Ngarewa-Packer DebbieDEBBIE NGAREWA-PACKER (Co-Leader—Te Paati Māori) (remote): Tēnā koe e te Pīka. Tēnā tātou e te Whare. I rise on behalf of Te Paati Māori to speak to the third reading of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill—or as the National Party call it the Three Strikes (Unless You Want to Go to Kings College) Legislation Repeal Bill"! Hoi anō three strikes might make sense in baseball but our criminal justice system is not a game. However when you treat politics like an American sport it's easy to see how National and ACT could confuse the two. We too disagree with violence and bullying and the three-strikes law bound the hands of the judiciary with the implicit purpose of locking up more Māori for potentially low-level crimes—modelled on the US law which targeted black Americans. It has made our racist justice system even more racist and even less considerate of tikanga Māori. The repeal of this mean-spirited archaic and ineffective piece of legislation is long overdue and Te Paati Māori hopes that this also signals a move to a more transformative system of justice and reform.Crime in Aotearoa is a result of colonisation and inequality. If we are serious about curbing crime and violence in the country then we need to get serious about looking at the causes not the symptoms. We must invest more into initiatives that work like Whānau Ora and into our communities who know what is needed to reconnect whānau to their marae their hapū their iwi and their Māoritanga. State-run services have proven to fail Māori and it's time to devolve our resources by Māori for Māori to Māori kaupapa. We are facing the worst cost of living crisis in generations. Successive Governments have continued to ignore growing inequality and the breakdown of community that drives people to commit crimes in the first place opting for a tough on crime approach to poverty instead.I feel for whānau who are living in fear of violence in their communities—fear that has been stoked by the media and the likes of National and ACT for political clout. A community-strengthening approach that addresses the drivers of offending is what will make our communities safer for everyone. Since the Government began its programme to decrease the number of Māori in prisons in 2019 our prison population has gone up by 2 percent. It has become abundantly clear that this punitive approach to justice has only made things worse for Māori. The only time Māori receive special treatment is when we are dealing with the criminal justice system. It has profiled and targeted tangata whenua for as long as it has existed in this country. We cannot imprison inequality out of society. ACT and National cannot call themselves "tough on crime" when they are soft on poverty.Repealing three-strikes legislation has been longstanding Te Paati Māori policy but we are disappointed that the Government ruled out compensation and transitionary arrangements for those currently serving time as a result of the law. This should have been reconsidered at the select committee. In the words of my tungāne Hone Harawira when the three-strikes legislation was originally passed in 2010 "It is a short-sighted man who thinks that legislation that sends people to jail for a long time reduces crime rates. It is a blind man who sees justice in sentencing people to life imprisonment for responding to circumstances they have little control over. It is a bloody fool who thinks that this bill will do anything else but create frustration anger and violence within our prison population." Te Paati Māori opposes this bill with all its heart. We'll work with whomever it takes to develop intelligent policy over knee-jerk idiocy and rehabilitation over degradation. Tēnā koutou katoa."