Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in relation to this bill. I think the Minister said it the best when he said that the three-strikes legislation is bad legislation that hasn’t worked. But it’s not the first time I’ve heard those words over the last week. We have been out speaking to people and I’ve been speaking to people on the front line of our justice service. Last week I spoke to a lawyer who works in the criminal court and what she said to me was that both prosecutors and defence lawyers are sighing with relief. They know this law has not worked. This is bad legislation that hasn’t worked.

The three-strikes law has bound the hands of judges and limited their ability to respond. We’ve heard comments from the judiciary about the impact of the law and some talk in some cases of having to exercise their decision-making authority in a way that was manifestly inconsistent with their own judgment and in a way that puts them also at odds with section 8, the principles, of the Sentencing Act. Principles matter. Constitutional principles matter. Our entrenched legislation matters—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Parliamentary sovereignty.

—and I’m troubled by the fact that my colleagues so quickly dismisses those principles, but, Mr Bridges, you do you. It’d be easy to adopt the mechanical system that assumed all repeat offenders are exactly the same, and this three-strikes baseball analogy creates the illusion that complex issues can be addressed on a conveyor belt. Judges and practitioners know that’s simply not true. They know that three strikes creates a pipeline of bias and of discrimination. They know it doesn’t keep us safe in the short term when an individual on two strikes resists arrest. They know that it doesn’t keep us safe in the mid to long term where individuals receive inappropriately suited penalties that mean they’re essentially unseen. Lawyers, both defence and prosecution know it doesn’t work.

In addition to preventing judges from exercising their best judgment, it also adds cost to our justice system, as I’m told by the lawyers who’re working on the front line, because people who are guilty of offences are motivated to plead not guilty by virtue of fighting another strike on their record. Those who work on the front line of our justice system deserve to be able to respond not just to the issues in front of them but to the people in front of them. I commend this bill to the House.

We welcome—the Green Party—this long, long overdue repeal of the perverse and archaic and completely ineffective three-strikes law. We hope that it also signals a move to a more transformative system of justice and reform.

Now, I just want to start by making it very, very clear: every week, every week, it is my privilege and responsibility as Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence to be meeting with, engaging with, learning from, and listening to victims of crime and victim advocates of crime and NGOs and civil society groups who are advocates for a reform and transformation to a justice system that truly makes our communities safe. This was not what they were asking for—this three-strikes law was not what they knew was going to make them safe and healthy and well. So the repeal of this legislation is absolutely in line with the very conversations that I have every week, directly, with victims and survivors of some of the most heinous, heinous, harm and hurt that we can ever imagine in this House. So let me firstly make that very, very clear.

What I also want to make very clear is there is a difference between accountability and ineffective punitive approaches that do not even make the community safe. All our victims want and deserve accountability. All of our victims and survivors of serious crime know that a community-strengthening approach that addresses the drivers of offending is what will make our communities safer for everyone. What I did not hear, as I was traveling around the country and attending hui to pull together a strategy to eliminate violence, was a call for this type of ineffective, absolutely not-led-by-evidence approach to crime. So I am very pleased to finally—and it was also a very hard push for the Greens, especially in the last term, when it was blocked by New Zealand First—see this step towards a more robust and transformative justice system that will actually make our communities safer. And I’m pleased to have the deep insight of victims and survivors of crime to inform my stand here tonight in this House.

Now, I also want to pick up on the constitutional debate and the judicial debate that has also been happening here in the House. It was really interesting to hear the previous National Party speaker, the Hon Mark Mitchell, referring to numbers that indicated that not many third-strike convictions were actually happening. Do you want to know why? Because judges have had to weasel their way around this perverse, stupid piece of legislation to uphold proper sentencing approaches and principles. The Supreme Court has had to intervene on judicial approaches because of this idiotic legislation, which still doesn’t make victims and survivors and their communities safer. So this unnecessary, unsafe, ineffective legislation also has caused the judiciary to have to do all sorts of somersaults to try and respond to bad legislation.

So, yeah, we’ve had some numbers raised here in this House, numbers which continue to support why it’s absolutely essential to repeal this piece of law. Time and time again, the evidence has been absolutely solid that it has not—this legislation, the evidence is out the door, round the back, around the block quite a few times, and back into this House again. That’s how long the evidence is to point to the fact that it has not made our communities any safer at all.

So I cannot wait to hear the Opposition members, National and ACT members, stand up and celebrate when I announce, before the end of the year, a national strategy to eliminate family violence and sexual violence and a transformative approach to justice and to strengthening our communities. I can’t wait to see those members, who are feigning their concern on the floor of this House tonight, pretending to care about making communities safer—I can’t wait to see them putting out the press releases supporting this work, this work that has been led by victims and survivors and advocates of community safety. If they want to repeal this law in the name of safety, I cannot wait to see them supporting more transformative approaches to rehabilitation, to proper accountability and alternative forms of true and enduring justice, especially for victims and survivors of heinous violent crimes. I can’t wait to see them helping to advocate for mental health support, for wellbeing and housing and income supports to those on the lowest incomes, to those missing out the most, to engaging with people who use harm—which is also an absolute approach to the drivers of offences—instead of using political poll-driven data to drive their policies. Well, that hasn’t proven to be a good tactic, has it?

How about instead they refer to robust evidence on crime, robust evidence on safety? How about they listen to victims’ advocates, to victims and survivors groups, and actually understand what is really needed for truly strengthening communities? I am pleased to support this bill to the House.

This debate is interrupted and is set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10.02 p.m.