Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill

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—

💬 Chris Hipkins: It doesn’t have “three strikes”.

The member should stifle himself for a second. Mr Robertson also observed that New York is not a “three strikes” state but what he did not say—and perhaps he does not know; I will assume that may be the case—is that New York has adopted what is known as zero-tolerance policing, also known as Broken Windows, and it has also taken a twofold approach: what is called the front end, zero-tolerance policing, and sentence enhancement. “Three strikes” is an example of a sentence-enhancing Act. New York state also has sentence enhancement but it is different from “three strikes”. [Interruption] I tell Mr Robertson to do the research and he will find that that is correct. It is a fairly complicated system but in simple terms the first time—[Interruption] I am sure Mr Robertson can do it. The first time the person is given a sentence. The second time, if I have it correct, the tariff, as it is called in the trade, is doubled. The third time it is tripled. I am pretty sure that is how it works, roughly. It is no surprise really that New York has seen the greatest drop in crime across the US, because it attacked the problem from both ends. What that has resulted in is New York City turning, in 15 years, from one of the most dangerous cities in the US, as measured by homicides and attacks, to one of the safest.

It is also no coincidence that of the three states in the United States that have had the greatest reductions in crime, New York is the top one, closely followed by California, closely followed by Georgia. Georgia and California are the two of the 26 US states that have “three strikes” laws that use them the most. I will try to put this case to Mr Hipkins, and I hope he will give it a fair hearing.

I am not afraid to say that I do not know for sure that this bill will have the dramatic effect that I believe the legislation has had in California, because I am not God and I do not have a crystal ball. But let us look at it like this. Mr Robertson has been gracious enough to admit that there has in fact been a massive drop in crime in that state. That is interesting because the Rev. Givens—Ms Dalziel was trying to recall his name—is on record as saying: “We have seen no reduction in any category of crime whatsoever.” If the Rev. Givens was correctly quoted on TV3, I am sorry, but there is only one conclusion and that is that he is lying. As Mr Robertson says, it is a simple fact that the reduction has occurred. So how has this occurred? Why has there been this great reduction, if it is not—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I refer you to a ruling that the Speaker made this afternoon in respect of a Minister who made a similar accusation, but in less colourful language, against an individual when he used the words, I think, “manufacturing” something. The Speaker ruled that out of order, and I think it took two occasions to get the Minister to reword his reply. You have before you now an accusation against an individual, outside this place, who is accused of lying. I invite you to consider the Speaker’s ruling, because he ruled this afternoon.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): My understanding would be—and the member raises an interesting point—that what is permissible in a question that a Minister has to answer, or respond to, is entirely different from what can occur in debate. That would be my interpretation. The member is correct in that the Speaker did say that today, but this would not be the first time, certainly in the Committee of the whole House, that the kind of accusation that has just been levelled has been made. I am trying to recall any time in the past that a member has been pulled up, in that context. It is a debating point, and it is a rather robust one. The member ought to be quite conscious of what he is saying and he will be held to account for it, outside this Chamber. That is the rule around that issue. Thank you—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I have finished that point of order. Does the member have another one?

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: Yes, I do. I would argue—and we will move on, I am sure—that if you reflect on what Speaker Smith said this afternoon, he was not confining his ruling to question time; he was making a more general ruling about a member of Parliament who makes an accusation. The one this afternoon was relatively mild compared with what we have heard just now. He was very clear that he felt that was grossly unparliamentary and he required the member to readjust his tone in what he was saying. I could be corrected, but I do not recall the Speaker’s remarks being confined to a Minister in question time. I do not think he even alluded to that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will finish it with this point: the Speaker at the time was referring to questions, and to supplementary questions that were being asked. This is a debating chamber and members who speak in here can be held to account by the media and the public for what they actually say. There is a difference, in the state of the arena, for what is occurring now, compared with question time. The member ought to be conscious of his responsibility.

Mr Robertson has rightly acknowledged that the reduction has occurred, so why did that happen? There has been a variety of explanations for the precipitate drop in crime. One of the most common, of course, is unemployment. Before I move off the point, Ms Dalziel, I think it was, said that crime was already dropping prior to 1994. That is not correct, and, again, it is simply a matter of fact that if one looks at the statistics in California, one sees that violent crime peaked in 1993. That fact will become relevant in a second. The most common explanation for the drop is unemployment and economic conditions. That is clearly not so, and I will say why. Obviously there have been fluctuations in California’s economy since 1994, as there have been all over the world. But the track has been consistently down all the time since 1994. The most recent data on unemployment in that state, for the last quarter of 2009, shows that unemployment was 16 percent, which is more than twice as high as it has ever reached in New Zealand. Violent crime is still tracking down. So much for that argument!

One of the more colourful arguments has been the free availability of abortions after 1973. When one thinks about it, at first it has some kind of logic. The logic is something like this: the poor people who are more likely to be criminal and produce criminals could, after 1973, have abortions.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: That was written in one book; it was just a suggestion.

No, it is argued a lot by the left. When one first hears it one thinks that it makes some kind of weird sense. But then it has a major hole in it. As any member opposite with any knowledge of criminology would be aware, the prime crime-committing years are late teens to late 20s. So if that theory were correct, we should have seen a massive plummet in crime about 20 years after 1973. Instead, as I have said, crime peaked in the state of California in 1993. So not only was there no decline; the exact opposite of what that theory predicts happened.

We will switch away from law because it is unfair to Mr Cosgrove, who does not have a law degree, and we will talk the language of psychology. What psychologists say is that one changes something in an experiment—they call that the independent variable—and then the thing one measures is the dependent variable. In that way one finds out whether the independent variable, whether it be electric shocks or rewards of food, changes behaviour. The only independent variable that I am aware of—

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I will give a further call to Mr Garrett, but I remind him that we are on Part 2 and he should focus on that.

I have almost finished, Mr Chair.

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: We are very happy for this. We want it on the record.

That is fine. The only independent variable that I am aware of that altered not just in California but right across the US in the early 1990s was a U-turn and a focus on zero-tolerance policing and/or sentence enhancement. So until someone comes up with a better theory than unemployment or ready availability of abortions—or perhaps the phases of the sun—or suggests something better, then logic suggests to me that this is probably the cause. I stand proved to be wrong. No one really knows, and will not know for 6 to 10 years. As Mr Cosgrove said, I have been rather surprised to hear predictions that the first third-striker will be up in 5 to 7 years. So it will take at least that long for us to know. But logic tells me that in the absence of a better explanation, the change of direction in California and other states is the reason.

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.

💬 David Garrett: Didn’t go down here. We had full employment in 2006.

Mr Garrett should take his own advice and pull his head in. He was good enough to tell one of my colleagues to do that. He should breathe through his nose, as a member once said.

A contributing factor to crime decreasing is employment. I think that might be logical. If a person has a job and earns money, he or she is less likely to jump through somebody’s window and steal a stereo, or mug somebody for money or to get food, or do another crime. There might be a sort of tangible logic to that. I did not read that in Freakonomics.

I will tell members what is logical—and I refer to Part 2, because I would hate to transgress your authority, Mr Chairperson. If we look at this bill, we see that the most damning indictment on it comes from the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections, the Hon Judith Collins, who sits in the chair.

💬 Hon Christopher Finlayson: It’s a bill.

Yes, the member is right, it is a bill; I thank Mr Finlayson. On 16 December 2009, in a Cabinet paper from the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections entitled Changes to the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill, the Ministry of Justice noted the following: “… the deterrence effect of the three stage regime is uncertain. The proposals will add substantial direct costs to the justice system without creating any significantly improved outcomes in terms of reducing the drivers of crime, improving social outcomes or”—if you do not care about any of that—“reducing reoffending and victimisation.” That is what it says. That quote comes directly from a Cabinet paper via the Minister of Police and of Corrections.

The Ministry of Justice was not allowed to participate in the amended bill. While Mr Garrett quoted Freakonomics and other mystical naysayers around the place for his logic, I quoted the Minister’s own Cabinet paper. It is the most damning indictment on the bill itself because they are her officials, it is her Cabinet paper, and she took this bill over from the Ministry of Justice and the Minister of Justice.

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: He wouldn’t touch it with a bargepole.

Well, he may not have touched it with a bargepole; that says more about him. The Ministry of Justice has been prevented from participating in the amended bill, but let us be clear that this is a justice bill. I asked senior police officers in the Law and Order Committee what would happen if we did a review of this bill in some years’ time, because presumably they, the police, as lead advisers on the bill, would be the people to do it. They said no, they were not equipped to do that. They said the Ministry of Justice were the ones who would have to do it. That is what they said.

We can bandy statistics around any way we like. We can quote from that book and other psychedelic texts, or we can quote from the Cabinet paper that was submitted under the Minister’s name. I will read it again for the record: “… the deterrence effect of the three stage regime is uncertain. The proposals will add substantial direct costs to the justice system without creating any significantly improved outcomes in terms of reducing the drivers of crime, improving social outcomes or reducing reoffending and victimisation.” I would have thought that reducing reoffending and victimisation is what we are about here—that is what I would have thought. If the Minister’s own corrections department says that it is doubtful and it has assumed that this legislation does not have a deterrent value at all, then I say we have a problem here.

The arguments that were put forward by this side in respect of Part 1 of the bill are the same in respect of Part 2. We do not believe it will deter crime. We do not believe that this bill will work. The Minister, in her own flippant way, did not give an analysis of the amendments in Part 1. She said National members were not supporting our amendments because they did not want the Opposition coming to them with any ideas. Mr Garrett said he wanted an advance copy to read in between chapters of Freakonomics, and the Minister said they did not want the Opposition to come with any amendments or any ideas, at all. They are not prepared to listen.

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: The justice ministry, the key agency, doesn’t agree with it. What would they know?

The other point he talked about was the deterrence factor in relation to the Department of Corrections. Mr Cosgrove does not like to hear it, and he likes to shout out and bellow, but I think he should just listen. He talked about how an effect of no deterrence was assumed in the work by the Department of Corrections on this legislation. Actually, the department assumed no deterrence only in relation to its calculations on the numbers of bunks or beds that would be needed for prisons.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That’s spin.

Mr Cosgrove does not like the truth, and he likes to call it spin, but, no, it is correct. Mr Cosgrove should know better, because he used to be a Cabinet Minister.

💬 Hon Rodney Hide: No!

It was not that long ago that he had Cabinet papers. Mr Hide says “No!”, but I say, yes, he was. I remember that he was, in fact, a Cabinet Minister.

It is very hard for him. He has obviously forgotten the whole process around Cabinet papers. He has quite clearly forgotten the fact that when it says “consultation” that means, under this Government, that we actually consult. Not only do we consult, but we actually put down the details of the consultation. Even when I do not agree with some of the comments made by some other ministries, I am still happy to have those comments—even though I do not agree with them—in the paper. That is what a robust Cabinet Minister does. Obviously, when that member was a Cabinet Minister, he did not want to have any consultation that did not agree with what he wanted.

💬 Hon Rodney Hide: He just did what Helen said. He was Helen’s boyfriend.

He was very close to Miss Clark, as Mr Hide states—very close.

If Mr Cosgrove really wants to debate those issues, he has had a lot of time in the select committee to do so. This bill has spent a year in the select committee. Mrs Goudie has given it a very good process there. In fact, the only person I hear complaining about Mrs Goudie’s chairing of the committee is Mr Cosgrove. Mr Cosgrove clearly missed most of the committee meetings; otherwise he might have known that the New Zealand Police is not the Ministry of Justice. They are different under this Government. One is the Police and one is the Ministry of Justice.

Even though we did not accept everything the Ministry of Justice stated, we still put its comments in, because that is what one does in Cabinet. I know that Mr Cosgrove’s memory is not too good, but, really, perhaps he could just stick to the facts and stop trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes in this Chamber—or perhaps he just has a bad memory.

Part 2 deals with parole. Frankly, parole is a privilege, not a right, and it is about time recidivist violent offenders understood that. When recidivist violent offenders who will not be rehabilitated are out on parole, unfortunately the public is more at risk, not because of the good work of the Department of Corrections, but because of those offenders and their choices. I know that Labour members do not like talking about victims or to victims, because they pull on their emotional strings, but it is about time they got in touch with the real people in this country, as they like to think that they already are.

I commend this part to the Committee. I think it is very realistic. It puts very simply what needs to happen with some of the changes in parole. I understand that some people who have spent a lifetime defending the rights of criminals may find it unpalatable, but, quite frankly, it is about time someone cared for victims. I congratulate the ACT Party on bringing this bill to the House. I think it is a fantastic bill, and I am very proud to be the Minister in charge of it.

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 Christopher Finlayson: I did, too.

—thanks, mate—and say that the Labour Party defends criminals or the Green Party defends criminals. Well, if it has come down to that—and we always thought it would—I think that in a few years we will look back in Hansard, and some people in this Chamber will be ashamed of the comments they made in this debate.

This is the Minister, of course, who never comments on anything when it goes wrong, but is always happy to comment, with her departments, when things go right. It is always an “operational matter” when it goes wrong. She would not comment to the media on vehicle crime tonight—the resolution rates being so low—because it was an operational matter. She will not comment on other matters of critical substance, but if things go OK, oh yes, then Judith Collins is front and centre in taking the credit.

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—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. There is a very clear ruling about misrepresentations. The quote from the bill is not from me; it is from a Cabinet paper contained within a minority report. Those are not my words; they are quoted from a Cabinet paper. That member is misrepresenting the position, and she knows it.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I am not sure that that is a point of order. The Minister will continue. The member still has further calls where he can rebut; this is a debate.

I think it is very important that when one is quoting a Cabinet paper to quote it in context and state exactly what it is. When one says that there is a Ministry of Justice statement, that is fine; there is a Ministry of Justice statement. But the member should not come to the Chamber and say, therefore, that it is my department saying it. It is not; it is the Ministry of Justice. He should be absolutely straightforward with the Committee and not get down to that sort of nonsense. [Interruption] Those members opposite obviously do not like to hear that, because they are bellowing away.

Another thing the member dealt with was an issue of—[Interruption] No, he did not want to talk about parole. He was saying that, no, Labour members were not soft on crime, which is good to hear because they have just had 9 years to prove it, but we have not noticed that much of a drop in crime after 9 years of Labour Government. I did notice, though, that they left us with not enough prison cells for prisoners. They knew what the forecast was, but they did not bother to house the extra prisoners. Labour members did not put the extra funding into parole so that parole provisions could be dealt with properly. Instead they left the Department of Corrections in an utter mess, mostly around their lack of funding. One of the first things we had to do—

💬 Hon Steve Chadwick: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. I thought the Minister was responding to Part 2 of the bill before the Committee, rather than to the previous 9 years.

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: That’s fair enough. You made the ruling, actually, Mr Assistant Chairperson.

The CHAIRPERSON (Eric Roy): I did. The Minister is not the first person to transgress that tonight, but she may be transgressing it a little more broadly than some other people have. I think it is a timely reminder. I was actually just starting to look up the bill to see what Part 2 said.

Part 2 is all about parole, so I think that it is very important to talk about the fact that we need to have proper resourcing for parole, because otherwise, as under the previous Minister, Phil Goff, all sorts of people are stuck on parole and into community service but without the resourcing. If someone does that, unfortunately we will have more problems with parole. But I am very confident that the parole provisions in this bill are sensible. They are very clear, and it is very important to understand that when we are dealing with violent, recidivist offenders, they need to know that there are boundaries and that parole is not a right under this administration; it is a privilege.

Parole has always been a privilege, and it has a very important function: it enables the reintegration into society of those who are to be reintegrated, in a supervised and managed way. There are always pressures, and I thought it would be worthwhile quoting the pressures there are in the Californian system, as that seems to be what we are modelling our new laws on.

In California 70 percent of people released on parole will return within 3 years to the prison system, and 90 percent of those will have breached their parole, even if the breach was technical, and that breach will take them back to prison. It has nothing to do with whether the particular breach would have attracted a prison sentence; it concerns just a breach of parole. An example that has been given is of somebody who was told not to drink while on parole. An officer turned up at home to find the person drinking, so that person went back to prison. Drinking was not an offence in any other respect, but not to drink was a condition of the parole.

In California there is one parole officer for every 1,000 people on parole. And that is the system we want to emulate! In California the Department of Finance spends 17.4 percent of its budget on corrections and rehabilitation. Do members know what the education budget is? It is 0.8 percent. I do not know why we think this is just such an amazing idea. I think we have to listen to what we are being told about how it will work in practice.

The one issue that nobody has responded to yet is how we have chosen this particular range of offences. I am really, really happy that Mr Madoff was sentenced to 150 years’—

💬 Grant Robertson: Bernie!

—that Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years’ imprisonment. His crime was motivated by greed. It was deliberate. He did not get drunk and accidentally remove a whole lot of money out of people’s back pockets. How does the fact that he did not do it with a gun, a knife, or the threat of physical injury mean that he is better than somebody who was addicted to drugs or somebody who ended up in a situation where he acted on the spur of the moment and did not think things through? A lot of the crimes we are talking about in the violence space are not premeditated. Often they are crimes that occur because of the circumstances in which people find themselves. Bernie Madoff did not find himself in a situation where he could rip millions and millions of dollars off innocent friends—they are no longer his friends—but the reality is that we say that his crimes are different from those described in this bill.

Let us look at the range of crimes. What about sexual harassment? We know about sexual harassment. It is incredibly damaging, particularly for young vulnerable women who meet older men who are in a position of power. For example, someone may come to Parliament as a student as part of a student group and they may be told by their tutor not to complain about the MP who sexually harassed them, because if they do the group will end up in a situation where the visits to Wellington will have to be cancelled, and that is not wanted. So the student should just “suck it up” and put it to one side, and the group will try to avoid that particular MP. Would Mr Garrett like me to name him?

The point I make is that we are being selective about the range of offences. We have to think very, very seriously about white-collar crime in the context of where deterrence works. I do not know why members of the Government do not get this point. If we want to operate a system that deters serious crime, then we should put the deterrent where it will work. We should put it where people are very clear about the choice they are making in terms of the crime they are committing and its relationship to the risk of getting caught and the consequences of getting caught, should they be convicted of the offence. That is what white-collar crime is all about. If we really wanted to do something about deterrence, we would have an appropriate range of offences, and mechanisms for enforcing deterrence activities, in place.

I will pick up on the point that was made about the quote from the report back of the Law and Order Committee. I am quoting from the minority report, but the specific quote that my colleague Clayton Cosgrove referred to was an extract from the Cabinet paper, so there is no issue in respect of what the Minister said in her most recent contribution. When the Department of Corrections was reporting on prison bed forecasts it said: “… there is an implicit assumption that the Bill will have no deterrent impact.”

If the Minister’s own department thinks that there is an “implicit assumption”, I cannot understand why the Minister would argue that her own department is not taking that particular point of view. Is the Minister denying that it was a genuine quote? Well, perhaps we could have the entire quote, because I cannot see anything other than the very clear statement that there is an implicit assumption that the bill will have no deterrent impact. I guess that relates to the fact that it is not budgeting for an increase in bed numbers, and I assume the Minister will address that issue when she next addresses the Committee.

The other thing I want to come back to is this whole question of the discretion that sits with the judges. In this particular case, because it is the provision that deals with parole, it is the question of the ability of the Parole Board to look at individual cases. Of course, the discretion is taken away from judges.

What I have not heard the Minister respond to, and I think these are probably the two most serious issues—and they were raised by Rev. Ron Givens when he was here—is the danger to prison officers and the danger to police officers. It is clear that the fact that more people are desperate to escape the third-strike conviction has resulted in more police officers being killed. It has. The Minister can shake her head, but perhaps she would like to respond to that issue, because it is shown in the evidence that has been given to us.

The other issue is the question of prison officers. If somebody is never going to get out of prison, what on earth does that do to their mental well-being? The point made to us was that a significant percentage of people already have mental illness when they go into prison, but for those who know there is no hope, no ability for redemption, and no capacity to rejoin the community, no matter what changes they make to their lives, what on earth is the incentive to sit down and address those underlying issues? It seems to me that that is something the Minister has not taken into account, and it is putting more and more corrections officers at risk, which is a tragedy that we could avoid. It is the same with police officers. In every single jurisdiction where legislation like this has been introduced, people are desperately trying to avoid being arrested for that third strike.

We also have the situation where people are essentially ground down into a state of mental illness that prevents them from participating in anything within the prison context. Essentially they become even more violent and create a greater risk for those who are supposedly looking after people in a humane containment environment within our prison system. I think that is probably the most serious matter that the Minister has not addressed at all in any part of the debate. The risks are serious, they ought to be taken seriously by her, and she ought to respond to those issues as they have been raised.

I think that the issues concerning the general sentencing capacity are politicising justice by taking discretion away from the judges. It is politicising a system of parole that is about reintegration. How are people supposed to be reintegrated if parole is removed from the second-strike situation, as we have had described in relation to the bill? I would really like the Minister to respond to those issues. They are serious and a lot of people are asking questions about them.

This is a very important debate and the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is a very serious bill about parole. Some of the points that the Opposition raised I can agree with; we have a problem in New Zealand and we need to think about the causes of crime and the sorts of lives that young people are leading that destine them to a tragic life of crime. We will not deal with that problem by just ever-tougher sentencing. I think we all acknowledge that. But I think members also acknowledge that when people do commit a violent crime they need to be punished for that crime. Again, I think there is agreement across the House about that.

We also know that there has been ongoing and grave concern among the public—and it is easy to understand why—about some very nasty criminals who commit a heinous crime against people, are released, commit another heinous crime against a totally innocent person, are put away, come out, then commit another heinous crime. The victims and their families are asking why those people keep being let loose on law-abiding New Zealanders. On this side of the House—in the ACT Party and the National Party—we actually agree with them, and we say: “Quite.”

We also want to send a message to criminal offenders that repeat criminal offending will not be tolerated. That is the whole point of warning first offenders that they are on their first strike. Telling them that they are on their first strike sends a powerful message, because what are they going to do? They will go away to serve their time, they will be eligible for parole, and they will be thinking about it. Are they going to come out, commit a crime again, and get a second strike? Well, if they are vaguely rational, I do not think they will want a second strike, because when they get a second strike there will be no parole. And if they get a second strike, they are in danger of getting a third strike. Members should understand that this is not about the young guy who absentmindedly steals a candy bar; this is about people who commit violent crimes against other people. And it is not the first time; it is the second time and the third time.

What this side of the House is saying is let us send a message. Offenders will be told that they are on their first strike and they will be given a warning. Does it not make sense that young people then will think not to offend again, because the punishment will escalate? There are sad people—

💬 Hon Lianne Dalziel: You believe this?

Well, Lianne Dalziel does not believe this, but I can understand that, because I have got to know Lianne Dalziel and her attitude to justice. And while I admire her attitude to justice in many respects, I have to say that Lianne Dalziel is out to lunch—that is all I can say. Listening to her contribution shocked me. I wonder where she has been living, to understand the criminal—

💬 Hon Paula Bennett: Christchurch!

Christchurch! The second thing is that if people commit a second offence, they will get a second strike and no parole, because, as the Minister of Corrections pointed out, parole is not a right. It is not a right. People who commit a third offence should be locked up and should be put away, because they are a menace to society. Lianne Dalziel knows that some of the people who are locked up now are not going to come out, and we seem to be coping.

The No. 1 responsibility of Parliament, and of any Government, is to keep the people safe, and that is why this side of the House is supporting this legislation. I am sorry that someone of the stature of Lianne Dalziel has come to this House to oppose this bill, and has quoted spurious arguments from California and odd statements about “implicit assumptions”. What does an implicit assumption prove? It simply proves that it is an implicit assumption. It is nothing to do with the facts and nothing to do with logic.

I move, That the question be now put.

I wanted to take this call soon after the Minister of Corrections resumed her seat, because Rodney Hide talked at the beginning of his speech about the things that have been shared in this Committee, and I had talked about that in an earlier contribution in this debate. We all share the horrendous stories of victims of crime, and many of us have worked with victims. Even in my short time as an MP, I have done that. We also share concerns about reoffending. I can share that with Rodney Hide.

But then I heard the Minister stand up and criticise members on this side of the Chamber as being people who had spent a lifetime defending criminals. It is very difficult to have respect for the Minister and for this legislation when she puts out statements like that. Mr Hide did not do that at the beginning of his statement, and I give him credit for that. He talked about what was shared across this Chamber. But the Minister’s comment was disgraceful. She should be ashamed to sit there and make that kind of comment.

Her smug performance this evening does nothing for the victims of crime. Her performance and the performance of the National Government this evening have done nothing to reassure New Zealanders that this bill is about public safety and not political slogans. We have heard nothing of substance from National members. I give credit to Mr Garrett in this debate. He has provided substantive contributions on why he believes in this bill. We have not heard that from the National members.

I believe that part of the reason is that National members do not support this bill. I know that members of the National Government do not support this bill. Many of them do not support it because they know that the advice from people like the officials from the Ministry of Justice, who are the main policy advisers on these matters, goes against this bill. Ms Collins got up earlier and attempted to try to obfuscate about that, and to say that the advice was not from the Department of Corrections or from the police.

The comments that were read out in this Chamber were from the Government’s chief advisers on justice issues, and they stated that the proposed policy changes were unlikely to be consistent with the Government’s publicly announced policy in relation to the drivers of crime. The Ministry of Justice view was: “… the deterrence effect of the three stage regime is uncertain. The proposals will add … costs … without creating any significantly improved outcomes in terms of reducing the drivers of crimes, improving social outcomes or reducing reoffending and victimisation.” In other words, the Ministry of Justice was saying that the bill will not work.

In Part 2 we are looking at the parole aspects of the legislation. We have heard from the Minister a number of times that parole is not a right; it is a privilege. That is what the Parole Act states today. Nothing is changing. That is what the Parole Act states today.

The Minister has made comments about where Labour was on this matter. Labour Governments toughened parole rules. The Minister does not want to acknowledge that, because it suits her political sloganeering to say that we were not tough on parole, but we were. Parole is not a right; it is a privilege. That does not change. If we want to improve the way that parole operates, let us strengthen the Parole Board, and let us look at the mandate of the Parole Board. These changes are not about suddenly changing parole from being a privilege to being a right. That is pure and simple spin.

My main concern about parole and the taking away of parole is about the safety of our prison officers, safety in prisons, and the safety of our police. Without the hope of parole, we risk further attacks on prison officers and on police. I have spoken to a number of people who have visited people in prisons. I have spent time visiting people in prisons, as well. There is one thing that prisoners need in order to be able to behave well, and that is hope. They have to have some hope. Prisoners have very little else. If they do not have hope, their behaviour will deteriorate, and we will see more attacks in our prisons.

If we are really serious about this issue, we need to look at the drivers of crime. We need to make sure that people are not getting into this position. Instead of that, what we have seen from this Government is simple sloganeering and cheap shots from the Minister tonight, rather than—[Interruption] They were cheap shots, I say to the Minister. I ask whether it is not a cheap shot to say that Labour members have spent a lifetime defending criminals. That is what the Minister said. That is a cheap shot. We deserve better in this Chamber. The laws that are coming forward as sloganeering—

💬 Sandra Goudie: Labour’s soft on crime.

Labour has a proud record of addressing the causes of crime and of strengthening laws on crime, I say to Mrs Goudie, but this bill is about simple sloganeering. It will not work.

I have a few things to say to Grant Robertson, who has just resumed his seat. It is a long way from central Wellington to the streets of South Auckland. I am sorry for that member that he lives in a world where he does not understand that the people who suffer most from violent crime are the poorest members of this country. They are the people who do not get a choice about where they live.

The member can stand there and say that this legislation is just about electioneering and campaigning, but, no, it is not, actually. It is about the day-to-day life of people like Rita Croskery, people who have to go in year after year to the Parole Board to try to stop people like the killers of her son from getting out of jail free. That is what parole means for a lot of the victims of crime. That is what it means.

When Mr Robertson says that someone who has committed a serious violent offence should get parole because they need something to live for, well, I say that the member should go and say that to Mrs Croskery. Go and tell that to the victims of crime, I say to Mr Robertson. They need something to live for, too.

One of the things that Labour has said is that if a prisoner is paroled, he or she will not commit a crime. Well, that is not true at all. In fact, we see a lot of people who misuse parole in order to get what they want, which may be more violent crime against innocent people.

💬 Grant Robertson: So is the Minister going to abolish parole entirely?

Mr Robertson wants us to abolish parole entirely. I will not do that. I do not think that is right. Besides, the Minister of Justice would be in charge of that. We will not do that.

💬 Grant Robertson: I thought it didn’t work.

For some people, I say to Mr Robertson, parole does not work; for a lot of people, it does. That is the point of this bill. It is not about people who steal a muesli bar, a chocolate bar, or a loaf of bread; this bill is about people who kill, who maim, who shoot people, and who rape people—why should they get three chances to destroy someone’s life? It is simply not good enough, I say to Mr Robertson.

I will start this contribution by acknowledging Mr Cosgrove, who said earlier that he believes that no one in this Chamber would not be on the side of victims. I put on the record that I believe that. I do not believe that Mr Robertson or Mr Hipkins, or Mr Cosgrove for that matter, are unsympathetic to victims. So that is the spirit in which I am standing, and I thank Mr Robertson for his gracious acknowledgment of the sincerity of my belief that lies behind the bill.

I will talk briefly about deterrence, which, with the greatest respect, I do not think the Minister in the chair, the Hon Judith Collins, explained as well as she might have. Members on the other side of the Chamber have used the statements in the commentary that state that no deterrence has been calculated or predicted. I am sure members on the other side of the Chamber know—perhaps Mr Robertson does not know, because he did not sit on the Law and Order Committee—that the predictions of bed numbers arose when the Department of Corrections put through a computer model of offender statistics for the last 30 years.

In that model, the department inserted the “three strikes” legislation as it is now. It ran the hundreds of thousands of offender statistics through the model as if there had been a “three strikes” bill, then extrapolated that forward, assuming that those statistics would continue for the next 50 years. That is where those bed numbers come from: 140 over 10 years, 288 over 20 years, and 725 over 50 years. I will not make any points in this contribution about distortion of numbers, because that is not what I stood to say.

The fact that no deterrent is assumed is because we simply cannot do so. What would be the point in putting into the model an assumed deterrent effect of 10 percent, 20 percent, or 30 percent? It would simply be a guess, and it would be dishonest. It would be absolutely, utterly dishonest. That really would be spin. The only thing we can do, which is what we have done, is to look at statistics from 30 years ago, run them through the model with “three strikes” legislation, and see what numbers are spat out.

But I want to talk about parole, which is what this part is about. There has been lots of talk about parole, and the point made by members on the other side of the Chamber has been made well. The Sentencing Act does indeed make it clear, in one subsection, at least, that parole is a privilege and not a right. I remind the Committee that two of the most heinous crimes in this country were committed by parolees. I refer to William Bell and Graeme Burton. I think it is worth reminding the Committee of the circumstances that occurred with both of them.

William Bell had 102 previous convictions. He was paroled for badly beating a service station attendant. The service station attendant went and hid in the toilet. He had given Bell the money, but because Bell is a psychopath, he wanted to see blood. The guy barricaded himself in the toilet. Bell busted in the door and beat the you know what out of him, severely injuring him. That was the crime for which William Bell was paroled in 2001.

When he showed up at the probation service office in Māngere, he was assigned to an inexperienced young female probation officer. He walked into the office. She handed over to him his special conditions. He laughed, rolled the conditions into a ball, threw them at her head, and left. Within months, he had killed three people at the Mount Wellington - Panmure Returned Services Association, and damn near killed a fourth. He had no intention of letting Susan Couch survive. She is maimed beyond belief. I will not discuss her medical condition in the Chamber, but I know about it. Bell walked in there undisguised. He had been working there for 3 months, so everyone knew him. The only reason someone goes undisguised to a place where they have been working and will be identified is if they do not plan to leave anyone alive. So William Bell is one parolee.

Graeme Burton is also a psychopath. In Wellington in 1992 he walked into a nightclub and decided to attack some poor inoffensive chap—a fairly slight guy, I believe. Burton did not like the look of him, or had been given the wrong kind of look, and stabbed him with such violence that the knife came out his back. Burton, being a huge man, lifted the guy off the ground. That was Burton’s crime, and he went to jail for it.

What Burton did was even more sinister than Bell: he got hold, effectively, of the answer book. He had had interviews with psychologists. He is an intelligent man. I have met him—through a steel grill. He got hold of the answer book so that he could fake empathy. He knew what to say when he was asked how he felt about a picture, about a certain situation, or about his emotions. He knew what to say and he fooled the Parole Board. He got out and killed Karl Kuchenbecker, and damn near killed two other people as well. So there are two failures of parole.

We make no bones about the fact that the “three strikes” system has steps. I remind the Committee again: step one implements no change from what is already in place. Someone convicted of aggravated robbery the day after this bill is passed will be treated no differently from today, except that they will get a formal warning on their file. They will be eligible for parole under the Sentencing Act 2002. It is fair to say that they probably will not get it first time, but they will get out under parole, and they certainly will not serve their full sentence.

At step two there is no parole. We make no bones about that. It is a jump from the first step to the second step. We take away that privilege. Members on the other side of the Chamber have agreed that parole is a privilege. That privilege is removed at the second step.

People have said that it is a disproportionate sentence, and they are right. It is deliberate. That is the point they miss. It is deliberately disproportionate because it is the second time. If people offend again, they get the maximum, and that is disproportionate. A third-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets a certain sentence. A second-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets another sentence. A first-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets another sentence. It is deliberate. That is the point. It is disproportionate because offenders keep on offending, do not learn, and do not change their ways. As Mr Hide has said, eventually, at that point, they have to be locked up to protect society.

But it is not forever. The 25-year-to-life sentence that we unashamedly promoted has gone, and instead we have the maximum sentence prescribed by Parliament in 1961, when it passed the Crimes Act 1961 and set the penalties. It was a bit simpler in those days. Parliament did not have a whole pile of Acts. It is all in the Crimes Act. Parliament said the maximum penalty for aggravated robbery should be 14 years. I challenge Mr Hipkins to find someone who has received anything like a 14 year sentence in the past 20 years. He will look in vain. The Crimes Act says that the penalty for rape is 20 years. I challenge members to find a rapist who has received anything like a 20 year sentence in the last 20 years. Members will look in vain.

So this is an unashamedly disproportionate form of sanction. At the first step, an offender receives one sentence; the next step is much worse; and the third step is much worse than that. That is the point.

I have listened quite carefully to the debate—and in particular to the support for this bill tonight—as I have in earlier debates, and have endeavoured to understand why anyone could think that this bill is a good idea and will achieve its stated purpose to make our communities and our people safer. I see nothing in this bill. It is completely contrary to any evidence anywhere in the world to suggest that a regime like that proposed in this bill will make our people—our communities and our public—safer.

We have heard a lot about statistics and numbers, particularly from Mr Garrett earlier. It seems that he is making the classic mistake in interpreting research of confusing correlation with causation. The fact that two things happen at more or less the same time does not suggest that one is causing the other.

💬 David Garrett: No, I said I’m not sure, because I’m not a socialist and I’m not God; I’m not sure.

Dear me! I do wish that Mr Garrett would find a new insult, because that one is getting positively boring. We have heard a great deal about numbers, and clearly from that side of the Chamber there is a preference for arguments that can be reduced to a cost-benefit analysis. Those members give us numbers and statistics, putting aside for a minute that social values are very much more difficult to establish than dollar values.

Even in terms of dollars, we can look at the Californian example, which is so oft quoted. Again, I had the pleasure of hearing the Rev. Givens when he spoke in Wellington a week or so ago, and he quoted some really interesting numbers. He referred to the Californian prisons as the most expensive rest homes in the world. They have very old prisoners, prisoners well into their fifties and older. The average cost of keeping a prisoner in Californian jails is, if I remember correctly, a little in excess of $35,000. California is now discovering that keeping prisoners into their fifties and beyond is costing the state, on average, closer to $140,000. No social benefit is gained from doing that in relation to those extraordinarily prolonged sentences for people who have admittedly committed serious crimes or, in some cases, not particularly serious crimes. Those prisoners are imposing an incredible cost on their communities, on that Government, and on that state.

We have already seen in recent times that this Government has passed legislation to allow private prisons to allow the use of court cells, on the understanding that apparently we are obliged to do that. We have seen double bunking in jails, and the making of containers into cells, because we cannot cram any more people into our jails, yet we are imposing this extra cost on ourselves by putting provisions in this bill. The denial of parole will put people away for longer periods, with no social benefit but with significant social cost.

I think the most insidious thing about this bill is that it is saying that we in this Chamber tonight—the majority who might seek to pass this bill—know better than judges what sentence they ought to pass in future for crimes not yet committed, and whether parole should be allowed and, if so, at what point. The notion of mandated sentencing essentially means that we do not trust the judges who are appointed to our courts. It suggests that we can make better decisions about the sentences and the parole conditions given for individual cases on a very one-size-fits-all generic basis. That is not only wrong; it is lazy. It is unethical, it is immoral, and it ought not to be done here.

I think that one of the most powerful impacts of the Rev. Givens’ presentation, which some of us took the time to see, was not only in the numbers and the words—we had heard those, we had read those—but also in some of the images he showed. The direct outcomes of a regime like that is to put more people in jail for longer, in what are already overcrowded prisons. He showed images of hundreds of men inhabiting what was once a gymnasium, with bunks stacked three high and with scarcely enough room in the aisles to walk through. I saw those images and immediately wondered how they were smuggled out of prison, because surely that could not have been allowed. In fact, those images were put out by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and show a best-case scenario. Those were the best images the department could muster from that appallingly inhumane regime, which it is now proposed that we should impose on ourselves and on our prisons.

There is no deterrent effect from longer sentences; we know that. Research internationally tells us that. The deterrent is the likelihood of being caught. We should put more money into policing and into preventing crime, because there it will do some good. Longer sentences are not a deterrent; we know that. We know that is as true in New Zealand as it is in California.

I move, That the question be now put.

I want to say at the very beginning of my contribution that I was absolutely shocked and appalled to hear the Minister of Corrections, Judith Collins, rise in this Chamber and suggest that the only violent criminals were in South Auckland, and that somebody who lived in central Wellington, Christchurch, or somewhere else—

💬 Hon Judith Collins: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. If the member is going to make silly statements like that, he should at least quote me correctly. I live in South Auckland.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I ask the members to sit down. These are debating points. It is a robust debate. I ask the member to continue, and I will ask the Minister to refrain from those comments. They are debating points; that was not a point of order.

I am not surprised the Minister is embarrassed by the comments that she made. It was a comment about South Auckland that Melissa Lee would have been proud of. Perhaps the Government should just build another motorway so that all the criminals can drive past South Auckland. It was an absolutely disgraceful indictment on the Government. It was a further disgraceful indictment on this Government that Judith Collins—the Minister of Corrections, in fact—said that anybody who opposes the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is condoning the actions of violent criminals. I was offended by that comment.

I am opposed to this bill, but I think the actions of violent criminals are abhorrent. I would like to thank David Garrett for at least having the decency to acknowledge that people who oppose this bill are not condoning the actions of violent criminals, and do take the victims into consideration. I find it offensive that the Minister would not do the same. David Garrett had the decency to at least acknowledge that much, even though we may not agree on this particular bill.

Miss Collins’ own Police Association, the people whom she works with, argued against the removal of parole. The Police Association, in its submission on this bill, argued against it, and talked about judicial discretion providing a safety valve for the myriad of possible circumstances surrounding any given case and argued that it is preferable to mandatory sentencing. So the Police Association argued that there is a very real cost to removing all hope of early release, such that inmates often become very difficult to manage in the prison system.

It would be appalling for the Minister of Police or the Minister of Corrections, whichever Government that Minister comes from, to have to come into this House, as the Minister of Corrections did this afternoon, to offer condolences to the family of a prison officer or a police officer who has been very tragically killed because of this bill. Evidence presented from overseas suggests that is more likely under this bill. For the Minister to say that by putting up these arguments, and by opposing this bill, somehow we condone the actions of violent criminals and violent offenders is simply offensive; it is appalling.

I will talk about some of the other concerns that were raised in the very valid submissions put forward during the Law and Order Committee process. I did not have the opportunity to sit on the select committee, but I had the opportunity to read through some of those submissions. The Dunedin Community Law Centre pointed out, very well, I think, that the Parole Board now declines 72 percent of parole applications, and that is a significant increase from 52 percent, which was the rate before the last legislation came into effect. I think it is really important that we consider the 2004 legislation, because things have changed. When David Garrett talks about what has happened in the last 20 years, well there has been a significant change in the last 5 years that we have not yet seen the full effect of.

I think we need to consider the changes made in 2004, and the impact they are having on the parole that is granted and on the sentences that are imposed in the first place, including the amount of mandatory non-parole imposed. Between 1997 and 2006 the average non-parole period imposed for life sentences increased by more than 25 percent. I think that is really important, and was a point raised by the Dunedin Community Law Centre. It also argued that women would be less likely to report violent crime, in particular violent crime involving their partner, if they knew that their partner, former partner, father of their children, or other relative could be locked up for life. We have to consider the implications this law would have on the reporting of crime in the first place, and the willingness of victims to come forward and to make statements to provide evidence that can be used in prosecutions.

A retired District Court judge, William John Mitchell, argued that ruling out parole, even after genuine efforts towards reform, reduces the incentive to make such efforts. Surely we should be looking at how we can create more incentives for prisoners to genuinely reform themselves. We have evidence here, presented by a judge, that this bill will not do that.

I move, That the question be now put.