Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) Link to this

The purpose of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, according to the purpose clause, is to deny parole to certain repeat offenders and to offenders guilty of the worst murders. I think that there is a problem with that language, because it includes manslaughter as well. We have created an interesting juxtaposition in this legislation. The Minister will know that there are people who are found guilty of manslaughter who could not possibly be defined as guilty of the worst murders. I will mention a case that I became familiar with when we had the debate on provocation. I would like the Committee to reflect on the fact that this purpose clause refers to—

CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) Link to this

I am speaking to clause 3.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

I take this opportunity to address some of the issues raised by the previous speakers as to the purpose of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. Quite clearly, this Government is very serious about repeat violent offenders and making sure we have penalties that fit the fact that these people have continued to commit violent offences where there are victims. Every one of the 40 offences listed is a serious violent offence. Whether of a sexual or of a non-sexual nature, they are all serious. The issue of manslaughter has been raised and whether accidental or negligent manslaughter could be excluded. I say there is a degree of negligence required to establish liability for manslaughter. It is one of the differences between manslaughter and murder, and it is why there is a provision in terms of the sentencing that is in the bill as presented to the Committee now to differentiate manslaughter from murder. There are also opportunities in the charging of offenders in the third stage for any third strike. The police will be referring those matters to the Crown solicitor for a review of the charging so there is not an overcharge. Where there is a true negligence situation, it will make sure that those people are not overly charged and, therefore, given a very long sentence.

I have heard a lot about victims. Ninety-three percent of submitters to the Law and Order Committee supported the bill, and many of those people were victims and victims’ families. On the argument that has been put this afternoon that offenders will not plead guilty, and will plead not guilty instead, I point out that offenders already plead not guilty for a lot of serious offences. On that argument we would be forced to reduce the penalty for sexual violation from the 20 years it is now; I am not proposing that, and I do not believe that anybody in this Parliament really believes that that would lead to more people admitting their guilt.

This has a deterrent effect, although it has been stated previously that the Department of Corrections was quoted as saying there was no deterrent effect. Well, no, the papers referred to the fact that when the Department of Corrections did its calculations on the number of extra beds it would need for prisons, it had not taken into account any deterrent effect, and that is because it has to work off what it knows. What we are talking about here are our worst recidivist violent offenders, and an extra 50 beds in 5 years’ time, or about that number. Those are the sorts of numbers we are talking about. We are not talking about the run-of-the-mill silly criminal. We are talking about very serious violent offenders, who will not learn and will always create victims. That is what is important, and that is what this bill is meant to address.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

I have to confess that I come to this debate on the “three strikes” legislation with some reluctance. I find it very difficult to place myself in the shoes of a victim of a violent offence, particularly a victim of a violent offence committed by a repeat offender. I find it very difficult because I do not necessarily know how I would react if I was in that situation. Of course, I think all of the members of the Committee who speak on the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill have a lot of sympathy for people who find themselves in that position. Our hearts certainly go out to them. It is understandable that they would look to the criminal justice system for an element of retribution, and for punishment of those who have perpetrated those crimes. That is very understandable, and I can certainly see why victims would regard that as important.

However, if I were asked to rank retribution versus prevention in order of priority, I would place prevention much higher up the list. Although retribution is certainly part of our criminal justice system, the prevention of crime in the first place has to be integral to what we do. One of the fundamental questions that we always need to ask about any legislation before the Committee is what it will do to prevent crime in the first place. One of the most pertinent questions in respect of this legislation is whether it will make an offender less likely to reoffend, and whether it will aid prisoner rehabilitation so that offenders are less likely to reoffend when they are released from prison. A lot of evidence has been presented from overseas and from within New Zealand suggesting that that will not be the case. It suggests, in fact, that these initiatives will not improve the rate of rehabilitation or reduce the rate of reoffending once somebody is released from prison. That has to be fundamental to this debate: what will make our communities safer? Yes, offenders are reoffending. That suggests that part of our criminal justice system—the retribution and punishment system that we have at the moment—is not working to rehabilitate prisoners and prevent reoffending. How can we improve that? I am not sure that doing more of the same, making the sentences longer and holding people in prison for longer, will necessarily contribute to a better outcome in that regard.

I have spent a lot of time discussing these issues in my own electorate of Rimutaka. We have the country’s biggest prison in my electorate, Rimutaka Prison, and I am guided a lot by the work of Prison Fellowship New Zealand, which I think does some fantastic work at Rimutaka Prison, working with really difficult people. The last person to whom I spoke about this bill before coming to the Chamber was involved with the Prison Fellowship. He said to me that he had met some people in prison who he thinks are really bad people, and he would hate to think of them being out there in the community, but he has also met some people, while working in Rimutaka Prison, whom he would be proud to introduce me to. Those comments were made by somebody in the Prison Fellowship environment, who was trying to rehabilitate prisoners so that the rate of reoffending was decreased and offenders were properly reintegrated into the community once they were released. I really take that on board. That person does not think this bill makes good policy, because he sees a number of problems with it. For example, prison discipline could well become a problem if prisoners have all hope of being released from prison removed. If they know that they are in prison for a very, very long time and there is no chance of parole, what will provide them with the incentive to reform, to behave, and to try to better themselves in prison? That is the feedback I get.

I also have a number of prison officers in my electorate whom I interact with on a reasonably frequent basis. They do one of the toughest jobs I could possibly imagine. They deal with some of the most difficult people—actually quite awful people, quite often—and a lot of the prison guards I talk to are concerned about the implications this bill will have for their ability to control the people who are in prison. I have a lot of sympathy with that view, and I can understand the argument they put forward. In fact, I think that what we should be doing is looking to refocus the debate in this area on to how we can stop so many people landing up in prison in the first place. All of the evidence that I have seen so far suggests that putting someone in prison probably makes them more likely to reoffend. Quite often it makes them worse criminals as they come out the other end of it, because they become so disconnected from society.

We also need to think very carefully about what prompts a lot of the offending in the first place. Many of the perpetrators of violent crime are often victims of violent crime before they are perpetrators of it, and I think we need to look very carefully at that.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

It is important to remember throughout this debate that the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is unashamedly about reducing the number of victims and about public safety in general. Since the election four more people have died at the hands of persons who, had this law been in place at the time they committed their crimes, would have been in jail. That is not rhetoric. It is not spin. It is a simple fact. I heard someone insultingly say the other day, when this subject came up in another forum, that we cannot say that about the numbers we talked about in the initial phase because some of those victims might have died of diseases. As the Americans say, “Puh-lease”.

I have been involved in debates recently with a number of people on both sides of the argument—in fact, Mr Lees-Galloway and I had a debate a week ago, and a very civil affair it was too—but the most interesting one was probably a debate in Auckland 2 or 3 weeks ago with Professor Warren Brookbanks, a respected academic at the University of Auckland, and Dr Ekins, who has published quite widely on this subject. Dr Brookbanks was good enough to agree several things in that debate. First, he readily agreed that only in the tiny pool that is New Zealand are most academics opposed to this legislation. Professor Brookbanks acknowledged that in the United States, opinion is about even on whether the “three strikes” laws, in the 26 US states that have them, have been effective.

But he went further. Professor Brookbanks also agreed with me that the two phenomena I pointed out to him were, in fact, evidence of a deterrent effect. One of them was that of the prison population in California who are “strikers”, about 60 percent are first-strikers, about 30 percent are second-strikers, and only about 10 percent are third-strikers. Professor Brookbanks agreed with me that that distribution indicated that although first-strikers were more numerous, a much smaller number wished to go back for another go, and a very much smaller number wished to go back for a third go. Secondly, Professor Brookbanks agreed on the fact that prior to 1994 there was a net inflow of parolees into the state of California. That was the year, of course, that the “three strikes” law was enacted in California. Prior to 1994, parolees came from other states to California, I presume because of the weather, because it was a nice place to live, and because of its lifestyle, etc. Post-1994 there was a net outflow of parolees, particularly among strikes offenders who got out after a second strike and quickly got across the border to Arizona or Washington state, which do not have “three strikes” laws. Professor Brookbanks agreed with me that that was evidence of deterrence.

Another thing that impresses me is my ongoing communication with a lobby group in California, which I have referred to in the House before, called Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes. Note that the name of the organisation has the word “Amend”, not “Abolish”. I sent that organisation the original ACT version of this bill, which was quite different from the version we are debating today. I have the comment on record: “David, compared with what we’ve got here, yours is wonderful.” I spoke to the president of Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes a week or so ago, a lady called Geri Silva, and told her where things were at and what was happening. She again expressed great surprise that, as she put it, we do not have LWOP—life without parole—even for the really bad guys. When we visited Families to Amend California’s Three Strikes 3 years ago, together with Tai Hobson, the widower of Mary Hobson, one of William Bell’s victims, Geri could not believe that, as she put it, “this guy”—Bell—“was on the streets with 102 previous convictions”. So it is quite instructive that a left-wing lobby group seeks only to amend the law, and that it would be delighted with the legislation we will be passing. The organisation does not seek to abolish the law, because it can see that it is working.

Another thing that is interesting, and that has never been canvassed in this Chamber before to my knowledge, is that the Americans have a system called propositions, which we would call binding referenda. In fact, the original “three strikes” law came into being in California through a proposition. But in 2004 there was an attempt to weaken California’s Act to something pretty close to what we have, most notably in narrowing the focus down to what the state calls “serious violent felonies”. As I have said in other speeches, the undoubted injustices in California have arisen from this grey category called “technical felony”, and that is what has led to the cases that are much discussed, of people going to jail for life for stealing golf clubs, etc. A proposition was put on the ballot in 2004 to weaken California’s very wide law down to something very similar to what we have—and it was defeated. It was defeated most heavily in poor, black counties. Rich liberals from San Francisco wanted it weakened, because crime does not affect them. But poor black counties in Los Angeles rejected it by a country mile. I was reminded of that fact—that poor communities are those most affected—when I visited the Māngere Māori wardens a few weeks back, and I did not have to finish what I was saying about crime affecting poor people worst. They knew it. I was a bit nervous about presenting the “three strikes” argument to these people but they were right on board with it. They thought it was a great idea.

So this bill is indeed a victim-focused bill. It will, at the very least, reduce the number of victims through incapacitation; it cannot do otherwise. Aside from tragedies such as what happened to the corrections officer over the weekend—one of those who do that very challenging job on behalf of the rest of us—I cannot see any good reason why the deterrent effect that Professor Brookbanks acknowledges from the data overseas would not be replicated here, and we know that the adverse effects such as going to jail for stealing a pizza or stealing golf clubs simply cannot happen here. I am disappointed that some who are in opposition to this bill—I do not mean the parliamentary Opposition but those in the community—are being frankly dishonest in still saying that under the law we are going to pass, people can go to jail for life for stealing a chocolate bar, when they must know, if they have read the bill, that that is simply untrue.

ACT supports the bill; it was our idea in the first place. We believe very firmly and honestly that it will make a major change. I close by saying that of course we need to look at the causes of crime. I will take a later call, and give someone else a chance to speak. But we do need to look at drug treatment. I heard a very interesting lecture this morning by an American judge about drug courts in California and what they have done. We have to start somewhere and we are starting by making this change of direction in saying to violent offenders that if they cannot learn from being told twice by a judge, and by definition serving a lengthy period of imprisonment, adding first and second strikes together, then they have no place in the community. ACT makes no bones about that and we are unashamed of it. Thank you.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy) Link to this

Before I call the Hon Clayton Cosgrove, I just remind members that we are on clause 3, “Purpose”. I am not getting at anyone in particular, but I think we have progressed slightly to quite a broad debate, and I wish to not have it extend any further, because there are only two paragraphs in the purpose clause. Members should just have a look at them. There will be ample opportunity as we progress through Part 1 etc. to get into the broader parameters of what this bill is about. This is just a wee heads-up. Thank you.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I appreciate the advice you have given, Mr Chair. I was not in the House for the first reading of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, but I want to make a couple of comments, bearing in mind your advice regarding clause 3, the purpose clause. It says, in essence, the purposes of the legislation are to “deny parole to certain repeat offenders and to offenders guilty of the worst murders”, and to “impose maximum terms of imprisonment on persistent repeat offenders who continue to commit serious violent offences.” On the face of it, and given the debate in the community that Mr Garrett has referred to, it would be reasonably hard to argue against some of those sentiments, until one delves into the detail of the proposals.

I say, firstly, there is a problem with regard to these sorts of debates for those of us who oppose these sorts of measures. I have never been a victim—not ever. As such I have to be careful, as a politician, even if it is just in relation to the purpose clause, about pontificating to the people who have been and are the victims of heinous crime. I acknowledge that, and I also acknowledge in this debate that had my partner or my family been dealt to in the way that many in our community have been through tragic circumstances and heinous crime, I suspect I would be less logical, more emotional, and possibly more extreme in my attitude than I am. I accept that, because the closer that crime gets to one’s home the more personal the issue becomes, and, of course, the bigger the impact that it has.

But in this Chamber we are actually charged with trying to piece together, with the best will in the world, good, solid legislation that has a positive effect. Let us put aside the argument that if one is not an extremist and a hard-liner one is soft on crime, or that if one is interested in reform one is soft on crime—that sort of drivel, which we hear often in this Chamber. If we put the political claptrap aside, I would wager and take a political risk in saying that probably every member of Parliament on either side of the Chamber cares about victims and believes that the guilty should be punished, but also believes that the behaviour of offenders should be changed—that they should be rewired. I would wager that we all want to pass effective legislation that actually works.

As we look at the purpose clause the problem for the Labour Opposition is that I am sure that as we go through this debate, sadly, we will have the usual sort of comment made that anyone who is opposed to this legislation is a hand-wringing liberal who is soft on crime. That is probably where it will go; it has degenerated into that right through the debate on this bill. But those of us who are opposed to this purpose clause are opposed to it because we do not believe that this legislation will work. We do not believe that it will have the effect suggested by its promoters. We believe that this purpose clause, along with every other clause in the bill, is more about political posturing, is more about bluntly tugging at the heartstrings of victims, and more about raising the expectations of victims than it is about having the effect that has been suggested. In the years to come, I suspect that we, or maybe others, will be back in this place, looking at what this debate was about and what—[Interruption] Well, there we go; the utterances from that member prove my point. We will be back here to look at this legislation—either to amend it or dispose of it—because it will not have had the practical effects or provided the deterrence that its supporters and promoters say it will.

I bow to Mr Garrett, who is a lawyer. I am sure we could dredge out all sorts of statistics from all sorts of places—and that has been done by members from both sides in this debate—about whether paragraph (a) of the purpose clause, regarding the denial of parole to repeat offenders, will have the practical effect that the promoters want to achieve in terms of deterring crime and, I presume, changing people’s behaviour. It is interesting that Mr Garrett quoted an American judge. We had an American judge come to our caucus: Judge Hyman. I think he went around the country. As a judge in California, he had administered the Californian version of this law. I acknowledge Mr Garrett’s point that someone will not receive a life sentence for stealing a stick of gum—I accept that. But Judge Hyman’s thesis, based on his experience of administering a law where, as in the purpose clause of this bill, there are aspects of denying parole and imposing maximum sentences, was that that did not work. We will back what works, and we will oppose what does not work.

Dr CAM CALDER (National) Link to this

The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is just part of this Government’s review of law and order issues after years of supervised neglect by the late, unlamented, Labour administration, whose languor, lassitude, and legislative listlessness and flaccidity mired our country in a miasma of torpor and despond. We are addressing the issues. This principled, pragmatic National-led Government is listening to New Zealanders and finding solutions to their concerns.

We have here in front of us the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. This bill has two main purposes. The first is to deny parole to repeat serious, violent offenders, and to offenders who are guilty of committing the worst murders. What could be arguable about that? The second purpose is to impose maximum terms of imprisonment on persistent repeat offenders who continue to commit serious violent crimes. I put it to you that that is an entirely reasonable sanction to place upon violent repeat offenders. This bill is specifically focused on those offenders who show no regard for others. They show no regard for their victims, no regard for their families or their community, and are repeatedly convicted for serious and violent offending. All of those offences have a maximum penalty of at least 7 years in prison. The bill ensures also that victims of repeat offenders and their families do not have to experience the additional stress of attending regular parole hearings or worry that an offender may be released on parole.

So how will this bill work? It creates a three-stage regime that will improve public safety by imprisoning the worst repeat violent and sexual offenders for longer periods and under increasingly strict regimes if they continue to offend. At stage one, offenders who are convicted of a serious violent offence will be sentenced as normal but will be warned both verbally and in writing that they are on the first rung of the regime and of what will happen if they are convicted of another serious violent offence in the future. Now, critics of that have said that offenders do not consider the consequences of their actions when they commit crimes, so longer sentences are not an effective deterrent. However, the road to a third strike is a long one, which involves clear warnings, delivered by a judge, about the consequences of various serious offending, and considerable time in prison, where, it is hoped, they will reflect on their actions.

So at stage two, offenders who are convicted for the second time of a serious violent offence, and who have previously received a warning, will be sentenced as normal, but will be required to serve without parole any sentence of imprisonment imposed by the court. That is eminently reasonable. They will also be warned both verbally and in writing of the consequences of a further conviction for a serious violent offence. So in no way can those offenders be in any doubt of the consequences of their actions.

At stage three an offender who is convicted for a third time of a serious violent offence and has previously received a final warning at stage two must receive the maximum prison sentence for that offence and serve that sentence in full without parole. However, this bill recognises that in some very rare cases the circumstances of the offender and the offence will be such that a sentence served without parole would be manifestly unjust. The bill takes that into account and makes provision for the court, where it is satisfied that a no-parole order would be manifestly unjust, to not make such an order at stage three when imposing the maximum term for a serious violent offence. I commend this bill to the House.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

First, I give the condolences of the Green Party to the family of the prison guard who was so tragically killed recently by a prisoner. I think that hangs over what we are debating here today. We want to reduce violence in our society and violence in our prisons. David Garrett says that the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is about reducing the number of victims. I believe he is sincere that that is the aim of the bill; I just happen to disagree that this bill will reduce the number of victims of crime, including serious violent crime, in our society. I think Chris Hipkins was right when he said, in an earlier speech, that we really should be focusing on prevention, which includes rehabilitation, and not on retribution. So partly here we are discussing a different philosophy of how to deal with people in prison who have committed crimes.

There was an interesting article in Time magazine of 10 May about Norway’s second-largest prison, which opened on 8 April and has a completely different focus from our prisons as they currently are—well, not completely different, but it has a very strong emphasis on rehabilitation. The concept is that being in prison is itself the punishment, and all the effort should be placed on rehabilitation. The prison governor said that in the Norwegian prison system there is a focus on human rights and respect. Later on the article talks about the prison guards having meals with inmates, and all kinds of things that really push people on the road to rehabilitation. It gives some statistics. Twenty percent of Norway’s prisoners end up in jail again 2 years after their release. I do not have the exact New Zealand figures to hand, but they are much, much higher. As a result of that relatively low rate of reoffending, Norway, which has about the same population as New Zealand, has 3,300 prisoners, whereas the current figure in New Zealand is, I do not know, 8,500 to 9,000—about three times as much. I think we can learn from that. To just say we should abolish parole for a certain category of prisoners—and parole is essential for prisoners’ transition from prison to society—is going in completely the opposite direction, and will only raise the rate of reoffending and the rate of violent crime, which this bill is intended to deal with.

Judith Collins, in her speech, said that there are those who will never learn. That comment was directed at a section of the prison population. Sure, some prisoners may be so distorted in their personalities, etc., that they will never learn, but I think the approach is not to define prisoners, due to the nature of the crimes they commit, as beyond rehabilitation. The potential for rehabilitation is partly an independent factor, and we must try every possibility, particularly for the most violent criminals, to get prisoners on the right path when they leave jail. We must not just hold over their heads the “three strikes” policy or elimination of parole, but have an approach that involves some empathy for the prisoners.

One thing that worries me is that if we define a certain category of these prisoners as “evil” or “beyond rehabilitation”, we are almost denying in ourselves empathy, and that is a part of the criminal psyche. The criminal who commits violent robbery, murder, and so on is usually lacking the empathy towards the victim that would enable that crime to be prevented. We have to turn it the other way round and try to get those prisoners, while they are in jail, to have some social concern and to think beyond their own narrow interests.

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

I think that when we look at the purpose clause, we see, as my colleague Clayton Cosgrove said before, that there would be quite widespread acknowledgment across the Committee that we are concerned about reoffending. We have to be concerned about reoffending in our communities. When people go and spend time in prison, then leave, and recommit crimes, we have to ask ourselves why that is so, and what we can be doing about it. It is clearly defeating the purpose of people going to prison if they are constantly reoffending when they come out, and I think there is a shared concern about that across the Committee. There is a shared concern about what underlies the purpose clause there, which is that the safety of the public should be paramount when it comes to how we operate within the criminal justice system. There is a shared concern about that, right across New Zealand society.

As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove also said, in our jobs as MPs we all meet the victims of crime. Some of us have been the victims of various types of crime but we also meet many victims of crime, and feel the pain they have had and the experiences they have to continue to go through, day after day—well beyond the time the crimes were perpetrated. All of those things lie behind the concerns of everybody in this Chamber, and I am sure they lie behind the purpose clause we are debating at the moment. But in the end, as a Parliament our job is to pass laws that will be effective and will work, and that have evidence to support them in doing that. I do not believe, and Labour members do not believe, that this bill will do that, or that this purpose clause can be supported, despite what might lie behind it as a commonly held concern.

The problem with this bill is that it is unworkable, it is also inequitable, and it will not lead to just sentences in the way, perhaps, that the promoters would like it to. Mr Garrett said we needed to start somewhere, but my problem with this bill is that this is not where we should be starting. We should be starting by working to stop people from committing crimes, and by investing in the early years to ensure that people do not move into a life of crime. We need to be ensuring that we are properly supporting rehabilitation and reintegration into society, and that we are not undermining the organisations that do that work or cutting the funding for the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society, a 132-year-old organisation that does remarkable work on reintegration. We should actually be devoting ourselves to starting where we can have the greatest impact—that is, starting by working with young people who are heading in a direction we do not want them to go down. We should be starting at an even younger stage, with people who have learning difficulties, who cannot stay in school, and who have behavioural problems. We should be supporting parents to be able to bring up those young people. That is where we should be starting.

But the purpose clause—and the drive behind this bill—is a poster; it is a slogan, it is an emblem. It is not real change, not real development; it is something the ACT Party has promoted and National has gone along with, but it is not actually starting in the place where we should start. I am sorry to say that I think the purpose clause there gives false hope to people. It gives false hope that somehow this bill will solve the violent crime that is out there, but there is no evidence to support that. Internationally there is no evidence to support that, and nothing has been presented to us here that does that. The regulatory impact statement for this bill actually challenges, time and time again, the issue of whether public safety will be enhanced, whether there is a deterrent effect. We cannot stand in this Chamber now and give to the victims of crimes and their families the false hope that somehow or other this legislation will wish away all of that violent crime. I believe that that is what is going on here, in terms of the ACT Party and National. They are providing false hope to people. This regime is unlikely to deter would-be offenders; that is the evidence internationally. The regulatory impact statement raises that question.

Mr Garrett talked about California. It is easy to throw around different statistics in this debate, and, yes, there has been a drop in crime in parts of California. But that started before the “three strikes” bill. In the United States, the greatest, the sharpest, drop in crime in the last decades has actually been in New York, a state that does not have a “three strikes” law. So I ask Mr Garrett why we are not looking at that. In California, the counties that aggressively enforce the “three strikes” laws did not see the greatest drop in crime. The greatest drop in crime was seen in the counties that did not enforce the law as strongly. It is easy to throw up these statistics and get them out there, but that is not always the way to get the change we want.

JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

Part 1 of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill deals with the main changes to the principal legislation. It involves not only the ACT Party’s “three strikes” policy, on which it went into the last election, but also the National Party’s policy of no parole for the worst repeat violent offenders. It has been a pleasure working with Mr Garrett and the ACT Party on this bill. The party has been very decent to work with, and I thank it for that.

Changes have been made to this bill through the deliberations of the Law and Order Committee, which has been a long process over the last year. I thank the committee chair, Sandra Goudie, and all the committee members for the attention they gave to the bill.

In particular, some issues have been raised about rehabilitation—that perhaps we should just have more of it. I say that we do: we are doubling the amount of rehabilitation in our prisons. By the end of next year there will be double what there was when we took over as the Government. I do not agree, at all, that repeat violent offenders who create victims are themselves necessarily victims. At some stage in their lives those people must take responsibility for their actions. Will someone be old enough at 30 to take responsibility, or will that person be old enough at 40?

I think many of us feel that it is very important to have a system in place in our criminal justice system where people are given warnings about what will happen. I am very pleased with the assistance that has been given by judges and the judiciary, and by Mr Garrett, in relation to Supplementary Order Paper 123, which we are putting forward today, which is about how we can make sure that the warning system works best not only for offenders but also for victims and for the criminal justice system.

This bill is not about locking up people for stealing a loaf of bread; it is very much focused on our worst repeat violent offenders. When we talk about what we can do for them, let us talk about what we can do for victims, as well. One of the things we can do is keep the very worst people locked in secure environments so that they do not create more victims. I know that it is sometimes very painful for people to have to deal with the raw emotions of victims. I know that judges often find it very difficult to deal with victim impact statements, and I know that many of us who have not been the victims of horrendous violent offences find it very difficult to deal with people who are so raw in their emotions. Frankly, I think we are lucky to not be in that situation. My heart goes out to those people; I know that it is uncomfortable. But do members know what? We just have to accept it. It is their emotion; it is their life, or the life of their family member, that has been taken apart, and they deserve to be treated with dignity. This bill will give back some dignity to them and to their families.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

The Labour Party has put forward a number of amendments to Part 1, which I will briefly deal with. They relate to clause 5, which inserts a manifestly unjust provision for “three strikes” sentencing, and exclude in new section 86A accidental or negligent manslaughter, for reasons that I will go into later in the debate, and which my colleague has referred to. We have a number of other amendments.

I will make just a couple of points. What I think is interesting about the process around this bill, as we talk about Part 1, is a comment made by the Minister in the chair, the Minister of Corrections, in her summation. I think she said—and I will be corrected if I misquote her—that she does not consider offenders to be victims. To some extent I agree with her on that, but it is very interesting that if we accept—as, for instance, Mr Garrett did when he got into some difficulties in this place in his own office—

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

As a relatively new member, I am not sure whether it is my place to do this, but I have learnt in my time here that if one is being serious and is not making political points—which Mr Cosgrove denies he is doing—then the proper way to put forward amendments like Mr Cosgrove’s amendment is to consult with other parties well in advance, so that they have the opportunity to discuss proposed amendments—

GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) Link to this

Firstly, I take up Mr Garrett’s point about the amendments that the Labour Party has tabled here today to the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. This is the Committee stage; this is where amendments are tabled. It seems as though the Labour Party cannot do any good, any right, in Mr Garrett’s eyes: either we are not proposing alternatives and therefore we are just politicking, or we are proposing alternatives and therefore we are just politicking. I urge Mr Garrett to look at these amendments. These issues have been around throughout this debate. Probably nobody in this Chamber has been following this debate more closely than Mr Garrett. He knows what these amendments are about. He knows about the concerns about unjust sentencing. Those concerns were raised by the Ministry of Justice: they were raised by officials when commenting on the Cabinet paper. Mr Garrett knows what the concerns are about, and I urge him to look at the amendments that Clayton Cosgrove has proposed, and to consider whether this legislation fits with what the ACT Party has been telling people all around New Zealand about this bill.

In respect of the “manifestly unjust” clause, the ACT Party put out a pamphlet that said: “the judge sentencing a Strike Three offender will have no option but to sentence the offender to the maximum sentence. The only exception is if the judge determines it would be ‘manifestly unjust’ to do so.” That is wrong. This bill says the maximum sentence is mandatory—it has to be imposed. That is what this amendment is about. It is about making the concept of “manifestly unjust” mean something in this law. The amendment will address the point that was raised by the Ministry of Justice. So I really urge the parties opposite to look at the amendments that Labour is putting up.

Labour opposes this bill because we do not think it will work and we think it is inequitable. We would rather be focusing on the other end of the system. But we are now in the Committee stage of the debate, and we are prepared to put up amendments that will at least improve the bill and give real meaning, in this case, to the clause about sentences being “manifestly unjust”.

I turn to the amendment in clause 5(1) that inserts new section 86D in the Sentencing Act, to allow the court to reduce the sentence imposed by up to 25 percent in order to take into account the fact of a guilty plea. At the moment the incentive to plead guilty, particularly as we get to the third-strike offence, goes away. Why would somebody decide to plead guilty in that situation? We all know that if there are fewer guilty pleas, it will mean not only that there will be greater costs, obviously, but also that victims will have to go through more trials. We are trying to amend this bill so that we can allow guilty pleas to be taken into account. We have to think about this bill in terms of how it will work, not as a slogan, not as a set of slogans that allow people to go forth into the electorate and, like Ms Goudie, say this legislation will deter repeat offending. I invite the member opposite to read the clause and the amendment. The amendment to new section 86D aims to insert a new subsection that will allow guilty pleas to be taken into account properly.

It is very important to ensure that we make this law the best that it can possibly be. Labour believes this law is wrong. We do not support it in this Chamber, but we do want to ensure that we give meaning to some of the terms that are here, like the term “manifestly unjust”. We also want to make sure that we put incentives in place so that people will plead guilty, so that we can reduce the number of cases where victims have to go through the horror again of what happened to them.

We also have an amendment to new section 86C, also inserted by clause 5(1) of the bill. The amendment is to insert in subsection 4(a), after “serve the sentence without parole”, the words “unless the Court is satisfied that, given the circumstances of the offence and the offender, it would be manifestly unjust to make the order”. We are trying to cover off “manifestly unjust” as a meaningful statement in sentencing and in parole. It is vitally important as we go through this bill that we do not allow ourselves to be sucked into the belief that this set of slogans will provide the panacea to these problems. We need real, proper amendments to be made to this legislation in order to give it meaning, and we have not seen that at any point so far from the Government or the ACT Party. We have only seen a continuation of the clichés and the slogans, rather than an attempt to see how the legislation would work. Mr Garrett has said earlier that he wants this legislation to work properly. If he wants this legislation to be meaningful, he needs to adopt these amendments.

SANDRA GOUDIE (National—Coromandel) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

KEITH LOCKE (Green) Link to this

This is an interesting debate. Judith Collins said in her initial speech on the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill that criminals have to take responsibility for their crimes. I think that is quite true. When we talk about whether criminals are also victims and about problems in their past, we do not mean to say that criminals should not take responsibility for their crimes. But part of the process of stopping reoffending is to make them understand and internalise the horrible thing they have done to some other person, if it is a violent offence, and to society. That requires a whole process of rehabilitation. That is where there is a link between people taking responsibility for their crimes and the fact that they may be in part also victims.

Clayton Cosgrove mentioned the case of someone who might be raped at age 5 and who goes on in later life at age 25 to be a sexual predator. Alternatively, it is often the case in our prisons that there is a very high rate of illiteracy; a lot of prisoners have not, for one reason or another, learnt to read and speak very well, and tend to fall back in society, to not get proper jobs, and to resolve matters with their fists rather than by discussion. Rehabilitation in prison often means linking to some degree the crime that they have committed with their past. We need to get them to understand that, although they might feel that somehow they have some grievance and some justification for doing what they do, they do not really have that justification, and we can overcome their disadvantaged background together as part of the rehabilitation programme. David Garrett mentioned some programmes in relation to drug cases that seemed very good, too, so I am not saying that there is a complete division in this Chamber about how to go forward.

I think another comment he made was true: the prisoner must want to be rehabilitated. There has to be some movement. But if we implement “three strikes”, we are saying to prisoners that they are the enemy, we will not give them any slack, we are not really trying to understand them, and they have no future. If we block off paths in the way that this plays out, then we will not put people on the road to recovery.

In respect of the amendment mentioned by the previous speaker, Grant Robertson, criminals need an incentive to plead guilty, because that process in and of itself becomes a recognition that they have taken some responsibility for their crime and can begin the programme of rehabilitation in prison. If we incentivise the other way—for them to deny their criminality, and to plead not guilty when they are clearly guilty—all we are doing is keeping them in prison for ever, virtually, at a huge cost to society and to everyone to the extent that when they do get out of prison, they are more likely to reoffend and create other victims because they are anti-society and not rehabilitated. That is not a good solution.

CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) Link to this

I want to know why National is so keen to shut down debate on this bill, before it has even got under way. Less than half an hour into the debate on this bill, with not one single National member having taken a call on it, National members have been trying to shut it down.

JO GOODHEW (Junior Whip—National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

This will be a very brief call on Part 1 of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, which I suspect I will have to recommence after the dinner break. I will answer a couple of charges raised by Mr Garrett about the amendments that the Labour Party has put up. Mr Garrett alleged that somehow we were not expressing goodwill.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to reply to some of the statements made in this debate. First, I think I will refer just to a matter that the member Chris Hipkins raised in relation to a regulatory impact statement that he said the police had made. I tell him that, no, it was the Ministry of Justice. It related to the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill as first introduced to the House. In addition to that, this bill has been significantly changed since it was first introduced. It is a far more reasonable and fair bill. It is much more tightly worded.

There have been some personal attacks on members in this Chamber, and I will not bother to deal with those. However, I will talk about rehabilitation. I think there have been some comments made about how we should be doing more rehabilitation. That is exactly right. It is why we are doubling the amount of rehabilitation available in our prisons. For any members of the House who would like to come and see some of the rehabilitation being done for prisoners, I am very happy to be able to help facilitate that through my office with the Department of Corrections, because the Department of Corrections would love to be able to show off the rehabilitation that it does. Mr Garrett has certainly taken up that offer. Some other members have—

Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) Link to this

I have not spoken on this part at all, so I am looking forward to several calls and to contributing to this debate in a constructive way.

I went and listened to two presentations given by two different people who have recently come from California to New Zealand. One was the judge from the court that has to administer the “three strikes” law, and the other was Rev. Ron Givens. One thing that I thought was quite fascinating was the definition of the legislation, as it is defined, as “three strikes”. It was a point that I had not heard before. Of course, that expression comes from America’s favourite game, but it does not mean what it means when one is playing baseball. When playing baseball, “three strikes” means that someone is out but can come back in the next round, and that person could hit the home run that wins the game. But that is not what this bill is all about. It is not about people redeeming and rehabilitating themselves, and contributing to society in a meaningful way. My real, fundamental problem with this legislation is that it is a one-size-fits-all approach that uses populist slogans that do not mean anything.

I have heard people talk about the experience in California in respect of the crime rate. In fact, there are many other justifications for changes in crime rates. It was already going down before the “three strikes” law came into effect. One of the points they made was that the increase in violence against prison guards was exponential. When people do not have any chance of ever seeing the light of day again, it becomes a more dangerous occupation. The other one, which I had not thought of, was violence to police if someone is sitting on two strikes, with that third strike pending, and he or she is about to be arrested. One example we were given was of an individual who was facing the third strike. In California, the “three strikes” system is even more repressive than this particular regime because it applies to offences that are not that serious and it applies forever. If someone had a bad youth and went off the rails, then later on in life committed that third strike, he or she could face consequences that are way beyond what anyone else would face for that particular offence in any other set of circumstances.

The other thing that I thought was fascinating, and I have not been able to track this down yet, but I will definitely have it available for my third reading contribution to this debate, is that, apparently, a chief executive officer of one of the private prisons was quoted in Business Week as saying that mandated sentencing—because that is what “three strikes” is; it takes away discretion from judges and tells judges that they can only do things a certain way—provided exciting growth opportunities in the private prison industry. I thought that was fascinating because National introduced the private prison industry to New Zealand. When we add the two together, we start to see that this makes sense from a profit-making provision. It plays on people’s fears of being victimised.

One of the examples given to us was of a 16-year-old who had stolen two cheques from his mother by forging her name, which is cheque fraud. He had stolen two cheques, so that is two counts, and he was convicted on the two counts, which were both felonies. Last year, when he was 20 years old, he went into a convenience store and stole a candy bar. He turned to the shop owner—

CHRIS TREMAIN (Senior Whip—National) Link to this

I move, That the question be now put.

DAVID GARRETT (ACT) Link to this

I am very glad to see that Grant Robertson is with us. I thought there were a couple of good contributions from the other side of the Chamber: one was from Mr Robertson, and one was from Mr Hipkins. Mr Hipkins made a fairly passionate contribution, saying several times that the bill would not work. But Mr Robertson was honest enough to admit that crime has, in fact, dropped dramatically in California since 1994. He also observed, quite correctly, that the greatest decline in the US has been in New York. He also observed, correctly, that New York is not just—

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I have a couple of points before I go on to Part 2 of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. I too have read the theory about abortion that comes from a book called Freakonomics. That shows where the ACT Party gets the basis of its policy and its ideas, does it not? I think the name of the book is very apt when it comes to that party.

The second point I make is there is enough evidence round the world to show that crime goes down as unemployment decreases. I will tell members why.

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

Some statements made by the member resuming his seat, Clayton Cosgrove, are, frankly, less than correct. He referred to a Cabinet paper submitted in my name as Minister of Police and Minister of Corrections, and he referred to the consultation process for this bill and the amendments. Of course, what he was commenting on were not comments from my department, as he referred to it, but from the Ministry of Justice. Of course, in the commentary we have comment on the consultation with Te Puni Kōkiri—he could have quoted that—as well as the Ministry of Justice’s comment, Treasury’s comment, and finance notifications.

Unfortunately, Mr Cosgrove has been yet again caught out, being not quite correct in what he says. The last time I looked, the Hon Simon Power was the Minister of Justice, not me. I am the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections. I am sorry to have to say that Mr Cosgrove needs to reread the paper.

Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) Link to this

I am astounded by that contribution, for two reasons. The first is that the Minister, perhaps, cannot read. This bill is actually in her name, but in relation to the report from the select committee, she said that I had not quoted the Ministry of Justice. Well, I will quote the minority report: “the Ministry of Justice has noted:”. That is in the report in the bill, and the quotation is in the name of the Ministry of Justice. So the Minister is ignoring the ministry she barred from the select committee process, the ministry whose core functionality is to administer this legislation—because the bill is not a corrections bill nor a police bill; it is a justice bill.

We have noted in the minority report that the key Crown agency—and this is why the Minister of Justice did not want a bar of the bill—has stated that the bill will not work. It is not the business of the police, or of the Department of Corrections; the justice ministry is the key Crown agency that has to administer justice bills. I will even give the Minister the page with the quotation. It is page 14 in the commentary, and she will see that the quotation is attributed to the Ministry of Justice.

So why is she standing up but not giving us a contribution of substance or going through the analysis? She has not even bothered to go through the analysis in this Committee stage on Part 2, yet she has got up and lambasted me, and she has tried to twist words to say that I quoted her, the police, or the Department of Corrections. No, no, I quoted from the Cabinet paper that went through her and was signed off, and is now quoted as being from the Ministry of Justice in the commentary on the bill.

The ministry may not be her ministry, but this is her bill and she is responsible for it. But the key agency has not been allowed to participate in it. I would like the Minister to tell me what key agency, when changes were made at the eleventh hour to this bill, was not allowed—in fact, was specifically barred—from appearing at the select committee. Members of the select committee asked for Ministry of Justice staff to appear as advisers, even just to sit in the room and maybe contribute to the last stage of the bill. But, oh no, they were completely blocked, under instruction. There are other bills, some of which I cannot talk about, where that has occurred, as well. I cannot talk about them yet.

But why would anyone bar the key administrative agency—the police will not administer this legislation, and corrections will not administer it; it will be administered by the Ministry of Justice—from submitting, and from advising members, without fear or favour? Well, the answer is on page 14 of this bar 2 bill. The Ministry of Justice was not wanted. I understand Simon Power’s dilemma. He wanted to back out of this, and he did not want his own ministry being put up and having to tell the truth—to say that it would not have a bar of this bill and that it would not work. I repeat the words that are quoted from the ministry, which state that the bill will have a nominal effect in “reducing reoffending or victimisation.”

The Minister got up and did what I predicted earlier today. Instead of having a logical debate—no, no—she said that members on this side of the Chamber defend criminals. I say to her that she is a lawyer; I am not. If we say we are opposed to this legislation because it has no logic and because it will not work, the best that the Minister can do is throw around an insult that says if Labour members are opposed to this bill, it means that we always defend criminals. I had a text from somebody tonight that made the same accusation—an ill-informed accusation.

I will show enough goodwill, as I did this afternoon, to say that I expect there is not one person in this Chamber, in any part of the Committee, who would defend criminal activity. I expect that every member in this Chamber, of whatever political colour, would stand beside victims. We may disagree on how to help them, and we may disagree on how we deal with prisoners, but I expect that everybody, even Mr Garrett, would say that everybody in this Committee stands on the side of victims.

So the sort of smirky, Shirley Temple - type smarmy insult that is thrown around by that Minister, which says that if we are against something, and if we have an argument of substance because we believe that the bill will not work, then somehow we are defending criminals, is the best this Minister can do. She has not even got up and gone through the part clause by clause. At least Simon Power or Chris Finlayson would do that. Chris Finlayson has come to the Chamber with regard to other Ministers’ bills to patch them up, and has had the decency to go through them, give us the analysis and his arguments, and acknowledge points, but not this Minister. The best she can do is to get up—

Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections) Link to this

That was an amazing contribution from Clayton Cosgrove, the member who has just resumed his seat. He quoted as his authority for his rather ridiculous statements page 14 of the bill. I have to say that page 14 is written by the Hon Clayton Cosgrove; it is his own statement in his minority report for the bill. He says that that is the authority for his ridiculous statements, which I have just proven quite wrong. There is a thing known by some sort of phrase, but we will not use it because it is probably unparliamentary. But to quote oneself as an authority for a statement—