Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement

Now, two years ago the Government of these three parties set out an ambitious programme to tackle the long-term challenges that had been neglected for years, and we’ve made great progress on addressing those issues. I’m just going to rattle through a few: furthering our work in child poverty, rolling out our investment in front-line mental health services, responding to the review of our health and disability services, reforming the skills sector and promoting skills in trades, investing in vital infrastructure—and we could go on. But the one issue that I’d like to really raise in this speech is the progress that we’ve made to continue to build on our Māori-Crown relationship. Now, all we have to do is cast our minds back just to last week to see the progress that this country has made in the Māori-Crown relationship.

I want everybody to just cast their minds back even further, though, to 5 February 2017. That was the last Waitangi Day that the previous Government was in charge of organising. If anyone has forgotten, let me describe the chaos, the mayhem, the bedlam, that ensued at that occasion at the pōwhiri. There were people hanging up blue tarpaulins around outside the perimeter of the marae to stop media going in and seeing what was going on. The National Party—“National No Friends”—instead of having supporters go in and support them going on to the pōwhiri, what they did was they told every public servant, every CE of every public department, to go there and support them, to make it look like they actually had an army of support. We in the Labour Party would round up about 200 people in red shirts and would show that we actually had real support.

Now, we have to, as politicians, take responsibility for the part that we played in creating that bedlam and that mayhem. It’s because the whole show was about the politicians. There’s some parties in this Parliament that actually love the bedlam, that love the mayhem, because then they could rail against Māori and they could point the finger and say that Māori are the problem, and it just appealed to the sea of mayonnaise that supported those parties, Mr Speaker. We need to take responsibility.

💬 DEPUTY SPEAKER: Excuse me—“Madam”.

Sorry, Madam Speaker. So we made it a flashpoint because we as politicians made Waitangi about us, and we should not be the largest part of what goes on at Waitangi; we should be the smallest part.

💬 Hon Gerry Brownlee: Shouldn’t be there at all.

And there we go. That comes from Gerry Brownlee, and that is an indication of the disdain that the National Party has towards Māori. It’s absolutely disgusting.

The other emblem of this disdain that the National Party shows is that their spokesperson for the Māori-Crown relationship is the Hon Dr Nick Smith. Now, what on earth possessed Simon Bridges to name the Hon Dr Nick Smith, as if he’s an expert on Māori-Crown relations? What is he doing? What has he done? What’s his contribution to Māoridom? He’s actually part of the problem.

Let me just take you through the week of peace and calm and national unity from last week. It started off on the Sunday, when the Hon Shane Jones, in his modest way—and he’s already described what he did, in question time—made announcements around helping Māori to create productivity on their land. The Hon Nanaia Mahuta made an announcement about reducing the rates burden on Māori so that they could actually have capital to invest in their land.

Then we roll on to Monday. We all moved from the Bay of Islands—sorry; when I say “we all”, no one from the National Party turned up. We all rolled over to the north of Hokianga, where we unveiled a statue to Te Whaea o Te Motu, Dame Whina Cooper, where we acknowledged our Māori heroes who have done so much for our people.

Roll on to Tuesday. I’m going to just come back to Tuesday, because that was the day of the pōwhiri—the infamous Simon Bridges pōwhiri.

💬 Wednesday: Wednesday morning I was told that the opening of Te Rau Aroha museum was going to be a quiet dawn service. When I walked out of the hotel at 4 o’clock in the morning, there was a line of traffic stretching from Paihia right up to the Treaty grounds a couple of kilometres long. This was not going to be a quiet dawn service.

I stood at the back of that queue in the darkness, and I estimated there were 2,000 people there—2,000 people at that dawn service.

💬 Nicola Willis: I was there.

Nicky Willis says she was there, so she can actually validate what I’ve just said.

Then we come to 10 o’clock at the public opening of this ceremony—10 o’clock; the exact same time Simon Bridges calls a press conference to announce that he’s leaving. Now, why on earth would Simon Bridges call a press conference to announce that he’s leaving Waitangi, when no one cared that he was there in the first place and fewer people cared that he was leaving?

Then we come to Waitangi Day itself: 2,000 people attended the dawn karakia, and then there was no Simon Bridges there. Then, when we went out to the Prime Minister’s breakfast, again 2,000 people lined up at that barbecue. There were half a dozen people who didn’t line up at the barbecue—they were the National Party MPs. They were about 3,000 metres away, and, despite the noise—the hubbub of the crowd—the National Party members, we could still hear their stomachs rumbling. What they needed to do, instead of sitting there looking all forlorn, was just come down, grab a pair of tongs, and join in with all the other MPs to feed the crowd.

But let me go back to the Tuesday morning—to the pōwhiri. We put a lot of effort into making sure that the mayhem, the bedlam, of three years earlier didn’t reoccur. We put a lot of effort into saying it doesn’t matter who the speaker is, but we’re all going to stand up as a Parliament and support that speaker. We made sure that we were inclusive. We included Simon Bridges. We gave him the honour of picking up the first challenge that was laid down. Then James Shaw had the honour of the second, and the Deputy Prime Minister had the honour of the third. Before we got up to the Treaty grounds, we were all in a room and we practised the waiata so that we all knew what the words were and we all knew what everyone was going to do.

What I’ve said throughout the three years that we’ve been organising the Waitangi Days is that we must uphold the mana and the dignity of Ngāpuhi, the local people. Everybody—everybody—bar one did it. For the first time in my life I am glad that there is a Māori who could not understand Māori. It’s sad to say. The bollocking that Simon Bridges got for his absolutely tone-deaf speech—

💬 Hon Louise Upston: Oh, rubbish.

Rubbish? Somebody who doesn’t speak Māori is saying rubbish. Oh, no; that’s right. That was the other impressive thing we’ve done: we’ve given all the MPs that are there headsets so they can have a simultaneous translation. This is how inclusive we are. Let me tell you now, when the MPs get things together, we set an example for the rest of the country.

We spoke about the bridge. We spoke about the bridge that Māori have had to cross since Europeans have been here, the bridge that means that Māori can cross from the Māori world into the European world. We’ve learnt the language, we’ve learnt the customs, we’ve learnt the tikanga, and it’s almost always been one-way traffic. What we need and my vision for New Zealand in 2040, the bicentenary of the signing of Te Tiriti o Waitangi, is that by then, Pākehā, Europeans, will be able to cross that bridge to the other side and know our language and know our customs and know how we think and feel and why we act and behave the way we do, and that New Zealanders can be crossing that bridge freely and communicating in whatever language we decide and we’re not talking past each other.

So this is my question for Simon Bridges, who in his tone-deaf speech believes that he’s a statesman and that he has got some sort of mana and kudos. I’ll tell you what, he’s so uncomfortable in his Māori skin he seeks affirmation from non-Māori. That’s where he gets his affirmation. In the meantime, he tramples on the mana and dignity of Ngāpuhi. But here’s the thing. I have a question for Simon Bridges: Simon, are you prepared to cross that bridge? Are you prepared to cross? Even though he’s Māori, he was born on the non-Māori side of things. Is he prepared to cross that bridge into the Māori side? And I say if he is not prepared to cross that bridge, I question—and I say this to everybody in this House. If we are not prepared to cross that bridge freely and communicate with the people on the other side, then I question our place as politicians, as parliamentarians. That is the vision that I have for Aotearoa New Zealand: that we can cross that bridge freely.

I’m surprised at the previous speaker. The deputy leader of the Labour Party took his whole 10-minute speech to refer to Waitangi Day. It’s an important day. It’s an historic day for us. I personally have been going to Waitangi myself since 2011. We haven’t always had a warm welcome there, but we continue to front up, and that’s what our leader Simon Bridges did this year. He made a very direct speech, and he feels that that’s the place each year to come together and talk honestly and talk openly. He wasn’t afraid to do that, and he did that.

I don’t think that Ngāpuhi are shrinking violets, and I don’t think that they are afraid to stand up and speak openly and clearly to both the Government and the Opposition. I had a translation device with me. I listened to all those speeches. I thought they were all outstanding. I thought the bravest speech of the day was the speech of the National Party leader Simon Bridges, because he wasn’t afraid to talk to some of the serious issues that actually face us as a nation.

I find it very interesting that the deputy leader of the Labour Party would stand up and attack Simon and his whakapapa. He attacks him because he doesn’t sound like him. Because he doesn’t speak like him, for some reason his status, his mana, is diminished, and that goes against everything that they’re meant to stand for and what they continue to attack us on. So while the deputy leader of the Labour Party was standing and delivering that speech, he’s also the Minister of Corrections. I can tell you that I’ve seen an email in the last two days from the Corrections department saying that they’re under serious pressure because of the rise in prison numbers. They don’t have the beds for serious offending. The reason why they need them is because serious offending is going up under this Government.

Let’s have a look at National’s record. Let’s have a look at National’s record when we were last in Government—nine years with police Ministers like Judith Collins and the Hon Anne Tolley and the Hon Paula Bennett. Under their leadership, some of the stats we look at, youth crime reduced by 31 percent. It reduced by 31 percent. That’s from 2011 to 2017. Overall, crime reduced by 14 percent. Violent crime reduced by 2 percent. Here’s the most important one. Here’s one of the most important ones, because in this House I think we all believe in rehabilitation. We don’t want people coming into our criminal justice system, but once they’re there, we want to try and rehabilitate them and give them the best shot of rejoining society when they come back out. So let’s have a look at our reoffending rates: reduced by 26 percent—26 percent.

Let’s have a look at the current Government’s record. In the year ending November 2019, the number of serious assault victims resulting in injury has increased by almost 40 percent—40 percent. The number of active serious harm cases before the District Court has risen by 25 percent. We’ve got 1,400 new patched gang members in this country—1,400. In the last three weeks, we’ve seen running gang warfare in the Bay of Plenty. We’ve seen firearms used, and we saw a tragedy unfold last night that resulted in two deaths. We avoided an absolute tragedy in Taradale two weeks ago when an infant’s car seat ended up with a shotgun pellet in it as a result of a gang confrontation between 30 patched gang members in the middle of Taradale in the middle of the day in New Zealand.

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: Whose electorate is it?

That electorate is the Hon Stuart Nash’s—

💬 Hon Nathan Guy: What’s he doing about it?

—who also happens to be the police Minister. Well, let me come to that. So who in this House will put their hand up and say that we should accept that in a modern New Zealand, we have 30 patched gang members in the middle of a provincial town with—banned now—military-style weapons fighting? There’s no hands showing, so we all agree on that one. Who agrees in this House that after having 30 patched gang members in open warfare in Taradale, there’s been four arrests? Who thinks that that’s appropriate? I can tell you it’s not.

I do want to speak to our police service, especially in relation to Tauranga. The current district commander there is a guy by the name of Superintendent Andy McGregor. He was my armed offenders squad (AOS) commander when I was on the AOS in Gisborne. He spent years on the coast, policing the gangs and, at that time, the Rastafarians from Ruatōria down to Wairoa. He understands what the challenge is; he knows how to deal with it. I’ve got no problems at all with the police and their operational capability. We have got a world-class police service that is capable of taking these gangs on.

The district commander down there made an important statement, and I totally agree with it: they can’t do it on their own. They can’t. It takes a joined-up approach, whether it be from local government—and I spoke with Mayor Tenby Powell this afternoon in terms of what he wants to see in response. We need to see iwi leaders and iwi get involved with this. We need the community. This Government here—the Minister stands up in Taradale and he says, “We need the community to respond. We need the community help.” I’ll tell you something. Let me tell you something: you will not get the community standing up and wanting to put their head above the parapet in front of gang members unless they are absolutely confident that the police are controlling and running the town. If they feel the gangs are, of course they’re not going to want to come forward. Of course they’re not wanting to incur that personal risk.

Let me read you just a piece of this letter that was written to the local MP and Minister of Police Stuart Nash from a 12-year-old girl that lives in his electorate. She wrote “I’m very confused and concerned. On Thursday last week, there was a group of Mongrel Mob members breaking the law at Maraekakaho - Orchard Rd intersection. Amazingly, there were not one but two police officers standing right there at the intersection when the Mongrel Mob got there. But it’s not all about what the Mongrel Mob members were doing but what the police were doing about it. The Mongrel Mob members were sitting in the windows of their car.”—so they were hanging out of their cars, sitting on the windows—“They were driving through red lights.”—so they were driving through red lights—“Other cars were struggling to drive across without getting hit.” Again, this is in the middle of the day. What does she want to see? Does she want to see the police responding and actually taking action against Mongrel Mob members that are flagrantly breaking the law, that just a couple of months before had taken over a public car park to do a patching ceremony, or do they want to see the police standing back and allowing them to get on with it?

The problem is this. I’ll tell you what the problem is, and the Justice department highlighted this. It is that the Public Service will react to the signals sent by Government, and this comes back to the heart of the problem of what we’re experiencing as a nation right now. When you see 1,400 more gang members, when you see a rise in gang violence and organised crime activity, it’s because this Government is a soft-on-crime Government that has sent a clear signal—

💬 Michael Wood: Rubbish.

—to our Public Service. Rubbish? Get up and talk about it, Mr Wood, because I’m telling you now: your communities are not feeling safer under a Labour-led Government. They’re feeling more exposed, and if you’re sensitive to your ethnic communities, you will be seeing a very clear message that they do not feel safe under this Government.

This is a soft-on-crime Government. We’re seeing every single measure in terms of public safety heading in the wrong direction. I can tell you right now: our leader has been very clear, and he spoke about this at Waitangi, that we are going to take action against gangs. We are going to take action against organised crime. We do have the will and we will provide the leadership, because we believe that for too long in this country, it’s been normalised and we’ve put up with it. You’ve created a permissive environment in this country where they will continue to operate like that. They know that under a Simon Bridges - led National Party in Government those days are over, that the pressure is going to come on them, that we will implement a gang policy.

Very, very quickly, let me talk about that meeting in Taradale. I took over a bill in 2013 banning gang patches in public buildings. Do you know the only power that the police could use on the day? On the day of that public meeting the Black Power turned up. A patched Black Power member came into the hall to try and intimidate the community in Taradale. The police were able to remove him. You know how? By using that power. I talked to the detective inspector afterwards—Labour didn’t even support the bill. They wouldn’t even support the bill when it came through the House. They should hang their heads in shame. They voted against that bill. Do you know why they voted against that bill? Because they said that it would be an impingement on gang members’ freedoms of expression—that’s what they said. That was the only power the police had that day to remove that gang member from a situation in a community hall where he was intimidating members of the community.

I move, That this debate be now adjourned.