Katene Rahui: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Katene Rahui: Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:676;Page:21827] 
RAHUI KATENE (Maori Party—Te Tai Tonga) 
: 
 The Video Camera Surveillance (Temporary Measures) Bill cuts to the core of some deeply held concerns within our community around transparency accountability trust and corruption. This legislation has been put forward by the National Government with Labour and ACT’s support. It asks us to suspend the law temporarily to condone an unlawful act by the police and then to add fuel to the fire by introducing legislation to make the unlawful lawful. We believe that there has been politicking by both larger parties to create a perception for voters that they are tackling the tough issues that they will not be soft on crime and that they are making their mark. If they thought it was such a problem they would have dealt with it earlier when the Law Commission raised it and when the courts previously raised it. Why wait 3 months or even less before the election to raise it? Why wait until the last week that Parliament is sitting to bring in this bill to deal with that issue? The question we have to ask is what sort of justice system we have if the upholder of the law is allowed to break the law and get away with it. If the police want to forge relationships with the community then breaking the law—and the Government then introducing new law to make those breaches lawful—is not the way to achieve public trust and confidence. 
I cannot help but think that when we are thinking about public trust and confidence in the police we are walking through some very treacherous waters at this time. Although the Government has been at pains to say that this bill is not about Tuhoe the people of Tuhoe are the silent ones sitting through this debate. Their experiences cannot and must not be forgotten. 
In this third reading I will focus on one thing and one thing only: corruption. The Maori Party wants to sound out a loud warning against corruption. In doing so my colleague Dr Pita Sharples has already announced that the Maori Party will be taking a stand against corruption in the upcoming election. As a Parliament we cannot allow for corruption in our police no matter how loud the Police Association screams for it. The police are supposed to be protecting our citizens not running roughshod over the law. They are supposed to be stopping criminals not acting like criminals. Make no mistake as much as some want to deny it the trust that New Zealanders have in the police is tenuous at best; more accurately it is fragile. Yes some want to hide that fact. Well it is time to call out the open secret not because we want to undermine the police—quite the opposite—but because we want to be able to expect a lot more from them. 
It is time to say that there is an elephant in the room and that elephant’s name is a police force that is at the tipping point of corruption. We ignore it at our peril. Look beyond the spin; look at their own documents. What we will find is that full trust and confidence in the police is at an all-time low. Only 28 percent of New Zealanders have full trust and confidence in the New Zealand police. We also find that for those people who have contact with the police not criminals but victims the confidence rating declines. That is right. We all want to believe that the police are a force for good but when we actually need them and have experience of them we are confronted with the reality that causes our confidence to decline. 
If we want more evidence we can look at the most recent crime survey the New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey 2009 which reminds us again that only one out of every three victims reports a crime to the police. Why is that? The survey says it is because victims are too ashamed or embarrassed to go to the police. That is right; the worst sorts of criminals—sexual predators—are going free because according to the Government’s own survey the police could not or would not do anything to help. If the police are not embarrassed by that then they should be embarrassed by the fact that the women who were brave enough to speak to Dame Margaret Bazley about police cover-ups in relation to sexual assault allegations have not been apologised to by this Government and have not received any compensation. 
We cannot let declining trust and confidence in the police impact any more on the social fabric of New Zealand society than it already has. Whether it is the women who spoke up against police sexual aggression and cover-ups whether it is the 500-odd cases of child abuse in the Wellington region alone that were not investigated whether it is the few bad apples and the people who cover for them that erodes the public’s trust and confidence or whether it is the people of Tuhoe who were terrorised by the State on that fearful and dark day the Maori Party will not be party to any legislation that further compromises the fragile trust and confidence that New Zealanders have in their police force. We will be part of the solution; not the problem. 
The starting point for us is that the Supreme Court cannot be bent or dictated to by expediency. Absolute vigilance must be taken and a proper informed debate needs to happen unless there is a truly exceptional reason not to do so. All criminal law must protect the rights of an individual against the State lest the individual becomes oppressed. That is why one does not allow Parliament to take away a person’s rights lightly and it is why there are real restrictions on the police in the way of search warrants. The Hamed decision made it clear that covert video surveillance that involves trespass is unlawful. We are a rule-of-law society and we cannot retrospectively criminalise what is not criminal. Let the courts decide. They have much more experience and more ability than Parliament to decide these things. 
We do of course appreciate the move that the Minister has made to remove the retrospective application that was introduced in the original form of the bill. We were utterly opposed to the initial intention to make the law retrospective. It is an outright constitutional challenge a mechanism to flout our constitutional rights and ignore the responsibilities of Government to protect and uphold the law. The judicial process itself already has sufficient checks and balances in place to determine the lawfulness of evidence obtained by the use of covert video camera surveillance under section 30 of the Evidence Act. 
I come back to the focus of my korero. Corruption constitutes a major obstacle to democracy and the rule of law. The police lose their legitimacy when they misuse power for organisational advantage. For those members in this House who may think we are overstating the facts let me finish by drawing their attention to the most recent global survey by Transparency International. In that survey 73 percent of New Zealanders said that corruption had increased over the past 3 years. Those same New Zealanders regarded political parties as the most corrupt. The least corrupt were the military then teachers then judges then the non-governmental organisation sector then the police. A close reading of the data says something that should worry us all. Only 10 percent of people surveyed did not think that the New Zealand police were corrupt. Everyone else thought the New Zealand police came between somewhat corrupt and extremely corrupt. 
The Maori Party will not support any legislation that further undermines people’s trust in the political or judicial system its institutions and its leadership. We do not support this bill.