Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker and can I say that I respect the spirit in which the last contribution has been made. I don't have any particular sound bites in this space but I do want to make a number of points that go to the way that the three-strikes law is often characterised. I think we would do well to understand some of the principles for the criminal justice system that we have in New Zealand; for better or worse it is a very complicated beast. There's plenty of opportunity and indeed we should all feel encouraged to take enlightened approaches to criminal justice. I'm pleased that the last National Government did a lot of great work in the space of for example establishing alcohol and other drug treatment courts rangatahi courts and so on. But that's not to say that there isn't a role for the criminal justice system also in recognising very very serious harm to very vulnerable members of our community. The vulnerability of those who perpetrate such crime does not take away from the vulnerability of those who are its direct victims. A number of different points in no particular order. Often we hear that the reason that Parliament should repeal the three-strikes law is that it is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. With respect that is not the strongest argument on the other side of the debate. There are good reasons to and fro in relation to the three-strikes law but lack of proportionality under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act isn't one of them. This is because the lack of proportionality in the three-strikes law—which is to say the third strike so to speak is treated differently from the second and first strike—is a feature of the system not a bug. It was quite deliberate that Parliament made that law. Proportionality was an aspect of what the Parliament at that time was trying to achieve. Now of course that Parliament in 2010 can't bind the hands of a future Parliament which is why Parliament now can make a different decision and clearly it will with the majority support not only of Labour but I think some of the other support parties. So it's well within the right of Parliament collectively to change the law but to do so on the basis that there's a perceived inconsistency with New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—and that can't be reconciled in favour of the legislative branch of Government—is to misunderstand the respective roles of the branches of Government. The second point is that the courts—it has rightly been pointed out in the debate so far—apply the law. There's been a criticism from the other side that there isn't real discretion in the case of the three-strikes law because the manifestly unjust safety valve is a threshold that's set too high. But that again misses the point that it's the discretion of the courts being exercised on so many occasions previously that has led to a loss of trust by the general public rightly or wrongly. You know we can all make arguments about the need for an enlightened approach to justice but the fact of the matter is if the people of New Zealand as a whole lose trust in the institution that dispenses justice then we will see vigilante action whether in an active or reactive sense—which is to say self-defence—and that will take us into an even darker place. That might sound merely as though it's a thing that a person might say in favour of the three-strikes law but in fact I can tell you it is absolutely real. The fear in the community the lack of trust in our institutions and the desire—yes—for revenge; and I don't say that that is a good thing that reflects well on human nature but it is a real thing and we cannot be ignorant of that in this House when we are making laws. We should not give in to our basest instincts but we cannot ignore them because that would be to compound the error. Another point I think it's worth making is that in the previous part of the debate—actually it took place on a day before this one but the same reading of the bill—talked about the fact that Parliament's proper function is to make laws and the courts to interpret them. Therefore it was said that the three-strikes law was anathema to that because it was Parliament seeking to apply the law in specific cases. There's an element of truth to that but of course sentencing law is an aspect of law and I don't think we can take that argument so far as to say that Parliament should set no guidance whatsoever in sentencing matters. So that point is fine as far as it goes but to its logical conclusion it doesn't make sense.So I don't think that Parliament should hesitate to give guidance to the judiciary when it's appropriate responding to the people—the people of course being in democracy for whom the rule of law is intended to benefit. Yes the courts are a branch of Government so they should be responsive to in at least a limited sense the will of the people—if not in relation to a particular case because we don't want mob justice and so forth but if we do want a court system that reflects the desire of the people in a democracy it must be so.I think we can have a good conversation—I hope that at select committee we will have a good conversation—about anomalies that are sometimes pointed out in the current law. I think it's fair to say that the categorisation of crimes that trigger the three strikes that are considered strikes could well be looked at and it might well be that there are offences that are not appropriate for inclusion in a three-strikes regime; I think that's a fair point to make.Likewise there might well be offences that aren't currently subject to the three-strikes regime that if the regime were to continue should be included. A colleague across the House made a point in relation to white collar crime and I think she might have a very good point indeed. That may be a moot point however of course if the repeal as a whole goes through but I think it's a conversation worth having nevertheless.The point has sometimes been made that the three-strikes law supposedly has not reduced crime but of course we don't know that because what we know without the benefit of a parallel universe which is the same in all respects except only that it didn't have such a law—we don't know what the crime rate and what further atrocities would have been perpetrated by those who have been convicted of a third strike were that not available.This brings me to the point that the criminal justice system does have one of its aims: deterrence. Yes that's fine; that's good as far as it goes. We can drill a bit more into deterrence and I think we should in our remaining time tonight but deterrence is not the sole aim of the criminal law. The criminal law also has aims which are not necessarily mutually exclusive but are different and separate: one is prevention.Prevention is different from deterrence because deterrence means that a person who would be committing another crime thinks to themselves Well I won't do that because the penalty is such and such." I agree that doesn't always hold true and there are categories of offence to which that is not a realistic expectation.But prevention by contrast is when a person who has committed a crime and we have reason to believe would be likely to commit another crime another offence—whether that's murder or something less than that—is prevented from committing a further crime because at least for the time that that person is behind bars. Now of course the obvious rejoinder is "Well if a person is behind bars they may merely be delaying their release into the community at which point they'll continue to commit further crimes or they might learn further bad habits"—at the risk of using a trite phrase.Well that's fine as far as it goes but that assumes that our criminal justice system and the corrections part of that isn't good for anything by way of rehabilitation. We should have more confidence in that. We should and I mean the Parliament as a whole both sides of politics—we all need to make the effort to make our prison system better so that we are keeping the community safe; yes preventing crime for that period of time but also rehabilitating people who are in there for the time that they are in there before they are released and hopefully can enjoy a better life from there on. I presume that every member of the House is on board with that aim if not the way in which it can be achieved in relation to three strikes.So just going back into that question of deterrence it's true enough to say that deterrence doesn't occur for crimes that we might call crimes of passion—excuse the shorthand—but of course there isn't such a categorisation in the existing law that's sought to be repealed. It's entirely possible that an act is conducted in a cold-blooded calculating fashion and that's a three-strike offence. I don't think that we should give up a legitimate tool in the tool box of the legislature for actually stopping such premeditation. Deterrence the extent that it can be effective should be used by our jurisdiction.I do want to acknowledge that having visited a number of victims of crime recently and I presume that other members of Parliament do whether in a deliberate fashion or because they've come to us in our respective electorate and community offices and their view on the matter is very clear: they often raise it proactively.So for all these reasons I think that this House should pause seriously before considering kicking away one of the supports of a criminal justice system that has as its aim not only deterrence—importantly deterrence but not only deterrence—but also prevention and thereby rehabilitation as well. We cannot support the repeal of this bill."