Bill risks more innocent M¯aori facing jail

One of several surreal absurdities with the present passage of the Sexual Violence Bill has been Ma¯ ori MPs uniformly looking the other way as this train wreck rattles onward, railroading many innocent Ma¯ ori men into jail.

The bill will presumptively prohibit evidence pointing to innocence and destroy a defendant’s right to silence, thus increasing conviction numbers.

The legislation is built upon the faulty statistical spin that the conviction rate for rape is ‘‘appallingly low’’ when, in an ‘‘oranges with oranges’’ comparison, sexual violation convictions are actually in line with those for some other violent crimes. Unsurprisingly, though, the probability of conviction is not racially neutral.

So Ma¯ ori men should worry. Their likelihood of conviction on a sexual violation charge is (on a three-year average) some 14 per cent greater than for European defendants on the same charge. Before ‘‘institutional racism’’ is attributed, I would explain that the truth is more prosaically typical.

Generally, the more money you spend on high-priced lawyers, investigators and experts, the more likely you are to get off. And not many Ma¯ ori have that type of money. Consequently, the already bad odds for Ma¯ ori men will be worsened by this bill, thereby driving their wrongful imprisonment rate still higher.

The best science we have indicates that, for every 100 people convicted of crimes with a sexual component, at least 11 are factually innocent, that percentage coming from a rigorous US governmentfunded study based on post-conviction DNA analysis. But that analysis would not have caught all wrongful allegations, since not all cases involve DNA collection.

Thus the unmeritorious convictions figure will actually be even more.

Such analysis should give Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern some pause, especially when we recall her ‘‘listen to the experts’’ refrain during her acclaimed early Covid management.

Here, the large majority of expert lawyers (both defence and prosecution) oppose this bill, including Ma¯ ori criminal lawyers.

One highly credentialled Ma¯ ori voice being ignored is that of Heeni, Lady PhillipsWilliams, of the Sir Peter Williams QC Penal Reform League. Lady Phillips-Williams is a lawyer with realworld court experience, a visiting justice in the prison system, and an advocate for fair treatment of Ma¯ ori defendants.

In her words, this bill will ‘‘obliterate fair trial rights for innocent Maori men’’.

So why are Ma¯ ori MPs ignoring the harm this bill will do their people? Both Labour Ma¯ ori caucus coleaders, Rino Tirikatene and Willow-Jean Prime, have rebuffed efforts at organising meetings with PhillipsWilliams about her advocacy, as has the Ma¯ ori Party.

For Tirikatene and other caucus moderates, it might be that pushing back against the feminist Left within Labour seems just too much effort. Another sad truth is that such effort would risk defeat, showing the Ma¯ ori caucus to actually have little real sway within the wider party.

The Ma¯ ori Party’s lack of objection to the bill appears more ideologically driven, with being a compliant cog in the wider left-wing cause seeming to be the grand objective.

But it would be disappointing if the party’s two MPs don’t now realise that keeping innocent tangata whenua out of jail must deserve as much energy as keeping neckties out of Parliament.

Lawyer and former Ma¯ ori Party leader John Tamihere, a tactician with familial experience of the criminal justice system’s rolling mass, should instead be listened to more.

Certainly, in the party’s condemnation of the prosecutorial-penal state, true consistency on criminal issues would accentuate its self-description as an independent voice of principle.

Ma¯ ori men are about 8 per cent of the national population, and about 50 per cent of the voters for Ma¯ ori electorate candidates, so it would make sense if the Labour Ma¯ ori caucus and the Ma¯ ori Party both fought for this demographic. Their joint efforts could save innocent Ma¯ ori defendants from extreme misery.

Otherwise, in the acquiescent march to lift the untruthfully stated ‘‘low’’ conviction rate, wha¯ nau should get ready for the increased imprisonment of their falsely accused fathers, brothers, husbands and sons.