The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill

Hon Rodney Hide, ACT Leader
Thursday May 6, 2010

This speech sent out earlier today incorrectly identified this Bill as the Sentencing and Reform Amendment Bill. Please note that the Bill is actually titled the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill.

Hon Rodney Hide second reading speech given in the House of Representatives, Wellington; Tuesday 4 May 2010.

This is a very proud day for the ACT Party and for our members and supporters who have campaigned for many, many years for better protection of law-abiding citizens.

It shows that those people who have supported the ACT Party and voted for it have made a difference to our country and will make our country a safer place in which to live.

The ACT Party, as part of its constitution, has the view that the primary role of any Government is to keep citizens safe in their communities, in their places of work, and at home. We are also aware, as a party, that keeping our communities safe is part of the wider set of policies needed to deal with disadvantage in our society.

I take on board the comments made by the Labour Party and the Green Party.

The way the ACT Party looks at these wider issues is that to address poverty and economic and social disadvantage we must reform welfare, keep our communities safe from crime, improve education through school choice, and stop taxing low-income people so punitively. Instead, our tax system punishes enterprise and hard work, our welfare system encourages attitudes that destroy personal responsibility, self-reliance, and self-confidence, and our schooling fails up to a third of our children.

Out of all these failures has come a crime rate, particularly a rate of violent crime, that should shame us all. Our poorest communities suffer the most from criminal offending - from petty offences, through to the most violent offences. Murder, rape, and aggravated robbery have become all too common. I say to Mr Horomia that it is amongst Maori that the ACT Party, in comments, has received the most support because they suffer so badly from violent crime.

Our sentencing system is weak and the parole system has clearly failed us. Offenders released on parole all too often commit further violent crime. These criminals have torn apart the lives of their victims. Their victims must live with the effects of the crime - the pain, the fear, the anguish - for the rest of their lives. For victims, the crime is just the beginning.

ACT campaigned hard for tougher sentencing with the "three strikes" policy in the 2008 election. After the election we negotiated an agreement with National to give ACT’s "three strikes" policy a fair hearing at the Law and Order Select Committee, and through the past year, ACT and National have worked constructively together to agree on a "three strikes" policy designed to keep Kiwis safe.

I particularly single out the Minister of Justice, Simon Power; the Minister of Police, Judith Collins; the Prime Minister; and the entire National caucus as those with whom we have had many discussions with over the past year. This law will be a huge step towards getting the most violent repeat offenders off our streets and keeping law-abiding citizens safe. The "three strikes" policy is focused on a small subset of criminal activity.

It is not by any means a policy that addresses the wider set of issues surrounding effective policing or that gets younger people off a pathway to crime. Those issues are, of course, of the utmost importance, but the "three strikes" policy is an essential part of the full mix of policies needed. It is focused solely on the worst violent crimes. It is focused on the few who repeatedly commit violent crime.

Unlike the California law, people will not get severe sentences from relatively trivial offences under this law. The offences on the qualifying list all represent serious crimes. This policy is about protecting our citizens from violent repeat offenders. This policy will keep our communities safe by deterring those criminals who are rational enough to see that their repeat violent offending will be met with escalating punishment.

Those who are not rational will be locked away, and that is as it should be. On strike one, the offender receives a sentence as determined by a judge with parole, as at present. Nothing will change, except this: the judge will tell the offender that that is strike one. Strike two: the offender receives a sentence as determined by a judge, but now with no parole. Again, the judge will tell the offender that that is strike two. At strike three, the offender will receive the maximum sentence for that crime with no parole. That is strike three: the maximum sentence with no parole. An essential element of the "three strikes" policy is that it deliberately escalates the punishment for repeat violent offenders.

Most offenders will not want to risk a second strike, so when they are told about their first strike, they will have to think very, very hard about whether they amend their ways or carry on a life of violent crime. Is it not a good thing that we send a signal to young, male violent offenders that it is a good idea to stop their violent offending? Is that not the sort of signal that we want to be sending Maori, Pacific Islanders, Europeans, or whoever it is who is committing the crime in our community? That is what this bill will do. Most offenders will not want to risk a second strike, and they certainly will not want a third strike.

The evidence demonstrates that these policies work. Some offenders modify their behaviour, and again, I ask whether that is not a good thing. No longer will they hurt people, but, more particularly, they will improve the way that they live their lives. Those who do not modify their behaviour will be locked away for longer. And so they should, because, like I said, the ACT Party has the view that our first priority is to protect people from violent crime. If people cannot modify their behaviour, and if they are going to come out and kill, rape, and maim, then we say that our first priority is to keep our citizens safe. That is what the "three strikes" policy is all about.

This policy is about making New Zealand a safer place in which to live, work, and raise our children. It is about sending the very powerful signal to repeat violent offenders that their repeat violent offending will no longer be tolerated.

I say that it is about time we all stood up as New Zealanders and said no to violent crime. It is time that everyone in this House stood up and said that they will not tolerate repeat violent crime and that they will not make excuses for repeat violent crime. I am astonished to be sitting here listening to the Labour Party and the Green Party excuse it.

I think that that would be okay for people who are protected and safe from violent crime and who do not live amongst it on a day-by-day basis, but I say that, for the first time ever, we have a Government that hears the message of New Zealanders. It is responding to the concern of New Zealanders and it is saying "Halt, enough!" to violent crime. We will not tolerate repeat violent crime.

I say to New Zealanders that everyone can see this day in this Parliament that the ACT Party has made a difference, that people’s support for the ACT Party has made a difference, and that their vote for the ACT Party has made a difference. I think it is a shame that more MPs have not heard the concerns of their communities that it is well past the time when we should have said no to repeat violent offending. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.

ENDS

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