Harawira Hone: Policing Bill — Second Reading 
Harawira Hone: Policing Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:649;Page:17745] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Deputy Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. I was just listening to Mr Ron Mark’s speech before about fining people $2000 if they do not go to the assistance of the police. Well people should fine me $2000 and fine me now because if I ever see the police pounding on my neighbour Mr Mangu Awarau they can yell at me they can point a gun at me they can ask me they can do anything and I ain’t going to come to their assistance. They can put me in jail but I will not come to their assistance. A policeman’s job is a policeman’s job and he can do it himself. 
The historian Richard Hill called our early police “the iron hand in the velvet glove” yet by 1958 when the Police Act came into force New Zealand police officers were still running around with just a baton a torch a whistle and a set of handcuffs. Fifty years on from that and our police still operate under the terms of that Act. But in the wake of a massive drop in public confidence in the police following front-page allegations and convictions of horrific sexual assaults by the police themselves the police terrorism raids against Tuhoe and the Bazley Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct it has become obvious that a review is well overdue. However I can tell members that for many Maori confidence in the police died a long long time ago. In many Maori communities that confidence has been replaced by bitterness and anger at the way in which the police have been used as stand-over agents for rip-off landlords thieving businessmen land-grabbing developers and rapacious Governments both red and blue. So this bill to tidy up how the police are run what accountability they should have and what the commissioner and deputy commissioner should be doing is way overdue. 
The Maori Party has a few suggestions to make but we were really surprised to see that a Gallup poll of 6700 cops and support staff released in February 2008 found that most of them do not even trust the force to provide them with a good place to work that the fundamental requirements of a strong and vibrant workplace fall short and that with only 9 percent being really happy in their work the New Zealand Police is way down the bottom of the list of places where people actually want to work. So this bill to update police governance accountability and organisation is a positive move but we need to make sure that how the bill is written actually translates into how the police operate—and it does not. 
Dr Trevor Bradley from the institute of criminology at Victoria University reckons that although having principles and functions of policing is a positive development the bill does not actually lock the principles into practice. For example the bill talks about public consent and legitimacy but provides no framework for local consultation or accountability. YouthLaw Tino Rangatiratanga Taitamariki pointed out that although there are clear obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to ensure that police respect the interests of young people there is no reference in the bill to the questioning of or getting information from those young people and there needs to be. The New Zealand Council for Civil Liberties has long called for police operational guidelines to be published so that people know what their rights are and what limits there are on police behaviour yet this requirement is not included in the bill either. These examples show clearly how this bill is big on the talk but nowhere when it comes to the walk. That is not really surprising given how deaf dumb and blind this House can be when it comes to recognising and acting on principles of fair play and honour. 
Arguably the biggest omission in this Policing Bill is that the principal section of the bill does not refer to the Treaty of Waitangi does not refer to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi and in fact does not even mention the Treaty of Waitangi at all which opens up a really interesting scenario. The rationale for why a Treaty clause should be in the bill was part of Ngai Tahu’s submission presented on behalf of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum. That submission drew our attention to the actions of this colony’s armed police particularly during the land wars and highlighted how policing has often been and continues to be used as an instrument of Government—often to brutal effect against Maori. That submission should be compulsory reading for all members of this House as we consider how policing should operate in Aotearoa because it confirms the role that this country’s armed constabulary played in assisting the Crown’s many breaches of the Treaty of Waitangi. Our people do not easily forget those policies those breaches and those police actions. We remember the use of armed police—ironically charged with preserving the peace—to destroy Maori communities all over the country from the Hokianga to Takaparawhau from Hauraki to Whaingaroa from Tuhoe to Taranaki and from 1846 right through to the cowardly police anti-terrorism raids in the Tuhoe territory in 2007. 
Ngai Tahu called for the bill to say more than it does about recognising the status of tangata whenua and that Maori should be expressly recognised in the bill—like in clause 10 which acknowledges the role played by those other than police in policing but does not even mention the Maori wardens who voluntarily provide a whole range of policing escort security and guidance services. Ngai Tahu’s submission said that it was important for policing to reflect the foundations of our nationhood and that the absence of a Treaty clause in the bill was a big disappointment but consistent with the way in which statutory recognition of the Treaty seems to have fallen from political favour. I repeat that this submission from Ngai Tahu was on behalf of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum and its criticism that this bill does not comply with Treaty justice should be of great concern to members of this House. Yet the Law and Order Committee decided to completely ignore the focus forum’s advice. Well the Maori Party will not be ignoring the advice of the Commissioner of Police’s Maori Focus Forum and during the Committee stage we intend putting up a Supplementary Order Paper to have a Treaty clause put into the bill. We will be reminding the Government again that the Treaty of Waitangi is as important to police operations as it is to those communities the police are supposed to serve. 
Finally I wish to raise the issue of Maori in the police force because when we had a look we found that over the past 6 years the percentage of Maori cops across the country has gone up by only 0.1 percent from 11.4 to 11.5 percent and that the number of Maori in the non-sworn force has actually dropped from 11.1 to 9.3 percent over the same time. Everyone knows of the massive gulf in trust between Maori and the police yet clearly the New Zealand Police’s recruitment strategy for Maori has failed miserably to address that mistrust because it has failed to bring more Maori into the force. 
I wish to advise that the Maori Party will support this bill only in order to try one more time to get issues such as the Treaty consultation and accountability included in the bill. But we may not support it further if those matters are not properly and fully addressed because without them this bill will do nothing more than simply update the rules governing an organisation that has historic problems dealing with racism corruption and violence and that has an arrogant disregard for the rights of the citizens who pay the wages of our police force. Make no mistake the Maori Party wants a strong positive and well-supported police force but—and members can take it as read—we will no longer accept a police force with the inherent problems that this one has and this bill simply does not deal with those problems. Kia ora.