SpeechSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Chair. Look there's been an extraordinary amount of waffle unfortunately coming from the Minister and even the usual I would argue leftist tricks of trying to use a lot of words and as Mark Mitchell noted saying nothing. There's just been incredible obfuscation around what is the critical part of this legislation—being Part 1 and the best illustration of that is that we've had the Minister probably for about 17 minutes of speech now talking about evidence yet providing none. So I want to start very quickly the contribution with effectively a statement and then a series of quite particular questions around Part 1. The statement is really around the nature of crime which is happening actually and evidentially within my own electorate. We've had two sets of shootings in Glen Innes in as many months. Ram raids—we've had four shops broken into recently. Crime definitively particularly violent crime in the nature of burglary is on the rise. It behoves the question which side of the House is asking which is how is repealing justice laws in this case a three strikes piece of legislation going to help? One would imagine—and the Minister can respond to this if she chooses—that a Government of the day would be looking to impose new laws to address rising crime not to reduce them.The second question is again around the basis of evidence. The Minister keeps talking about evidence but has proffered none. In the select committee it was very clear although it had to be dragged out—dragged out—of officials that in fact there is no clear evidence either way of whether three strikes legislation is working or not. And I'm very happy to admit that there is no evidence either way. And yet with the rise in crime violent crime this Minister thinks it's a great idea to drop three strikes. Those are the first two questions.The third one is—and she's waxed lyrical around the nature of Māori in particular and Pasifika being overrepresented in the crime statistics. That of course in itself is unfortunate. It's upsetting to all involved of course. Proportionally the victims of crime are also from Māori and Pasifika communities. So the question to the Minister who seems to be basing some of her arguments around this disproportionate effect of law is whether or not she believes those committing crimes are being picked up just randomly—is this overrepresentation just random or is there a reason these people are being arrested? And is she suggesting which would be interesting for the committee to hear that there's some sort of profiling going on? Or is she going to echo the sentiments of other Government Ministers who believe there's some sort of systemic behaviour occurring in our police? I'd love her to tease that out a little bit because yes marginalised groups are overrepresented but it would be really interesting for her to explain to the committee why she thinks that is. And as I say is it just because it's random or are these people actually doing something? I suppose I'm also asking and I'll stop here because there's a whole lot of other questions but I'd be really interested to hear because is she suggesting by repealing this law that she says that really there shouldn't be consequences on criminals based on their ethnicity? Because that's sort of the core of her argument when one thinks about it.Barbara Edmonds: I raise a point of order Mr Chair. Thank you Mr Chair. I just want to reference your comment before your ruling around passing; you know mentioning victims in passing. The last speaker has just spent the last minute not in passing and references to potential races of people that may be perpetrators or victims. I just ask that the previous speaker actually speak to the point of Part 1 of the bill.CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): So I have ruled on that and I think I've probably made a judgment that's fair. And I think that this is a new speaker and I think in that respect he's got the right to address these issues in passing.SIMON O'CONNOR: Thank you Mr Chair. And look very important if it helps the member resuming her seat I am referencing Part 1. Ultimately if you go through clauses 4 through to 10 we are talking about imprisonment. This is what Part 1 is amending the Sentencing Act and actually 95 percent of my comments have been directed to why someone may be arrested and ultimately in prison. So I think highly relevant.So a couple of questions there for the Minister. Does she accept that the select committee was told there was no evidence either way? And I'd love her to just tease out her belief around marginalised groups of why she thinks they may be getting arrested. As I say have they done something wrong or is there just something random happening on the streets?