Robertson Grant: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:10910] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 I think that when we look at the purpose clause we see as my colleague Clayton Cosgrove said before that there would be quite widespread acknowledgment across the Committee that we are concerned about reoffending. We have to be concerned about reoffending in our communities. When people go and spend time in prison then leave and recommit crimes we have to ask ourselves why that is so and what we can be doing about it. It is clearly defeating the purpose of people going to prison if they are constantly reoffending when they come out and I think there is a shared concern about that across the Committee. There is a shared concern about what underlies the purpose clause there which is that the safety of the public should be paramount when it comes to how we operate within the criminal justice system. There is a shared concern about that right across New Zealand society. 
As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove also said in our jobs as MPs we all meet the victims of crime. Some of us have been the victims of various types of crime but we also meet many victims of crime and feel the pain they have had and the experiences they have to continue to go through day after day—well beyond the time the crimes were perpetrated. All of those things lie behind the concerns of everybody in this Chamber and I am sure they lie behind the purpose clause we are debating at the moment. But in the end as a Parliament our job is to pass laws that will be effective and will work and that have evidence to support them in doing that. I do not believe and Labour members do not believe that this bill will do that or that this purpose clause can be supported despite what might lie behind it as a commonly held concern. 
The problem with this bill is that it is unworkable it is also inequitable and it will not lead to just sentences in the way perhaps that the promoters would like it to. Mr Garrett said we needed to start somewhere but my problem with this bill is that this is not where we should be starting. We should be starting by working to stop people from committing crimes and by investing in the early years to ensure that people do not move into a life of crime. We need to be ensuring that we are properly supporting rehabilitation and reintegration into society and that we are not undermining the organisations that do that work or cutting the funding for the Prisoners Aid and Rehabilitation Society a 132-year-old organisation that does remarkable work on reintegration. We should actually be devoting ourselves to starting where we can have the greatest impact—that is starting by working with young people who are heading in a direction we do not want them to go down. We should be starting at an even younger stage with people who have learning difficulties who cannot stay in school and who have behavioural problems. We should be supporting parents to be able to bring up those young people. That is where we should be starting. 
But the purpose clause—and the drive behind this bill—is a poster; it is a slogan it is an emblem. It is not real change not real development; it is something the ACT Party has promoted and National has gone along with but it is not actually starting in the place where we should start. I am sorry to say that I think the purpose clause there gives false hope to people. It gives false hope that somehow this bill will solve the violent crime that is out there but there is no evidence to support that. Internationally there is no evidence to support that and nothing has been presented to us here that does that. The regulatory impact statement for this bill actually challenges time and time again the issue of whether public safety will be enhanced whether there is a deterrent effect. We cannot stand in this Chamber now and give to the victims of crimes and their families the false hope that somehow or other this legislation will wish away all of that violent crime. I believe that that is what is going on here in terms of the ACT Party and National. They are providing false hope to people. This regime is unlikely to deter would-be offenders; that is the evidence internationally. The regulatory impact statement raises that question. 
Mr Garrett talked about California. It is easy to throw around different statistics in this debate and yes there has been a drop in crime in parts of California. But that started before the “three strikes” bill. In the United States the greatest the sharpest drop in crime in the last decades has actually been in New York a state that does not have a “three strikes” law. So I ask Mr Garrett why we are not looking at that. In California the counties that aggressively enforce the “three strikes” laws did not see the greatest drop in crime. The greatest drop in crime was seen in the counties that did not enforce the law as strongly. It is easy to throw up these statistics and get them out there but that is not always the way to get the change we want.