Flavell Te Ururoa: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Inquiry—Death of Debbie Marie Ashton 
Flavell Te Ururoa: Urgent Debates — Ministerial Inquiry—Death of Debbie Marie Ashton 
[Volume:648;Page:17259] 
TE URUROA FLAVELL (Maori Party—Waiariki) 
:  
Tena koe Madam Assistant Speaker kia ora tatou e te Whare. I te tuatahi me tuku i etahi korero ki te whanau e tangi nei i tenei rangi. Ka nui te aroha atu ki a koutou ana kua rongo nei te ahautanga o mate i nga tau tata kua hipa ake. Can I just pass on a note of sadness to the family in understanding the grief that they may well be suffering and have suffered over the last couple of years. I pay my respects to the family as they mourn the death of their daughter. We in the Maori Party rise to offer our sincere sympathies to the whanau of Debbie Marie Ashton who lost her life tragically on 5 December 2006. These debates are the times to challenge and confront the lawmakers and lawbreakers who enabled a 26-year-old male drunk and disqualified driver to deprive this young woman of the life that she had before her. But we also think about the family who have been denied a daughter and a sister about the grandchildren who should have been and about the mother who could have been. 
I want to share some words I read today from Judy Ashton who comes from ironically Hope in Nelson: “Debbie died at 2.25am four hours after the crash. Less than an hour later I gazed down at the lifeless body of my daughter now lying on a cold stainless steel operating table. I had to sign a paper declaring that Debbie was Debbie the hardest things I have ever had to sign in my life. I just wanted to stay with her but needed to go home and ring her sister living in Christchurch. There is no kind way to tell your other daughter that her much loved younger sister had been killed. To hear the wailing on the end of the phone with so many miles between us was yet another heartbreak. As was less than an hour later waking up my elderly parents and having to tell them that their granddaughter had been killed.” Those are words that I am pretty sure would shatter for all those who happen to be listening their hearts and their dreams and aspirations for their children just as much as no doubt they did for this mother Judy. Those words convey the sense of shock that runs through the Ashton family. Too many families throughout Aotearoa have been in similar situations and those families will never be the same again because of human error and failures of systems. 
The report from the Minister of Corrections got it right I think. It stated: “Human error was found to be a factor.” How does one hold on to hope when the State’s form of comfort to the family is to say human error is the reason their daughter died? Although Kristy McDonald QC who conducted the inquiry pointed out that human error is inevitable when the Department of Corrections manages around 38000 people on community sentences the Maori Party and I do not believe that we should accept that as a matter of course. We cannot be complacent when members of the public become casualties of such errors. As others have said this tragedy must not be repeated yet we know that there have been other situations where offenders have reoffended in fatal ways. There have been situations in which prisoners have been released into the community and tragedies have occurred one way or another—murders manslaughter the loss of life. We are pleased to see in the statement from the Hon Phil Goff that although the protection of identity under the witness protection programme is important the paramount obligation of the Department of Corrections and the police is to maintain the safety of the community. 
But we want to just raise a few words of caution in this debate. Seeking more punishment and retribution is not the answer. Compassion for victims must be a high priority. We must do all that we can so that the society we are helping to create is one of compassion and of taking responsibility. Justice is not about revenge and retribution. The pursuit of justice te whainga i te tika was and is fundamental to the Maori world view and embraces all areas of life from the wrongs people may do to one another to the rules that determine how the land should be cared for. The Maori Party acknowledges that justice is best achieved not merely by changing the content of existing laws but also by reconsidering in good faith the processes by which laws are made and by reconsidering the principles that underpin them. The safety of the community must be an essential value that we can all believe in and a value that we can all work to restore. 
Although the Department of Corrections and the police must as a matter of urgency remedy the deficiencies that exist in the area of dealing with offenders who were witnesses and are under the witness protection programme there are other outstanding issues. I was pleased to hear that the Law Society will be taking up the issue of the particular lawyer involved who was a key party in knowing the identity of the offender involved. The history of convictions of that offender shows that he has no regard for the law. Within 2 months of arriving in Nelson he was charged with reckless driving. The sentencing judge disqualified him from driving for 18 months and marked his file with the words “last chance”. We in the Maori Party suggest that someone had to know about that man. Someone had to know—someone else other than the lawyer. Others had a responsibility to care and we must ask why he was still out there. He was convicted of driving with excess breath alcohol and primed for another last drive. It was a last chance that Debbie Ashton never had. We must also never forget to think about the power of the wider community to take responsibility for each other to ensure that offenders such as the one in this case are properly managed and that never ever will such tragedies occur again. Kia ora tatou.