Legal Services Amendment Bill

I move, That the Legal Services Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

I’d like to thank members for their views on this bill in their first reading speeches. I accept that there may not be unanimous support for this bill, but the Government remains convinced that bringing an end to taxpayer funding of the cottage industry of section 27 report writers is necessary to rebuild confidence in the justice system and public spending.

I’m surprised at the change in the Labour Party. I remember the former Minister of Justice Kiri Allan conceding, when we pushed her on the increase from $40,000 a year to over $7 million a year for these reports, that “Maybe this was something we need to look into in Government.” So a year ago, those members were prepared to look into it, but now they’re opposed to any changes, and, as the previous speaker said, this bill sends a signal. Well, it certainly does send a signal. It sends a signal that this Government is careful with its money; secondly, it is taxpayers’ money that we’re careful with; and, thirdly, we’re going to instil real consequences for crime.

Up and down the country as we campaigned last year and continued to talk to the population, the number one issue was the cost of living, and number two was restoring law and order, and people want to see that. So the proposed minor amendment to the Legal Services Act exempts section 27 reports from the range of legal aid disbursements that can be approved, without limiting the independence of the Legal Services Commissioner. This bill doesn’t change section 27 of the Sentencing Act in any way, nor does it place any limits on the background information that offenders can provide to the court. Offenders can continue to use section 27 to call anybody to speak on factors, either in court or in written form; the thing that is changed is the funding arrangements.

I think we’ve seen as the debate has rolled how it’s gone from $40,000 in 2017, to $7.5 million. I have no doubt that if the people on this side of the House weren’t raising this issue through last year and the year before and pointing out the massive increase in spending, it would have continued on a trajectory towards $10 million and further, and that is money that could be spent, we think, more wisely in the legal aid system. Information on the offenders’ background will continue to be presented to the court through other sources, such as their lawyer, the pre-sentence reports that the Department of Corrections prepares, or other reports that may be appropriate, such as alcohol and drug assessments or psychologists’ reports, and through letters of support from family and friends and letters from rehabilitation programme providers.

Progressing this bill under urgency allows Parliament’s time to be freed up for the more complex legislation to come in the justice sector. Of course, we’ve outlined in our 100-day plan the need to give police more powers to deal with the gangs in our community, and moving further on to wider changes within the sentencing regime. So we’ve got much to do in this Government. There’s a lot of work to be done to restore law and order and to give people confidence that the Government is on the side—

💬 Hon Member: Will it be scrutinised?

—of ordinary citizens, law-abiding citizens, who want to feel safe in their communities, and our emphasis will be on the victims of crime—

💬 Hon Willow-Jean Prime: Well, then a more appropriate sentence with a focus on rehabilitation would be a better thing for them.

—rather than necessarily the needs of the perpetrators of crime. I’m getting plenty of commentary from the other side, and I’m sure members of the public will be able to assess that. We will look closely at the financial impacts of the rules change to ensure that Government spending is allocated effectively and that savings can be used to improve services to deal more effectively with violent crime.

This bill delivers on a Government commitment to defund these reports, and I’d like to just remind people that what we’re seeing at the moment is what some people might regard as slightly unusual. A series of parties campaigned during an election campaign for a change, they get elected, and then, when they’re elected, they get into Government and do what they said they were going to do, and that’s what we’re doing on this side of the House. We said we were going to stop the funding for these cultural reports, we said we were going to end the cottage industry, and here we are, a couple of months after being in Government, and we’re doing it.

That, I hope, will give New Zealanders and the people of this country confidence that this is a Government that will do what it says it’s going to do, and one of the critical things that this Government is going to achieve for this country is we’re going to restore law and order. This bill is one step in that direction, and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. Well, where do I begin? Where do I begin? So I think the first thing to clear up is that, for the record, at no point in time did any party on the Opposition benches at any stage ever say that this was going to be taken away. We’ve always focused on the defunding. So if you want one of these reports professionally written and delivered in front of a judge, you have to pay for it. That absolutely rules out a large proportion of New Zealand society who cannot afford to pay. Once again, as with benefit cuts and as with increasing smoking, this is a Government that is focused on punching down, on finding those who are most vulnerable in our community and making sure that their lives are even worse than they are already. The sad part about that is the savings that are made for that punching down go in the pockets of those middle-income New Zealanders who are going to receive a tax cut at the Budget.

Now that we’ve cleared up that bit, the next bit I think I’d like to point out is in the regulatory impact statement. What’s really interesting in this regulatory impact statement is it says: “What is the problem?” I love it when they ask this. Officials are so honest; they just say, “What’s the problem we’re trying to solve here?” And the problem, it says, is “the Government’s 100-day commitment plan”. That’s the problem that we’re trying to solve. So, basically, these guys have promised them stuff, and we’ve got to go do it. So that’s the problem we’re trying to solve.

Then they go on to talking about “Who are the stakeholders in this issue, what is the nature of their interest, and how are they [going to be] affected?” They list out who the stakeholders are. So “the court”—that’s listed—is the first one. “The offender”, that’s the second one. The next one is “the legal aid provider”. The next one is the “section 27 report provider”. We haven’t seen any Māori so far, and we don’t ever. And last on the list are “victims”—last on the list. They get four lines—actually three and a half lines. In the entire regulatory impact statement, we get three and a half lines about the impact on victims. And let me read it: “The victims of crime have an interest in this issue,”—Wow, that’s good!—”including the impact of section 27 reports on sentencing. Victims will continue to have the ability to have their views heard by the court through victim impact statements.”—so, basically, victims lose their voice through section 27 reports; and the final sentence—“We do not have any information on the views of victims.” So don’t you lecture us on what we’re doing for victims, when your own regulatory impact statement—your own regulatory impact statement—states, “We do not have any information on the views of victims.” None. Not one consultation. So if, in this House, a member is going to stand and lecture on what’s right for victims, you might want to read your own regulatory impact statement, which clearly states that not one single victim has been involved or consulted on the impact of taking away legal funding for section 27 reports.

But it gets better—it gets better. It gets better because they put up some other options. And do you know what? I really like the other options. So option one: status quo. Option two is to remove the taxpayer funding for section 27 reports, which is clearly what’s going to be the outcome, because they’ve promised it in the 100-day plan. But the next one’s better. I like “impose a cap on the reports writers’ fees”. What about that one? Let’s talk about that one. What about option four? That’s quite good too—”Introduce an accreditation system for section 27 report writers.” That’s a good one. I wish I had thought of that. “The legal aid funding for section 27 report writers would continue, but changes could be [made or] introduced to restrict [the] funding to report writers who had been accepted under an accreditation scheme.”—that’s a great idea—”The scheme would ensure [that] writers met [an] agreed criteria, including qualities such as relevant experience and knowledge of the personal, family, whānau, community, and cultural background of the offender.” Why aren’t we doing that one? Because that would be better, and that wouldn’t have the impact of increasing reoffending, increasing the number of victims, and creating a two-tier justice system. So I like that one.

To wind up, I’d just like to point out the fact that if you’re going to have a 100-day plan, it would be great if there was some substance in it, but all of these things are simply window dressing. They look good. They’re a sound bite. They’re an ornament. They tick your box. You’re able to say, “We campaigned on this, and we did it.”, but if you can stand up, hand on heart—hand on heart—and actually say, “What is the solution? What is the solution to the problem we’ve identified?” No solutions are coming from those members opposite—not one single solution—because what this bill does is it actually makes the problem you’re trying to fix worse. It makes it worse, and all those who have commented publicly—whether it be the Chief Justice, or whether it’s the Bar Association or it’s the Law Society, the legal fraternity have come out and stated, “What this does is increase reoffending.” And when you increase reoffending, you increase victimisation, and what that does is make New Zealand society more fragmented, it increases crime, and it makes things worse. So, for all the tough talk we hear, there are no solutions for the problem that’s been identified, and the only problem that this bill fixes is addressing something in the 100-day plan, and that’s sad.

I get 10 minutes this time? OK, I’ll just stretch a little bit. So the opposite members of the bench proclaim to be voicing concerns for victims. Well, we will hold them to that. I urge those members to go immediately and read the reports of the Chief Victims Adviser. I urge those members immediately to go and read Te Aorerekura, the violence prevention strategy. I urge those members to go and read the Human Rights Commission report on the discrimination in the justice system against Māori, Pasifika, young people, and brown people. I urge those members to highlight the evidence, very clearly, that will show that removing the funding—so here’s the thing. Here’s the thing. On the one hand, the Government members are trying to say, “We’re tough on crime. We’re about the victims.”, but, actually, the ability to maintain section 27 reports is still there. It’s still there. So they’re not concerned about “tough on crime”. They’re concerned about removing the ability to access what only the rich are left to be able to access. So how is that for some hypocritical action? It’s still there. It’s still there, but they’re removing the access for people who cannot afford it.

Now, I spent the last three years as a violence prevention Minister focused, finally, on the system centring victims—on the system centring victims. I also was the chief panellist on the Owen Glenn inquiry into domestic violence and child abuse. Does that Government want to know what is really in the way of victims receiving justice? Well, here is just a snippet. If those members really care about victims of sexual violence and abuse, here is what I have heard directly from members and advocates who have been working on victims’ access to justice for decades. Get ready for this. How about this: people who have been sexually offended and abused by people who already have standing in the community and have access to powerful lawyers and networks across the system. How about that? How about they stand up to be a voice against the powerful access to justice that women who might have been in a relationship with a school principal or a lawyer or a police officer or a businessman or people who are already leaders in the so-called justice system, and, therefore, have been gaslit because of the influence that their perpetrators and offenders hold and therefore get away with it.

If this Government actually cared about justice for victims, it would sit down with victims and survivors of rape, with victims and survivors of sexual offending—with, how about this, the many victims that the State institutions have ruined for generations with the violence that they have suffered, that they have had to confront. Many of those victims have also, unfortunately, yes, at times, ended up in the docks as offenders. Do we not think it is important to take into account the incredible harm, injury, and injustice that those offenders were subject to and did not receive justice for? Where were those voices then for the victims? If this Government is truly concerned with reducing crime and reoffending, removing the funding is actually the opposite.

Now, second reading is normally where we might ordinarily hear from the actual experts in the community who have been working at the front line of trying to reduce offending. Reducing offending on the front lines: social workers, youth workers, marae workers, many who have the expertise and lived experience. We would hear from them, their voices. They have written across social media and across media, and they have been very clear: all that removing the funding for cultural reports will do is entrench further discrimination in a justice system that already is trying to resolve its own discrimination. It already admits that the justice system has been tougher on Māori than it has been on, say, the non-Māori, very well-resourced businessman who has been causing pain and sexual abuse and violence to his partner but, because of the hook-ups, has got away with it. So do not sit in this House and yell at us about who cares for victims, because removing the funding for these reports is not caring about victims.

Now, there are solutions, and victims have been very clear about what is needed to overhaul to a system that actually does centre victims. Victims have been very clear. One of the things—again, the members can go and read in Chief Victims Adviser reports that this current adversarial justice approach actually ends up harming victims more, because, by its nature, it requires a winner and a loser. And guess who has been losing! Victims. And it has not been because of cultural reports—it has not been because of cultural reports. It has been because of wealth and privilege, privilege and wealth, and because of a system not understanding the dynamics of violence—because of a system not having the collective expertise of the dynamics of violence, and because of the inbuilt patriarchy that goes against women.

💬 Hon Members: Oh!

Oh, OK. “Oh!”, you say. I wish those members would roll their eyes in front of victims. I wish they had victims in front of them, to roll their eyes at any mention of this system being patriarchal and that that is what has offended victims and blocked them from justice. I can’t wait to take those offensive responses of those members back to the many stakeholder victims groups that I am closely working with and will stay connected to. I cannot wait. I cannot wait for them to expose themselves for outright denying the evidence and the voices of victims—their voices, their lived experiences, their solutions. Not once, in three years of sitting with victims, as a Minister, have I heard them ask to remove these cultural reports. Not once.

So shame on this Government. Shame on them for trying to exploit rape—because using this racist legislation is trying to exploit rape and sexual violence. Do not yell at us who have been working deeply with victims on improving a system that actually delivers justice for victims. Their voice isn’t in this. It never has been in this legislation, and I will maintain my anger and my connection with them. I will not drop their voice from these arguments. How dare this Government try and exploit victims in favour of some legislation that is just going to keep those privileged with the resources to be privileged. Shame on them.

Thank you. I rise once again to speak in favour of this bill. I want to acknowledge the passion from other members of the House, but we do have a different response to how we want to deal with criminal justice in New Zealand, and we see this as a part of an overall plan that our parties have put together to deal with it. I’m sorry that the Hon Ginny Andersen isn’t still in the House, because I was able to point out what the problem is as we see it—

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Maureen Pugh): Can I just interrupt the member and remind him not to mention the absence of members in the House.

Yep, sorry—I hope to be able to address some of the points she had raised. The problem as we see it is quite clear: in 2017, section 27 reports were costing $40,000; last financial year, $7.7 million. This has gone unchecked and it’s time to rein it in, and that is what we are doing. The ability to put information before the court, as has been well discussed tonight, will still be available. Offenders can have people come and speak to them. I know the power, in my very short time at the criminal bar, of actually having an employer turn up and speak on behalf of an offender and actually talk about how they can help that person actually stop their reoffending. That’s what was envisaged by section 27, actually having people with a personal connection, whether it’s whānau, an employer, other people in the community actually coming along, speaking on that person’s behalf at no cost and actually demonstrating to the court how they could help that offender. This is a sensible change to stop this taxpayer funding, and we commend it to the House.

I also rise again to speak in support of the Legal Services Amendment Bill. I acknowledge the passion and concern that was expressed with regard to victims.

I can assure the House that I have held the victims after being raped, I have nursed the children who have been beaten, I have looked into the victim’s eyes, and I have retained a faith in the judiciary and the justice system to act appropriately. As was raised across the House, we have all been involved in those circumstances where we have had to advocate for people we know, for whānau, for those we are connected with, and for those who we don’t know but feel a compassion to represent. That is still available and will continue to be available.

I have enormous faith in iwi and hapū for being able to stand up for even those who they have no direct connection to, without cost, to advocate for those who are vulnerable, those who need intervention, and that will also continue to exist under this legislation amendment. It is the judiciary who will weigh up the value of the information presented to them and they will know the difference between a well-coiled-up report written by professionals using special-speak and those impassioned pleas that are given by those who have genuine concern and connection to the offenders and want to see the very best outcomes.

It is for that reason that we do not need taxpayer funding to milk the system, as has been occurring, but we do need the recognition of true, concerned community members to advocate for those who need it at the time of sentencing to represent their concerns. For that reason, I fully support this bill.

Kia ora, tēnā koe. I stand to tautoko my sister here, partly, to—oh, not partly that I support her, but partly to discuss this in this way. What you just witnessed, it’s not passion, so don’t dismiss it as such. It is not passion; it is experience, it is knowledge, and without it, we’re not as well off as we could be. To dismiss it in such a way, particularly by some of the expressions I saw on the faces of members across the House, I don’t quite understand that—it’s offensive and probably needs some work, I would suggest. To suggest that this side of House—and the Māori Party, for instance—ignore pain of victims is also false and mischievous. To suggest that we take a line on this bill as if we don’t understand what the pain is for victims is false and you need to rethink that—sorry, that side of the House needs to rethink that.

At Tūrangawaewae, at least 20,000 people turned up to say what the Government was doing was just out the gate and needs some attention. Sixty thousand turned up at Waitangi and addressed Government across the paepae and said very clearly, in seven different ways—but in the language that only the Government can understand, which is the monolingual thing, English—so they could understand that they are letting whānau down. So when one of the previous speakers suggested that “We went to lots of community halls.”, it has to be a joke, really, because I didn’t hear him say “marae”; I didn’t hear him say “rūnanga”; I didn’t hear him say “whānau settings”. I heard him say “community halls”, which is, probably, essentially, Pākehā settings, just saying. This concerns me as well, given that the Minister on record has said, “On balance, colonisation is good for Māori.”—and he said it, so I’m not making that up. But the point I’m making is it is embedded in the discussion, and therefore is embedded in his thinking, which is a huge concern. When any Minister says, “Colonisation was good for Māori, on balance.”, that is atrocious, disgusting, and needs to be challenged in every single way, and 60,000 people did—60,000 people did in Waitangi.

To take funding away—that’s the point. To suggest that taking funding away, but, you know, “You can still have friendly Māori people and whānau come along and stand up.”, that’s just ridiculous. It’s ridiculous—I know, because I used to do this work for many years in the Ngāti Hine Health Trust. I used to run programmes in prisons, for goodness’ sake, in Rangipō, so I know—I know—what this takes, Minister, despite what’s less known across the House. I can tell you this with assurance: taking funding away—taking funding away—lessens opportunity; it lessens the access to fair and just decisions. This is what I would call robbing Pita—robbing Pita—to pay Paul or Paula. That’s what this is—this is robbing Pita to pay Paul or Paula. This is a poor way of showing any real, genuine interest. Again, I said it earlier: it’s indifferent to Māori, and I’m saying that and I expect that it’s understood across the House. Trust me when I say this: I know this work—I know this—I know what it takes, and this piece of legislation, it undoes it all. So if 60,000 people can show up in Waitangi, they’ll continue to show up, and that’s why this absolutely needs to be rejected by this party. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I stand with you today to recognise that the Government is continuing to push forward the agenda of mass incarceration, a colonial agenda that has just resulted in more violence, more indigenous people being incarcerated, and one that is, unfortunately, a global colonial product. What this bill aims to do, in terms of removing legal aid for the creation of cultural reports—

💬 Todd Stephenson: They’re not cultural reports; they’re section 27 reports.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: —will cause—section 27 reports—harm to communities who have been failed by successive Governments in a broken justice system.

💬 Tom Rutherford: You were in the last Government.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: Indeed, and we were very critical in the last Government around the failure to address issues around mass incarceration. It’s interesting that the member opposite to me, jeering about the past Government, fails to recognise their own complicity, while in Opposition, in actually just calling for more harm for the communities that actually are served by these reports.

So it’s really important that we contextualise, actually, what these reports were for. I’d like to quote Dean of Law at Auckland University of Technology Professor Khylee Quince, who talked about how cultural reports are not just about reducing sentences but also about providing relevant contextual information about offenders, including how they came to be the person before the decision maker, what they’ve done to address the harm, and this report that they have available to them that may provide the basis of the disposition. That process is part of the standard practice of sentencing that has largely left out Māori before the courts for many reasons. Most importantly, she talks about rather than providing an opportunity for a lesser sentence, as commonly touted in the media by people opposite to me, it gives space for Māori whānau, hapū, and iwi, and hapori solutions to be part of the way forward. This is such an important context, because this is about building a justice system that isn’t just about locking people up and throwing out the key and assuming that the problem will go away but actually being able to provide a much greater contextual basis for the justice system to operate. She also recognised that the benefits of these reports extend beyond benefiting Māori.

In fact, for migrant and former refugee communities, these reports are critical—and were critical, actually—in being able to provide that broader context in terms of migrants’ and former refugees’ experiences with the justice system to understand that certain behaviours are caused by the trauma that people may be experiencing from fleeing war and persecution, and that is really important context that needs to be provided.

The people who produce these reports are a lifeline into those people being able to be understood by the justice system and for the involvement of the broader community. We cannot underestimate the ability for these reports to bring about and shed light to context that would enable healing and restoration for Māori, for migrants, and for former refugees.

By recognising that what this Government aims to do is increase sentencing times and, effectively, put more people into prison, what they are doing is creating a life of hardship and inequality for those same people. As somebody who had the pleasure to work with formerly incarcerated people, it was really clear that, actually, our prison system does more harm than good as it is and that we don’t even provide adequate support for people who leave prisons to then reintegrate into our communities. If anything, we have an outdated income support system, and the bill that the ACT Party member talks about will actually only make things worse, and forcing people, as the ACT Party member wants to do, to complete their rehabilitation processes before being able to properly reintegrate actually is not the way forward.

But going back to the bill. This bill will only increase incarceration rates and will increase poverty and will increase violence by not being able to have in place systems that allow for healing and the involvement of the broader community within the operations of our justice system.

I’m glad that members opposite have finally woken up to the idea of the fact that things cost. They talk about cost, and they’ve finally woken up to the impact of costs on our most vulnerable. If they were really, really concerned about the costs of these reports, why haven’t they gone out and asked Harry Tam for his template and offered to do it for free? Because that’s what they’re actually saying here. They’re saying that when you remove legal aid funding that no one will be able to access this unless they are super-rich and super-powerful. Well, where is the members opposite’s compassion and advocacy for those vulnerable if they’re requiring them to pay for the reports and they have no system at all to pay for it?

Now, I noted with interest that, in the previous contributions, the former Minister Peeni Henare lifted up the regulatory impact statement (RIS). And I’m not sure whether he said it was unprecedented or whether it was unusual, but he said that RISs don’t come redacted and it’s very, very unusual to see those come to the House redacted. So I got on the Google machine and I took some advice from young Tom Rutherford and I did some googling. And the very first thing that came up was a document called interim regulatory impact statement establishing the Inspector-General of Defence. And towards the end of the page—I just want to hold up this sheet for everyone—was quite a large, redacted document. The document is dated 2021 and, of course, the Minister of Defence at the time was the Hon Peeni Henare.

So this is a good bill by a good Minister—I commend it to the House.

Oh, Mr Meager—you’ve got the future of Māori in your hands.

Madam Speaker, tuatahi e mihi ana ki a koe, e te whanaunga, Marama, mō tō kaha ki te kōkiri i tēnei kaupapa. E kore mātou e wareware tō kaha ki te whawhai mō tātou, te iwi Māori. E kore mātou e wareware. Tēnei te mihi ki a koe e te whanaunga, e te tuahine.

[Madam Speaker, firstly I would like to acknowledge you, my relative, Marama, for your strength in progressing this initiative. We will not forget your strength to fight for us, the Māori people. We will not forget. I acknowledge you; my relative, my sister.]

I had the privilege of working with Minister Marama Davidson last year when she was in this area. It was a privilege to work with her in this area, because her and I come from—we live in the South Auckland area. We launched her kaupapa at my marae, at Ngā Whare Waatea Marae. I mihi to you, whanaunga, for your passion in terms of this is a thankless, thankless job. I just say to that previous speaker, James Meager, who seemed very casual about this—

💬 Hon Rachel Brooking: Condescending.

Condescending—yes, condescending. I know there’s great hopes for him in terms of te ao Māori. This is one of the most taumaha—heavy—kaupapa that we as a people have engaged in in our lives. It’s been part of my life, too, as a former chief executive for the Manukau Urban Māori Authority, former national chairman of all our urban Māori authorities. This has been one of the issues that we have traversed. Rather than insult the Opposition, as I normally do, I’ll give that a rest—as tempting as it is to insult some of them, and particularly with some of their nonsensical contributions.

My mother, as Marama knows, was the longest-serving Parole Board member in this country—20 years, national Parole Board member. My mother, who was appointed by the National Government and given a damehood by the National Government, Jim Bolger, did all this type of mahi. My mother was as tough as they come. She was furious with some of the offenders who used to come through. There’s no light touches with my mother—no light touches—and she would say, Madam Speaker, and to the House, “I’m embarrassed by what you have done and how you have offended—I’m embarrassed by it.”, and the judges could not hold her back. She was very clear—I just want to be serious here for a while, because I think this concerns all of us. She used to say to me 98 percent of people can be redeemed and only 1 or 2 percent are evil—only 1 or 2 percent are evil. So we followed her, she used to bring the—I have seen the worst of the worst of the worst come to our marae: murderers, paedophiles, rapists. We used to be in shock, and Mum always used to say, “If we don’t deal with them, who deals with them? They have shamed us, they have embarrassed us, but we still have to work with our people.” So we learnt so much from my mum.

These reports that you’re talking about, where Mum touched us—and I think the other side will be interested—is while we would be appalled at the behaviour, disgusted with the behaviour of some of these offenders, she would say, “You know how that murderer was brought up? Under a house, for 10 to 15 years.” She used to say, “What sort of person would that person be after being brought up and tortured under a house for 10 or 15 years?” That’s what Mum used to say. So, you know, there are these types of kōrero that happen in these cultural reports that are so important.

I was listening to Minister Costello over there. When we set up the marae justice courts, Minister Costello, we used to have all our kaumātua come—and I appreciate your kōrero too. We used to have our kaumātua who for years used to do this type of mahi for nothing—for nothing. They did, because our people just—you know this—come to the marae and they do this sort of work for nothing, and when we set up the marae justice courts, we demanded that the taxpayer should pay something for our kaumātua. We demanded that. Why shouldn’t kaumātua be paid in terms of giving all their time and their energy? Why should they have to do all of this and everybody else gets paid except for them?

So what I’m saying to the House tonight is there’s two sides to this—there’s two sides to this. Of course I’m appalled by what happens to victims. I have dealt with the victims, and we have brought these victims in with us, as we’ve proceeded with our restorative justice programmes. We have told our people how they have abused and violated these people’s lives—our aroha is with them, absolutely—but we don’t give up on our people who have inflicted the damage. It goes both ways. National, whether the other side like it or not, have played a major part in that too, and have been part of the strategies in terms of trying to redeem people. Bill English and others have played a part in terms of seeing both sides. It cannot just be a “put them in jail and throw the key away” strategy. It cannot be. It has to work on both sides—it has to be work on both sides. And you cannot, I’ll say tonight, you cannot keep ignoring—why are we ignoring people like Justice Joe Williams? I asked Tama Potaka that. We’re talking about some of the best legal people in the business. Justice Joe Williams is the pride of te ao Māori. He’s saying this type of strategy should not be put in place because, in the end, Māori will be affected hugely by this type of strategy.

Willow-Jean Prime talked about the New Zealand Law Society, Māori Law Society, New Zealand Bar Association—all of them are saying that we need to tread carefully here. I ask the Opposition to consider this, because, rather than us getting into this level of insults—which we’ll probably get into anyway, eventually, we’ll probably get into—let’s try and look at this seriously and maturely. We’ve got communities who are suffering. We’ve got our experts—like Joe Williams, like Kim Workman, like my mother, who was honoured by the National Government—who have said this is not just about our people, people who have been the victims, the victims are on both sides. The victims are on both sides. And the easy way out—the easy way out—is just to go, “We’ll have a hard and fast ACT-type policy.” That hard and fast ACT-type policy was never the National Party policy, but it has become now. It was not—never. You can look back on your own books. Simon Power was holding gang conferences here, for goodness sake. I attended gang conferences here, run by the former justice Minister—they weren’t called gang conferences, I’m going overboard a bit there.

💬 Hon Member: That’s not like you!

That doesn’t sound like me! You had people like Simon Power, you had people like Bill English, who was our man from Whanganui?

💬 Hon Marama Davidson: Chester.

Chester Burrows. These are good people. You know, you lot are a disgrace to their name—I knew I’d get to that. I mean, they would hang their heads in shame, looking at you lot over there. These are good National people who believe in a strategy, and you lot have been duped by this useless right-wing fascist group over here: the ACT Party. You lot have been duped by them.

I say tonight, Mr Meager, you showed so much promise in that maiden speech, but you’re going to the pack every other time you stand up. You’re disappointing us. The journalists might have to have a rethink in terms of your future because, clearly, you’re on the wrong track. So I say tonight—I say tonight—wake up. Wake up. There are two sides to this, and it’s not about just locking people up and throwing the key away.

💬 Hon Member: We’re not talking about that.

💬 Hon Member: What are you talking about, Willie?

It’s not about—no, that is what you want to do. That’s what’s going to happen when you take the funding away. I want to honour and mihi to Marama Davidson, who set up the framework, who set up the strategy. And I’ve got to say to these Māori members—in particular, James, over there, and my good friend Tama Potaka—wake up and start standing up for your people, because, at the moment, you’re disappointing us.

Members, the Government has indicated to me that it does not wish to continue in urgency and therefore this debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 9.58 p.m.