Tremain Chris: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Tremain Chris: Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:638;Page:8471] 
CHRIS TREMAIN (National—Napier) 
: 
 I rise tonight to speak to the purpose of the Crimes (Substituted Section 59) Amendment Bill. In particular I start by replying to Parekura Horomia who spoke earlier. He is a Maori member of the Committee who got up and spoke extremely passionately tonight. I reply to him with a whakatauki: tihei mauri o-ra! Hutia te rito o te harakeke. Kei whea te komako e ko? Ki mai ki ahau he aha te mea nui o te ao. Maku e ki atu he tangata he tangata he tangata. 
[ 
Behold the force of life! Draw out the centre shoot of the flax and what will become of the bellbird? Ask me what is the greatest thing in the world and I will tell you three times over that it is mankind. 
]  
That whakatauki talks about family. It talks about the harakeke—the flax bush—and it talks about the bellbird that sits in the flax bush. It says that when one takes away the heart of the flax bush one removes the home of the family. This is what I see us doing with this bill today.  
I believe that I represent middle New Zealand. I am a family man with three children—a 10-year-old an 8-year-old and a 6-year-old. Tonight I want to speak from the heart about those children. I see this country becoming a nanny State. I will tell members a story about when I took my daughter to kindergarten to go on a confidence course. I set up the course for her sat down and took her in my arms then opened my arms and told her to go. Away she went around the confidence course and back again. A group of other children were lined up beside me—a whole lot of other little girls and boys who wanted to go on the course. The next little girl climbed into my arms and I started to ask myself whether it was right for her to be there. Was it right for her to be in my arms? 
The message that it is not OK to hug children in a playground was sent from Parliament from this Chamber. This is the situation we are going through. The Prime Minister has never stood up and given a strong message about that. We have a similar crazy situation regarding men on aeroplanes. It is totally unacceptable that there is now a policy in this country that children travelling alone on aeroplanes cannot be seated beside men.  
I will get back to the purpose of the bill. The substitute section 59 takes away the rights of good upstanding families in this country who have done amazingly well. Eighty-three percent of people in this country support the view of the bill taken by members on this side of the Chamber—83 percent.  
I will talk tonight about cases where section 59 was totally unsuccessful as a defence where reasonable force was considered to have been exceeded and where a charge of assault was upheld. I found 15 cases since 1985. In only four of those cases in the last 21 years was section 59 used as a successful defence. But I want to talk about a case where the use of section 59 as a defence was not successful that of  
Sharma v Police 
. A defendant was convicted of two offences one of which was assault on a child. He had struck his 9-year-old stepson three times. Initially the defendant was found guilty and he appealed against that conviction. Although the section 59 defence was available to the appellant the judge was unable to see how the two linked together in that particular circumstance. Mr Sharma could not justify his use of force which had gone to the lengths of a slap to the head as well as further blows. Section 59 was not able to be used as a successful defence. 
That is the case. By amending section 59 we are removing the right of parents to care for and look after their children in the way that 83 percent in this country know is best. That is unacceptable.