Mark Ron: Care of Children Bill — Instruction to Committee Procedure In Committee 
Mark Ron: Care of Children Bill — Instruction to Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16667] 
RON MARK (NZ First) 
: 
 What an interesting debate this has been. I do hope it is allowed to continue because I have sat in my office and listened to the radio and probably some of the most inflammatory comments I have heard have been those that I have just heard now from the distinguished member of the medical profession Dr Paul Hutchison. On the back of Larry Baldock’s contribution which ironically was in support of Judith Collins’ amendments I actually wondered which planet some members live on. I suggest to members that it does not matter one hoot or one iota how much time we spend wringing our hands and analysing ways to collect the appropriate data or to do research into finding ways to stop young ladies from getting pregnant. The facts are that when one has a Government that advocates decriminalising marijuana thereby promoting its use when people blatantly advocate that the use of recreational drugs is one’s right when the drinking age is lowered from 20 to 18—and therefore the de facto age to 12 and 13—and when one allows young men to pull up outside a bottle store buy a case of Canterbury Draught and 24 ready-to-drinks and chuck them in the back seat where 14 and 15-year-old girls are sitting girls will get pregnant. It does not matter how much hand-wringing we do in our little medical practices because we will not stop that. It does not matter whether we pull out the bogeyman. 
Everyone wants to justify this legislation by talking about incest. Everyone wants to justify opposing Judith Collins by talking about violence in the home. Well let me tell members how to stop violence in the home: lock the beggars up the first time they violently bash their wives. Instead of locking the beggar up for a lifetime when he bashes or kills a child he gets 3 years in jail and is out in 12 months doing back-end home detention. Those are the simple things that we can do to protect children. Do we do them? No. We bring in legislation such as this and tell the whole world we are doing it for the sake of children. Well yeah! James Whakaruru is dead. Why? Because successive Governments—successive administrations—have been too soft too genteel and too easy on criminals. We let them out of jail again knowing full well that 85 percent of them will reoffend and be back in jail in 5 years and we hope to God that on the way there they do not kill another child. I do not want to hear any more of that hypocrisy and drivel. For me and for many of my colleagues in New Zealand First the answers are simple—they are black and white. If a man beats a woman he is a wife-beater. The chances are he is also a child-beater. Where should he be? He should be locked up—not given counselling and not given a heart-wrenching opportunity to explain that because he is short bald brown and from a broken home he has the God-given right to do such a thing. Crap! Have members heard it? It is rubbish. We only promote such behaviour when we refuse to deal with it in the way that it needs to be dealt with. 
The same goes for all the liberalism and the garbage that we hear to justify the lowering of the drinking age. Mr Anderton sits there and justifies raising the sherry tax on pensioners because that was to stop binge drinking. Did it stop binge drinking? No. Is the problem worse? Yes. Do all the reports state it is worse? Yes. Has the Government moved to retract the law or repeal it? No. Have girls become pregnant? Yes. Many of the young men out on the streets do not care about that. They get their jollies on the night. They have a flash little car and cruise the streets to pick up young ladies. They drop the booze in the back seats and some poor mother and father under this legislation is not even entitled to know that their daughter has to have an abortion as a result of that. 
I take on board the comments from Judy Turner. That was one of the best speeches I have heard in the Chamber probably because she has a lot of contact with young people as I did when I owned and ran Daytona Park in Christchurch. We had young people sleeping on our lounge room floor day in day out week in week out and we knew that those young people could come and talk to us. It is the truth—and this has been said before—that some kids cannot talk to their parents. But I tell members that the amendment allows for those people who do care the good parents to get to know about abortions as of right.