality is this: you've got a Prime Minister that's made an appointment like that and he's now got one of his senior Cabinet Ministers that's come out and breached the Cabinet Manual. He's probably breached the Policing Act. It's obvious that he's not fit to stay inside a Cabinet and an executive. But what has the Prime Minister done? He's removed the police portfolio. Now I do have to acknowledge and admit—and the Hon Grant Robertson referred to this. The one thing that I do want to say about Stuart Nash is that I actually liked having him in that portfolio. I'll tell you why: because he actually likes and supports our police. And there were some Ministers that were appointed on that side of the House that barely disguised the fact that they didn't particularly like or support our front-line police officers. At least Stuart Nash did that but he lost his way. Just very quickly in terms of the Police Commissioner I just want to say that the last time the National Party was in Government for a short time I was the Associate Minister of Justice and I got to work closely with Commissioner Coster because at that time he was the deputy chief executive at Justice. I want to put on record and I've always done this that although I don't agree with what he's done or his leadership or where he's taken our police service—I think the front line have been badly let down—I've always said that he is a man of integrity and you would never question his integrity. And when I dealt with him he was professional and we had a professional relationship. He's very very strong on policy and he did an outstanding job in Justice. He's just in my view the wrong guy right now to be leading our police service. So I just want to put on record that I would never question Andrew Coster's integrity but I think that he has been put in a very difficult situation because he's had a Cabinet Minister a member of the executive who has reached out to him has now put on record that they're great mates and they chew the fat and they're discussing court cases and judicial decisions. So this Prime Minister and a member of his Cabinet have now put a very senior executive the Police Commissioner in a very awkward position. And I just want to say that I personally—and I'm sure my colleagues as well—would never challenge his integrity and don't believe for one minute that he has come under undue political pressure. However there's no doubt going to be questions asked now whether or not there has been pressure that's been tried to be applied by this Government. What else have they done? They had a director that was appointed who was an ex-Labour MP who was asked if she had read her ethics and compliance manual—Hon Member: No!Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yeah—and code of ethics and with great pride she turned up and she said no she hadn't. So in my view the response from Stuart Nash today which by the way he doubled down on—I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I said "If he comes out and he acknowledges that what he's done has been a breach and he apologises for that and he agrees to maybe take on some remedial actions around it then it might be OK; he might get through." But he didn't. He doubled down on it and he doubled down on it because there's a hubris and there's an arrogance that has formed on that side of the House. One of the greatest enemies of a Government that is coming almost to the end of their second term is they're becoming arrogant. And there is not a clearer sign of that in terms of the response that we got from Stuart Nash. Should he be stood down from Cabinet? Is that the real test for the incoming Prime Minister? Absolutely it is. Is he going to try and get away with standing him down as police Minister? Absolutely he will. And he's sending a very clear signal that "I'm willing to have a Cabinet Minister sit in my executive that will try to influence or try to bring to bear their influence on senior members of agencies leaders of agencies." He's willing to have someone in his Cabinet that will break the rules of the Cabinet Manual and still say "It's OK. You'll lose the police portfolio. Turn up to work on Monday." Not acceptable."