Garrett David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
Garrett David: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:663;Page:10939] 
DAVID GARRETT (ACT) 
: 
 I will start this contribution by acknowledging Mr Cosgrove who said earlier that he believes that no one in this Chamber would not be on the side of victims. I put on the record that I believe that. I do not believe that Mr Robertson or Mr Hipkins or Mr Cosgrove for that matter are unsympathetic to victims. So that is the spirit in which I am standing and I thank Mr Robertson for his gracious acknowledgment of the sincerity of my belief that lies behind the bill. 
I will talk briefly about deterrence which with the greatest respect I do not think the Minister in the chair the Hon Judith Collins explained as well as she might have. Members on the other side of the Chamber have used the statements in the commentary that state that no deterrence has been calculated or predicted. I am sure members on the other side of the Chamber know—perhaps Mr Robertson does not know because he did not sit on the Law and Order Committee—that the predictions of bed numbers arose when the Department of Corrections put through a computer model of offender statistics for the last 30 years. 
In that model the department inserted the “three strikes” legislation as it is now. It ran the hundreds of thousands of offender statistics through the model as if there had been a “three strikes” bill then extrapolated that forward assuming that those statistics would continue for the next 50 years. That is where those bed numbers come from: 140 over 10 years 288 over 20 years and 725 over 50 years. I will not make any points in this contribution about distortion of numbers because that is not what I stood to say. 
The fact that no deterrent is assumed is because we simply cannot do so. What would be the point in putting into the model an assumed deterrent effect of 10 percent 20 percent or 30 percent? It would simply be a guess and it would be dishonest. It would be absolutely utterly dishonest. That really would be spin. The only thing we can do which is what we have done is to look at statistics from 30 years ago run them through the model with “three strikes” legislation and see what numbers are spat out. 
But I want to talk about parole which is what this part is about. There has been lots of talk about parole and the point made by members on the other side of the Chamber has been made well. The Sentencing Act does indeed make it clear in one subsection at least that parole is a privilege and not a right. I remind the Committee that two of the most heinous crimes in this country were committed by parolees. I refer to William Bell and Graeme Burton. I think it is worth reminding the Committee of the circumstances that occurred with both of them. 
William Bell had 102 previous convictions. He was paroled for badly beating a service station attendant. The service station attendant went and hid in the toilet. He had given Bell the money but because Bell is a psychopath he wanted to see blood. The guy barricaded himself in the toilet. Bell busted in the door and beat the you know what out of him severely injuring him. That was the crime for which William Bell was paroled in 2001. 
When he showed up at the probation service office in Mangere he was assigned to an inexperienced young female probation officer. He walked into the office. She handed over to him his special conditions. He laughed rolled the conditions into a ball threw them at her head and left. Within months he had killed three people at the Mount Wellington - Panmure Returned Services Association and damn near killed a fourth. He had no intention of letting Susan Couch survive. She is maimed beyond belief. I will not discuss her medical condition in the Chamber but I know about it. Bell walked in there undisguised. He had been working there for 3 months so everyone knew him. The only reason someone goes undisguised to a place where they have been working and will be identified is if they do not plan to leave anyone alive. So William Bell is one parolee. 
Graeme Burton is also a psychopath. In Wellington in 1992 he walked into a nightclub and decided to attack some poor inoffensive chap—a fairly slight guy I believe. Burton did not like the look of him or had been given the wrong kind of look and stabbed him with such violence that the knife came out his back. Burton being a huge man lifted the guy off the ground. That was Burton’s crime and he went to jail for it. 
What Burton did was even more sinister than Bell: he got hold effectively of the answer book. He had had interviews with psychologists. He is an intelligent man. I have met him—through a steel grill. He got hold of the answer book so that he could fake empathy. He knew what to say when he was asked how he felt about a picture about a certain situation or about his emotions. He knew what to say and he fooled the Parole Board. He got out and killed Karl Kuchenbecker and damn near killed two other people as well. So there are two failures of parole. 
We make no bones about the fact that the “three strikes” system has steps. I remind the Committee again: step one implements no change from what is already in place. Someone convicted of aggravated robbery the day after this bill is passed will be treated no differently from today except that they will get a formal warning on their file. They will be eligible for parole under the Sentencing Act 2002. It is fair to say that they probably will not get it first time but they will get out under parole and they certainly will not serve their full sentence. 
At step two there is no parole. We make no bones about that. It is a jump from the first step to the second step. We take away that privilege. Members on the other side of the Chamber have agreed that parole is a privilege. That privilege is removed at the second step. 
People have said that it is a disproportionate sentence and they are right. It is deliberate. That is the point they miss. It is deliberately disproportionate because it is the second time. If people offend again they get the maximum and that is disproportionate. A third-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets a certain sentence. A second-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets another sentence. A first-time offender committing aggravated robbery gets another sentence. It is deliberate. That is the point. It is disproportionate because offenders keep on offending do not learn and do not change their ways. As Mr Hide has said eventually at that point they have to be locked up to protect society. 
But it is not forever. The 25-year-to-life sentence that we unashamedly promoted has gone and instead we have the maximum sentence prescribed by Parliament in 1961 when it passed the Crimes Act 1961 and set the penalties. It was a bit simpler in those days. Parliament did not have a whole pile of Acts. It is all in the Crimes Act. Parliament said the maximum penalty for aggravated robbery should be 14 years. I challenge Mr Hipkins to find someone who has received anything like a 14 year sentence in the past 20 years. He will look in vain. The Crimes Act says that the penalty for rape is 20 years. I challenge members to find a rapist who has received anything like a 20 year sentence in the last 20 years. Members will look in vain. 
So this is an unashamedly disproportionate form of sanction. At the first step an offender receives one sentence; the next step is much worse; and the third step is much worse than that. That is the point.