Leading from the front issuu

CHESTER’S
EPIPHANY
“What is
needed are people
in Corrections and
across relevant ministries
who are totally engaged
in keeping people
out of the Justice
system”.
Chester Borrows served as an MP
for National from 2005 to 2017. He
broke ranks with his party though
in 2017 when he condemned the
“discriminatory” policies of US
President Donald Trump. A liberal
Christian, a lay preacher and an artist,
Chester was initially opposed to same-sex
marriage but also condemned Joseph Falau’s homophobic
comments made a few years ago.
“My opinions have changed significantly in recent
years,” he says. Visiting Parihaka in 2018, he stated,
“There needed to be wider teaching and acknowledgment
of New Zealand history, especially regarding historical
injustices committed against Māori”. Borrows
also condemned National’s then leader Simon Bridges
for the party’s ‘tough on crime’ approach, in an article in
The Spinoff in 2019. He stated there was no evidence it
would reduce crime rates and has since lobbied for an
approach that is rehabilitative, which he sees as better
supported by evidence.
It’s Chester’s depth of experience in the Police force,
his later training as a lawyer, his transformation from a
conservative Christian to a liberal and his career of service
to the community, that saw him appointed to head
the Safe & Effective Justice Advisory Group which is
tasked with guiding the reform of New Zealand’s criminal
justice system.
”Basically Turuki! says
we need the Government
to start this yesterday.
It’s incredibly urgent.”
CHESTER BORROWS
PONDERS:
WHY ARE WE SO
PUNATIVE IN NZ?
“I find this difficult to fathom. Perhaps because
of our egalitarian roots and because we’re an
isolated country, we’ve lived largely by community
enforcement and ‘good will’. We’ve set
the public bar of expectations. Because of our
colonial roots we’ve happily created an underclass
and put people in it and continued with
contemporary colonisation, where Māori and
Polynesians are largely corralled into lower
socio-economic groups. That has an impact on
education prospects, jobs, health, welfare and
housing. Because Pakeha are the vast majority
and made all the rules we have this Victorian
sense of propriety which means that we just
condemn anything that goes wrong in society
as bad decisions and bad choices, without taking
any responsibility as a community.”
Q & A WITH CHESTER: TURUKI!
IT’S THE ROPER REPORT REHEATED
Turuki! Turuki! is another bold and brilliant report
calling for transformational change in the Justice
system. Will it be different this time? How confident
are you for change, that the Government will
begin to adopt the recommendations made?
We are confident for change. This work was tasked by
Labour and the Greens and Labour is in government
now without New Zealand First. They have big numbers
so the Government can get on and do it, there’s nothing
holding it back. We’ve been waiting a long time, since
the release of two reports in 1989, the Roper Report and
Moana Jackson’s He Whaipaanga Hou. Both reports
called for fundamental, transformative change to the
Justice system and all the recommendations in Turuki!
appeared in both reports 32 years ago. Turuki! is both reports
reheated. The sadness is that the reports and recommendations
are so similar 30 years apart. The need
is 30 years more urgent and the time and lives wasted in
the interim is a travesty.
How has response been to Turuki! Turuki! and
what are the time frames for adopting the recom-
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Restorative Justice – for an unjust justice system