Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you Mr Speaker. Well if there was ever a Muppet Show" that was it—that was it indeed—because the three-strikes legislation does need to be repealed. It's important that that happens and I'll give you three good reasons why that should happen. First of all I'd like to acknowledge all of those people who submitted on the bill whether they were for or against. I would like to acknowledge all of those organisations who gave quite detailed information and I'd like to speak to some of that information today.The first point I'd like to make as to why we don't need this legislation any more is that some of that really important advice we got from officials and through organisations was on the theory of deterrence and this is really the heart of what we're debating today: whether the idea of deterrence works. It's a theory that punishment can effectively shape human behaviour and the threat of punishment will somehow outweigh any potential gains that crime might glean. This assumes that all human behaviour is the product of conscious and rational decision-making and what it fails to do—for those who are streetwise and tell us about what happens in day to day—is it fails to reflect the actual nature of serious offending in New Zealand. In the seconds before someone commits a crime in our country they do not scan the most recent amendments to the Crimes Act. They do not weigh up whether the impending sentence is in fact worth it or not. It is done on impulse it is done in an instant and it is more often than not done under the influence of drugs or alcohol.Now let me be very clear. I want to make it incredibly clear on the record that in no way at all should our society tolerate serious criminal acts but let's not fool ourselves that bigger sentences make one scrap of difference in the rate of offending or in making our victims safer. There is no—absolutely no—consistent pattern to changing crime rates before and after the three-strikes regime was introduced and Mr Goldsmith admitted that himself in his first speech.To be very fair the one piece of information we received was that there was a 1.4 percent decrease between a first and a second strike. That's as close as we can get over the entire period of this legislation being implemented of any marginal difference. The Ministry of Justice evidence brief in 2018 recorded crime rates for three highest-volume offences—serious assault sexual assault and robbery offences—from 1996 to 2014 and based on those trends the recorded crime rates at that time it was concluded that there were few changes that could easily be attributed to the three-strikes law. Quite simply this three-strikes regime has not reduced offending as ACT and National had promised it would when it was introduced.The No. 2 reason why we don't support this bill is it stops the judiciary from doing their job. It stops a judge from actually looking at the circumstances before them at that time and weighing that up. Under three strikes judges must sentence offenders to maximum sentences on a second or third strike offence regardless of any relevant context and the manifestly unjust component has been used in many of those instances to try and change it. It is an anomaly in New Zealand law because it severely limits judicial discretion in sentencing to be able to impose a sentence and consider issues like the seriousness of the offending like the other people involved and like the mental health of the person who's standing on trial. In fact the Supreme Court themselves found that this legislation has in fact breached our own New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.The fact is that this has resulted in absurd outcomes and hasn't made our communities any safer. In one case a person was jailed for 10 years for an offence which the sentencing judge would have ordinarily imposed an 18-month sentence in prison. Courts in fact can already impose sentences equivalent to those under the three-strikes regime where appropriate such as preventive detention for repeat serious offenders such as public protection for extended supervision orders and such as minimum periods of imprisonment and maximum penalties up to life imprisonment.My third point is that this piece of legislation has damaged Māori communities. Māori have been disproportionately represented in the three-strikes regime. The sad statistic which everybody in this House should know is that of those 23 offenders who have received a third strike 81 percent of them were Māori.I would like to wrap up by saying that this Government knows that to reduce offending we need to focus on the root causes of crime and this means getting smart on crime. If National was in Government we would have a mega prison at Waikeria we would be in the dark ages and we would continue just to lock people up. But instead of doing that what this Government does is we have stepped in and built Māori pathways which has just started the institutional change that our criminal justice system so desperately needs. We have put in alcohol and drug addiction and mental health treatments into prison where no treatment was ever offered previously. We have provided alcohol and drug treatment courts which have got evidence-based best practice to get people out of offending and out of recidivism. We have introduced Te Pae Oranga panels across New Zealand that reduce the crime by addressing the first underlying drivers of crime when they first present to the justice system—huge success rate and huge rate of not reoffending—and Rangatahi and Pasifika courts all across to make sure that we re-engage young people with their culture in order to provide a better platform for the delivery of effective interventions.There is more to this problem than just locking people up and I am incredibly proud to be part of a Government that is focused on reducing crime in a real and lasting way and not going for quick shock-value political points. I commend this bill to the House."