Tapu Misa: It's not really the crime, it's the hypocrisy

Judgment day has arrived for David Garrett. Photo / Mark Mitchell

Killing time in an airport lounge in Shanghai with a group of Kiwis hungry for news of home, it was easy to sit in judgment of the former Act MP dominating the news sites.

Should the unlovely, zero-tolerance, hard-on-crims, "three strikes and you're out" David Garrett continue to grace the hallowed halls of Parliament with his presence, despite being marooned from his own party? The summary judgment was swift and harsh.

But back home it turned out to be a little less clear-cut, if no less bizarre.

The identity fraud happened 26 years ago, long before Garrett became an MP. Apparently inspired by the novel The Day of The Jackal, Garrett had trawled a cemetery and stolen the identity of a dead 2-year-old boy to get a fake passport, just to see if he could.

Judge Keith de Ridder, who let Garrett off without a conviction in 2005, and gave him the protection of permanent name suppression (since lifted), hadn't known about Garrett's 2002 conviction for assault when he'd talked about his "blameless life" since the offence.

Would it have made a difference if he had? Probably not, given Garrett never used the fake passport, and the Tonga assault was relatively minor.

But the fact that the barrister might have misled the court by claiming in an affidavit that he had a clean slate, as One News has reported, makes a great deal of difference now. Judgment day has arrived for Act's former law and order spokesman, and unfortunately for Garrett, the court of public opinion is inclined to be less merciful than the judiciary.

Certainly the public reaction so far has seemed more visceral, reflecting the revulsion many people feel for the idea of stealing the identity of a dead baby. The fact that Garrett did it for the hell of it is arguably worse than if he'd gained some benefit from it.

To carry out his crime, Garrett visited a cemetery, disguised himself with dyed hair and glasses for a passport photo, gave a false address, and supplied a fake reference. As he said recently of another offender: "It was, as with many crimes, a series of deliberate steps."

The MP characterises his actions as a youthful prank, which makes him sound like a feckless youth of 16 rather than the 26-year-old adult he was at the time. He told police he had delusions of grandeur. He's also admitted to having a depressive anxiety disorder.

So how should we judge David Garrett? Should we apply the kind of hardline, zero- tolerance approach to law and order that Garrett and his allies at the Sensible Sentencing Trust are so enamoured of?

Or treat the beleaguered MP with the kind of sympathy and understanding favoured by his "namby-pamby, soft-on-crime" criminal-loving political foes on the left?

Kim Workman of the liberal Rethinking Crime and Punishment says Garrett should be allowed to get on with his life, like anyone else who's been on the wrong side of the law and turned his life around.

And Peter Williams, QC, of the Howard League for Penal Reform, who opposed Garrett's three strikes legislation, says the Act MP has "demonstrated that no human being is perfect, and some recognition should be given to rehabilitation and repentance".

All of which I agree with. I'm not a fan of Garrett's, his policies, or his behaviour. Last year, for example, he was reprimanded for making lewd comments to a female parliamentary staffer. He blamed the years he'd spent in Tonga, saying he now understood that "the kind of thing that might have been okay in a law firm in Tonga is not okay in Parliament".

But watching him finally 'fessing up in Parliament, and attempting to elude pursuing journalists, it was hard not to feel sorry for him. Garrett's crimes are forgivable, and probably would have been if he'd been open about them when he put himself forward at the last election. It goes without saying that we all make mistakes, and we all of us deserve second chances.

The problem for Garrett is his behaviour on being found out: he lied to the police when first interviewed about the passport fraud, and seems to have misled Judge de Ridder about his Tonga conviction. The problem for Rodney Hide and Act is that both offences were known to them from the start.

Once again, hypocrisy is their undoing. Labour points out that both Garrett and Act have opposed name suppression and clean- slates legislation which wipes minor convictions from the public record.

As Phil Goff told Radio New Zealand, the family of the dead child whose identity was stolen "have effectively been gagged for years by a suppression order while they have to listen to Mr Garrett pontificating about being opposed to suppression orders, being in favour of openness, being in favour of the rights of victims".