Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): I rise on behalf of the National Party to speak on the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill. As the House will be aware the National Party opposes this piece of legislation. The policy implemented by the Bill is … [repealing] … the elements of the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010 that collectively create what is [commonly] known as the three strikes law. … The Government's objectives in repealing the law are to remove the mandatory sentencing requirements that result in"—what they say is—"excessive and disproportionate sentence outcomes by preventing Judges from taking the individual circumstances of the offender and the offending into account. … Repealing the three strikes law"—they say—"will revert the sentencing process for strike offences to standard sentencing practices by allowing the Judge to reach an appropriate outcome on a case-by-case basis." and that the "Bill expressly excludes any entitlement to compensation relating to the impacts of the three strikes law and [there are] no transitional arrangements for those currently serving sentences of imprisonment for a strike offence".This bill in a lot of ways appears to be dealing with the contortions that the courts have been going through in trying to wrestle with three strikes when the judges don't entirely agree with the law as it has been written. I note that the recent Supreme Court case of Fitzgerald and the Queen wrestled with this exact issue. One of the judges was of the view that the language scheme and purpose of the three-strikes regime do not allow for the interpretation reached by the majority—i.e. that the law as written in section 86D(2) would not be subject to any exception. However the majority of the Supreme Court were of the view that the appellant's sentence of seven years' imprisonment went well beyond excessive punishment and would shock the conscience of properly informed New Zealanders and was therefore so disproportionately severe as to breach section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And therefore they held that section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act changed the interpretation of this section.That's interesting because the judges have made an interpretation of what they're conscious of properly informed New Zealanders but the National Party notes that the three-strikes law is popular amongst in New Zealanders and in 2018 68 percent of New Zealanders in a Sensible Sentencing Trust survey were in favour of the law. The National Party said that this demonstrates strong support for the law amongst the public. The same survey found that 78 percent of National voters were in favour of the law 63 percent of Labour voters were in favour and 48 percent of Green voters were in favour. Most recent data shows that second- and third-strike offenders only make up 1.35 percent of the total prison population and that's obviously a very small percentage of that population.I can say having worked both on the prosecution and the defence side of the bar that there are some cases which are challenging. I've certainly seen some defendants come through who didn't think about the consequences when they engaged in behaviours that engaged the three-strikes law. But equally only last week I was talking to a prison officer who gave me his experience and perspective of having worked in a prison and he said that he'd seen on many occasions people who had their first or second strike not getting involved in a fight out in the prison yard because they were aware that if they did something that engaged the three-strikes law they would be in a heck of a lot of trouble basically—they'd be spending a long time in prison. So that's an example that this prison officer gave to me saying that the three-strikes law can work and can make people actually reconsider their decisions which is certainly what the intention of it was.Certainly judges do have a challenging role to play in sentencing because they have to address deterrents—so offenders who are punished are less likely to offend and that's certainly the objective of it and their punishment will also send a message to others who may think of offending in the same way and would deter them. There's also the protection of the community. So the punishment would certainly if someone's in prison make them rather difficult for them to reoffend unless it's in the prison yard but that prison officer has indicated that that would make at least some people reconsider their decisions. It also holds them to account for their behaviour. The other factor that judges must take into account is certainly rehabilitation. So if a crime occurs the idea is to try to address the underlying causes of that and that's certainly something.But this bill is one that is seeking to resolve a challenge and—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The member's time has expired."