Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Jones Dail: Supreme Court Bill — Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Volume:612;Page:9000] 
DAIL JONES (NZ First) 
: 
 This part sets out the purpose amongst many other things but I believe that that purpose is not clearly set out. The hidden purpose of this legislation is to turn New Zealand into a republic. That is one of the many steps that this Labour Party—this minority Labour Government—is taking in order to change New Zealand’s way of life. If this bill can proceed through this Committee on a vote of about 62 to 56 on a regular basis what will it take to change New Zealand into a republic? Will there be another bill next week once again supported by the Greens on a 62 to 56 basis? We could have a republic this time next year by the way this bill is proceeding. We have so many things being done by this Labour Party to move towards a republic: the abolition of Queen’s Counsel the abolition of rights of appeal to the Privy Council and the many measures being taken without the approval of the New Zealand public. With the support of only about 31.9 percent of those eligible to vote at the last election the minority Labour Government is ramming this bill through the House. 
Again what is the purpose of this bill? The purpose of this bill is so that the Greens can have the benefit of Nandor Tanczos’ Clean Slate Bill transposed into a Government bill whereby all those people who have been convicted of smoking marijuana over the years can have those convictions silenced—not overturned but silenced. Those people will no longer have convictions in New Zealand for marijuana use if they have had no other convictions of that type in the last 10 years. That is one of the purposes of this bill. The Government says that it is against cannabis smoking and such like but the Government is doing a deal with the Greens to support all those people who have been smoking cannabis over all those years and to support Nandor Tanczos’ Clean Slate Bill. That is one of the hidden purposes behind this bill. 
That deal has been done with the Greens to get this Supreme Court Bill through this Parliament. It is absolutely atrocious that that is the sort of level to which this minority Labour Government will sink and it is the level to which the Greens have always aspired. When Keith Locke next speaks in this Parliament about the rights of the individual and about the protection of the individual—a person such as Mr Zaoui—he knows and we know that he has no sincerity whatsoever because the rights of appeal to the Privy Council for the likes of Ahmed Zaoui will be removed. If there was any opportunity for Mr Zaoui to go to the Privy Council it will have gone. He will be taken well out of the sphere of the closed shop that is part of the legal system the New Zealand political system and so on. 
Those people who are appointed to whatever court it is in New Zealand by New Zealanders are often affected by their New Zealand environment. The classic comparison is with the Samoan appeal in the early 1980s when Mr Rosenberg took an appeal to the Privy Council on behalf of the Samoan people. No one thought he would have a show but he went to the Privy Council and he won. That type of right will soon be gone. 
When Mr Locke sits here smugly in the future and tries to convince me that he is really concerned about people’s welfare safety and constitutional rights in New Zealand I will know that that is absolute rubbish. Keith Locke who is sitting here right now in front of me is voting for the right of this minority Labour Government to remove protection and opportunity for people such as Ahmed Zaoui and other groups like Samoans. There are many hundreds of New Zealanders who were deprived legal aid and the Privy Council said they should have been granted legal aid and the right to appeal. Those types of downtrodden people whom the Greens have so often said they support will not have that right of appeal any more in future as a result of the passage of this legislation. 
They will not have any extra rights because virtually the same people who made the decisions in the Court of Appeal will make the decisions in the Supreme Court. Their study backgrounds and such like will be exactly the same. There will be no change whatsoever. As far as the purpose of this legislation is concerned I believe that it does not improve access to justice. Access to justice for 12 cases means that there are still only 12 cases. Access to justice would be improved if the Labour Government removed the increase it introduced in High Court filing fees which took them up to about $1000.