SpeechHon KIRITAPU ALLAN (Minister of Justice): Can I thank my colleague Christopher Penk from across the aisle. I enjoy the application of his mind to these legal issues because that's exactly what they are and in particular the separation of powers which is at the heart of his questions and how that relates to Part 1. So I just really appreciate that finally we have a speaker from the other side of the House that's actually directed his questions to the subject matter before us.So stepping back one I think we can all be assured within this House that the supremacy of sovereignty of this Parliament is utmost. I presume all lawmakers will do this and I've certainly seen that over many years observing this House: we look to the courts and in particular the senior courts as to how they interpret our laws that we make. We are the stewards and custodians of lawmaking. They of course are the stewards and custodians of interpreting those laws and applying them. What we have here—and it's not to take into any consideration their viewpoints on policy; it's to take into consideration how the law has been interpreted in light of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and of course in light of broader sentencing principles. I think the question that my colleague asked me is you know what is—I think the presumption there was whether there has been an overreach of the judiciary into policy matters and whether there's been an overly open ear of the executive to the courts. On those grounds I am assured that that certainly is not the case and there is very much respect for the separation of powers. When you have the senior courts find—actually when you have every court level from the Supreme Court Court of Appeal High Court through to the District Courts noting that there is a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and that it's so disproportionately severe that it undermines the integrity of the three-strikes sentencing regime I think all of us as parliamentarians in this House should be concerned. Post the Queen v Fitzgerald of course which the members of this House should all be well versed with now I think that there's been a summary by some legal academics that have found that four of the six third-strikers have received disproportionate sentences so that would amount to a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.Briefly turning though to the point with victims to briefly respond again to my colleague Mark Mitchell I don't know whether we're seeing the same submissions from multitudes of groups with respect to victims but I have here through multiple receipt of submissions that I have the impact on victims when you have victims going through a prolonged judicial process through the courts—confronting your victims on multiple occasions and having that system stretched out and appealed and gone through that process. So look that's not the primary reason of course. The primary reason that we're repealing this is because it doesn't align with good legal practice and in particular the sentencing regime that New Zealand has had in our country for many years which is a sound and principled approach to sentencing. Of course any law that consistently has results and findings of a breach of our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act I think everybody in this House will agree is something that is an issue that we as lawmakers should be turning our mind to. Is this law fit for purpose? Does it reach the objectives? If so what are the benchmarks by which we seek to see how it reaches those objectives and how can we capture that? On all of those grounds as I've made statements on multiple occasions this morning we find that there is not a case to be made.