Motions

Hon JOHN KEY (Prime Minister) Link to this

I seek leave to move without notice a motion on the death of a serving police officer in Napier.

Hon PHIL GOFF (Leader of the Opposition) Link to this

On behalf of the Labour Opposition, I want to join with others to express our sympathy and condolences to the family, the friends, and the colleagues of Senior Constable Len Snee, who was killed in the course of carrying out his duties in Napier last week. To Grant Diver, Bruce Miller, and Lenny Holmwood, and to their families and friends, we likewise express our sympathy and concern, and our hope that they will quickly recover from the injuries they sustained during the shootings.

For Len’s family, words cannot adequately express the loss that they have suffered. To lose a husband, a father, and a brother in this way is absolutely a tragedy, and our thoughts are in particular with Vicki, his wife, and their sons, Sam and Joe. Our thoughts are also with Len’s colleagues in the police force, because for those who work as police officers, their workmates are also their family. They work as part of a team; they often face danger together. Because of the nature of their jobs, they know each other well and they rely on each other.

Len Snee is the 29th police officer killed in the line of duty. Last year, equally tragically, we saw two police officers, Sergeant Don Wilkinson and Sergeant Derek Wootton, killed in the line of their work. Police officers work to keep our community safe and to protect the lives of people in our society. In this House we need to remember that every day, police officers around the country put their safety, and sometimes their lives, at risk on behalf of their country. They deserve our support in carrying out that work.

All of the facts of the shootings that occurred in Chaucer Road in Napier last week are yet to emerge. We will have a better idea of exactly what happened and what we can learn from this tragedy when a full inquiry has been held. I believe that there will be stories of considerable courage on the part of those involved, and in due course we will be able to pay tribute to those people. We will also need to look for lessons about how we can hopefully reduce the risk of situations of this nature reoccurring, and questions, I believe, will validly be asked about how people are able to unlawfully acquire and hold military-style weapons. But for now, we join with Len Snee’s family in acknowledging and paying tribute to him, and expressing our feelings of loss. On Police Remembrance Day on 29 September, we will sadly add Len Snee’s name to the roll of honour of police officers whom we remember as having given their lives in the course of their duties.

Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) Link to this

On behalf of the Green Party, I would like to add our sympathy and send our condolences to the family and friends of Senior Constable Len Snee. We would also like to send our sympathy to those who have been shot in the incident and are recovering. Losing a husband, a father, a brother—losing a loved one—is always really difficult. We are thinking of the family now, and I think all of us can identify with, and feel for, them in what they are going through at the moment. We in the Greens offer our gratitude to our hard-working police for the job they do to keep New Zealand a safe place. New Zealand is generally a peaceful society—generally—and we hope we will not see further tragedies like this one in the future. We would like to send a tribute to Len Snee, and to thank his family for all that they have done. We would also like to acknowledge him. On behalf of the Green Party, I thank all New Zealand police for the hard work they do.

Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) Link to this

On behalf of the ACT Party I express our sympathy at the loss of Senior Constable Len Snee, killed in the line of duty. Our thoughts go out to his family, his colleagues, and the community in which he played such a supportive role. The thoughts of the ACT Party and, of course, this Parliament are also with the other injured policemen, Senior Constable Bruce Miller and Senior Constable Grant Diver, and the injured neighbour, Leonard Holmwood. We are thinking of them and their families.

This tragedy highlights the extreme risk our police face every day. We can all be thankful for the professionalism and courage of our policemen and policewomen. That was there for all of us to see, as our brave police continued their task of protecting the citizens of Napier long after one of their own had fallen. Every man and every woman who puts on a uniform is a hero. They put their lives on the line for us every day. Tragically, Senior Constable Len Snee paid the ultimate price. We mourn his passing today, and we salute the brave men and brave women who serve us. Thank you.

Hon Dr PITA SHARPLES (Co-Leader—Māori Party) Link to this

Ā, kai te rangatira tēna koe, kai te Whare tēnā tātou katoa. E te Whare, kua kapohia a te tangata e te ringa kino o kōhuru. Koia tērā e okioki ana i runga i tōna moengaroa, e tīraha ana i raro i te korowai, i tōna whānau. He pērā te mamae o mate ahakoa he tangata, ahakoa te āhuatanga o te hinganga. Engari te mate kua pā atu ki te tangata kua tū hei whakaruruhau, hei tauira, hei poupou mō te hapori, ā, he parekura anō hoki tērā. Auē taukuri e.

[Greetings, Mr Speaker, and to us all. I say to the House that a person has been taken out by a cruel and murderous hand. He is the one resting there upon his bed of eternal slumber, stretched out beneath the cloak, and before his family. Regardless who one is, and the circumstances, that is the nature of death. But when a person regarded as a protector, icon, and pillar of the community dies in the manner he did, then it becomes a devastation and a real travesty.]

The roll-call of lives lost over the last century—officers killed in the performance of their official duties—is a tragic memorial to people who paid the highest sacrifice for their commitment to public service. Last Thursday that list grew longer. We in the Māori Party pay our deepest respects to the family, the colleagues, and the community who now grieve their loss. It is indeed appropriate for this House to mourn with those who are most affected by the heartbreak caused by the shooting in Napier. All of us in this House will know the pain of losing a loved one through death—the loss of a father, a son, a brother, a cousin, an uncle, or a partner. That grief is dramatically and traumatically heightened when it is under such tragic circumstances as this. We extend our support also to the families of the two officers and to the brave member of the public injured in this event, and forever scarred by the events of the day.

This is an extremely serious and sad moment for all New Zealanders. The context of the shooting itself cannot be overstated. That day will always be marked for the people of Bluff Hill by vivid memories of the chaos that rolled out that morning. They will think of the threats of munitions. They will be haunted by the shots that pierced the air. They will remember the reports of the high-powered weapons, the involvement of the armed offenders squad and the Special Tactics Group, the lockdown of all the schools in the vicinity, the rescue helicopter circling, the deployment of the dog unit, the ambulances on stand-by, and the police cars searching the streets. Well over 2,000 children now have an experience of terror that no one would wish for our young. The children of Carlyle Kindergarten, Nelson Park School, Napier Central School, Napier Intermediate School, Sacred Heart College, and Napier Girls High School were all unwilling participants in the incident that erupted around them.

This is the not the New Zealand that we believe in. The horrific shooting and the subsequent siege that occurred over the weekend will have massive impacts, rippling across many communities. First and foremost, we think of the families who grieve and who suffer the enduring legacy of that day. We think of the police officers throughout New Zealand who will each take on the pain of the slaughter of one of their colleagues but will get up each day and go to work. We think of the Napier community: the children and the members of the public who are shell-shocked at the events that unfolded in their town. We think of Takapau, a small town of relatives and friends, of Māori and Pākehā—the home base of the Snee family—who shed tears and mucous together as the village said goodbye to a loved son on his marae. And we think of ourselves as New Zealanders, haunted by the violence that took over a community, and asking why it happened and how things could have been done differently.

We must never let this happen again. If there is one thing I hope we can do to honour the memory of Lenny Snee, it is to cooperate across this House to invest in peaceful communities in all that we do.

Nā reira, kai te tamaiti, kai te rangatira, haere i te huarahi kua whārakitia te mana ki ō tīpuna, mātua. E Lenny, haere, haere, haere.

[And so to you, Lenny, son and leader, tread the pathway to your ancestors, which is paved with integrity. Go forth, depart, farewell.]

Hon JIM ANDERTON (Leader—Progressive) Link to this

I, too, join with other party leaders in expressing my deepest condolences to the family of Len Snee. I, too, wish a speedy and full recovery to the injured as they lie in hospital. I send my best wishes to their families, who must be desperately worried as they pray and wait at the bedsides of the fallen.

Maybe the most sombre thing we do in this or any other Parliament is to send men and women into danger on behalf of New Zealand citizens and communities. The plaques on this Chamber’s walls reflect their sacrifice. We send them out, knowing that sometimes on the darkest days they will not come back. When we send them out we send them to defend New Zealanders. They are there for us. They go out as our bravest, and, when they fall, something of us all falls with them. Every police officer knows that when he or she goes about his or her duty, even on an apparently normal day, danger and unpredictability lurk. Police officers take on that danger on our behalf. We can never repay sufficiently our debt to them, and we cannot begin to repay the debt we owe to those who give their lives for us.

Most of us have learnt a lot about Len Snee in the last few days. We learnt about his professionalism as a police officer. We learnt about his popularity in, and his commitment to, his community. I pay tribute to him personally and I hope that as his family grieve they can find some small comfort in the respect and admiration his countrymen and women are universally expressing. I hope New Zealanders will show their respect by declining to seek political mileage from this death while the wounds are still so raw. It is very easy to exploit the strong emotions we feel over a tragedy like this. It is easy, but it is wrong. I congratulate the Prime Minister and say that I agree with his reaction when he said he was not going to be stampeded into a call for arming New Zealand’s police in their day-to-day operations. That response, in my view, was the right response.

There will be lessons to be learnt from this tragedy, of course, and we will all have to reflect carefully on them. But the time for making political judgments is not now. I am sure the family of the murdered officer are not yet ready to have him used for point-scoring about guns, nor for political mileage about drugs, crime, policing, mental health, or any of the other issues that will inevitably give us pause. This is simply a time to give thanks to the men and women whom we ask to protect us, to share the grief of Len Snee’s family and friends, and to express our strength as a New Zealand community that comes together in a way that makes our bond stronger whenever we are confronted with a tragedy like this.

Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) Link to this

Across New Zealand nearly every day of the year families farewell each other in the morning as they go off to work, to college, or to school, to go about their normal daily lives, and they look forward to the time when they come home at the end of the day. So it was, I suspect, in the Snee household last Thursday morning. No one could have imagined that within a few short hours Senior Constable Snee and his two colleagues would have confronted the awesome reality that they did, and that Constable Snee would lie dead. That is hard enough for any family to have to come to grips with—the sudden traumatic loss of a father, a husband, and a loved one. The circumstances make it so much worse in this case.

We can stand here in this House and genuinely express our sympathy and our horror at what has happened, but I doubt that any of us would be bold enough to say that in so doing we have even a modicum of understanding of the feeling that the family who are suffering today as a consequence of these actions have. I think it is right and proper to pay tribute to an outstanding police officer. I think it is right and proper to call to mind the expectations we as a community place upon the police and how for granted we take the fact that they will always be there to undertake those unpleasant tasks.

I agree with other speakers: this is not the time to draw political lessons. There is much work to be done in understanding what happened on this occasion, and in learning over time the lessons so that these events cannot be repeated. But for now our response as a community has to be to come around the affected families, to support them in their moments of deep despair and distraught grief, to encourage them to try to face the future with some confidence, to give them the assurance that we recognise the contribution of their loved ones, and to honour Constable Snee, Constable Miller, and Constable Diver by these words in the House this afternoon. This has been a horrific week for New Zealand. I think New Zealand has reacted with some dignity and calm and now we need to show that same dignity, calm, and space as we support the affected families who are recovering from this tragedy.