Franks Stephen: Police Complaints Authority (Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Police Complaints Authority (Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct) Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:617;Page:12929] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I rise for the ACT party to agree with the comments made by the Hon Tony Ryall and the member for New Zealand First who has just commended this bill. We will vote for it and we will vote for it with a good deal more contentment than we had when we feared that it would go through in a simple form that was essentially reneging on an assurance given to people who provided information to the Police Complaints Authority. 
In the form the bill was reported back to the House the Law and Order Committee had expressed its concerns and hope that the inquiry would respect the confidences entrusted to the Police Complaints Authority but there was nothing in the law to show that it really was determined that that should happen. There was nothing there to stiffen the spine of the inquiry should it need it against calls that are perhaps inevitable to “spill it all”. 
We can all understand that; this is an inquiry to try to reassure the public. The commission of inquiry will need a high degree of transparency to ensure that it is not simply seen as another cover-up. On the other hand that is always a concern when one is dealing with information supplied by people who might or might not have been involved in the incidents being investigated. 
The law has very long experience of dealing with co-offenders’ evidence giving immunities and then the awful dilemma—the unpleasantness—of knowing that possibly someone who is at least partially guilty is getting away with something as a result of that immunity. But the immunities are provided because otherwise we do not get the evidence and it is better that we incur some cost than see wrongdoers get away completely. In this case there was a statutory immunity. Effectively the statute says to people who give information to the Police Complaints Authority that they can be confident that their particulars will not be disclosed.  
There was an amusing incident last night when the amendment went through. I am not sure but I think Mr Barker was actually in mid-speech when a note was put under his nose to the effect that the Labour Party had shifted its position. Keith Locke tells me that it looked as if a note might have shifted a speech in full flight but the result was pleasing. It is an instance of how the process of the Committee stage is intended to work where collectively the Committee came to the view that the legislation could be improved. I do appreciate it and I welcome the Labour Party’s shift on that position in the end. 
I want to make a few comments though on why this bill is necessary at all and the responsibility I think the Government holds for the predicament that means it has to do something as public as embarrassing as expensive and as potentially damaging to people as a full-blown commission of inquiry into a matter that is squarely covered by the Police Complaints Authority process. This is sending an ad hoc watchdog to look at a permanent watchdog. It is an overt acceptance of the state to which we have fallen when there is so little public confidence in the institution. 
At bottom I believe that this is absolutely inevitable. We cannot maintain an incorruptible police force in a society that condones corruption. This week we passed in this House a bill that tells offenders not to worry about lying. How can we then tell the Police Complaints Authority and every policeman that we seriously detest false testimony? That bill actually tells people to lie in court. There is no exemption from the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill even for people responding to questions in court. They are instructed to lie and they get immunity for lying. What kind of Government can expect any kind of integrity in any of its institutions when it passes a law through this Parliament telling people to lie? 
That is not all. It is no wonder that the police are mistrusted. If the police are committed to their job they want justice to be done but they see a revolving-door justice system. That means that they watch criminals go through very expensive processes at cost and personal risk to the police who then get sent out by a system that lies in every sentence. When judges give a 24-month sentence they know it is a lie because every 24-month sentence is automatically cut in half. It does not matter how offensive the offenders are. It does not matter that they are thumbing their noses at the court. It does not matter that they show no remorse. If the sentence is less than 24 months it is automatically cut in half. The system is designed only to lie to the community and to victims. The whole system is set up on untruths. 
The police are working in this environment. They are working in a system that is full of institutionalised lying so the need for this inquiry will be repeated. We will find more and more occasions where police take justice or what they think is justice into their own hands because if they are working in a system that does not do it they get that reaction. Decent people think they will do what is necessary. I do not condone it I do not wish it but the climate for it is there. It is not an excuse but it is a reason. It is no surprise if we have a police force that appears to be out of control. 
During question time in this House this week I believe it appeared that the police were being told to get loyally behind a situation in which they were made to prosecute Shane Ardern. Meanwhile an art forger did not even get charged. That art forger happens to be the Prime Minister— 
Jill Pettis 
: Talk about the bill! 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I am being told to make this speech relevant and I believe it is relevant. We were forced to rush legislation in to deal with corruption or allegations of perjury and malpractice in the police because it was believed that the Police Complaints Authority could not adequately deal with them and because we could not trust the police to investigate for the Police Complaints Authority on their own. It is the climate that has created the mistrust. If this had been an isolated incident New Zealanders would not have been demanding an independent inquiry. The climate means that people think we need an independent inquiry and the climate means that the inquiry will be facing suspicion even as it goes about its business. 
The inquiry of course needs to get the information from the Police Complaints Authority. The inquiry will get it. ACT supports the inquiry having all the information it needs but what we do not like is being faced with a bill that is being brought in without any notice to anyone when the Government suddenly realised that it was getting itself into a political hole by appointing an inquiry that would not even be able to inquire. It would not be able to get the information it was supposed to inquire into. So the Government rushed a bill into the House to fix it without notice to anyone—basically a bill that acted in bad faith and that told unilaterally and retrospectively all the people who had given evidence to the Police Complaints Authority on the basis of confidentiality that they could no longer trust the State that the State would change the rules when it needed to get itself out of a pickle and that that material would no longer be confidential. 
Well we have gone along with it as the least of the evils. We have minimised the harm that that was going to do to the reputation of the Government. We did that by at least making it plain that the commission of inquiry must do all it can to protect confidentiality. It is a sorry second best. 
The whole need for this bill is because we have a Government that simply cannot be trusted that has frustrated the police by being soft on crime and that believes that lying is something one puts the weight of the law behind. The irony that we should have to be dealing with this bill in the week that the Government forced through the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Bill would be delicious if it were not so sickening.