Hipkins Chris: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — Third Reading 
Hipkins Chris: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:663;Page:11243] 
CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I think that Paul Quinn’s ability to lecture the House on democracy would have been enhanced significantly had he not voted in favour of taking away the right of Aucklanders to have a say on the structure of their local government and had he not voted in favour of taking away the right of Cantabrians to have a say on the form of their local government. I think the public will be pretty sceptical about being lectured on democracy by Mr Quinn. 
It is good to see Hone Harawira in the House debating the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill. As I have previously stated when he has spoken on this matter I have agreed with many of the comments that he has made. I look forward to seeing him vote against this bill. It is good to see when the Maori Party votes with its conscience rather than voting with the Government so we welcome him and his opposition to this legislation. 
I come to this debate with some reluctance because as with many debates on law and order the comments of those who are opposed are likely to be misinterpreted and wrapped up in bumper sticker slogans. I think that those who perpetrate serious violent crime need to be held accountable for their actions. I think that we need to consider victims in all of this. But that does not mean that I agree with the “three strikes” bill. We have to get past the point in this House where anybody who disagrees with a particular measure on law and order is labelled as being soft on crime not caring about victims or condoning the actions of offenders. None of those are necessarily true. I do not condone the actions of violent offenders and I have a lot of compassion and sympathy for the victims of crime. I simply do not believe that the “three strikes” legislation will reduce crime or leave victims better off. 
I do not think that it is right for anybody on any side of the House to suggest that members are hard or soft on crime depending on the way they are voting on this bill. I think the public of New Zealand deserve better in the debate on law and order. They deserve to see their elected members of Parliament actually debating these issues seriously and looking at the evidence and the submissions that were presented to the Law and Order Committee including looking carefully and seriously at the minority submissions put forward by those who oppose this legislation. I know that the overwhelming majority submitted in favour of this legislation. It is easy to submit in favour when one is given a postcard and told to sign it which is what the vast majority of the submissions in favour of this bill were. They were postcards that were signed by people and were handed out no doubt by the Sensible Sentencing Trust. So I am very suspicious of the numbers when the Government says that people are overwhelmingly in favour of this bill. 
I have a huge amount of compassion for the victims of violent offences and those who are associated with the victims of violent offenders. I understand although perhaps do not necessarily feel it myself the desire on the part of some of those people for vengeance against the offenders but I hope we can move beyond that to look at the causes of criminal offending. I would much rather prevent the violent offending—any form of criminal offending—from happening in the first place than deal with it after the fact. I think we would really demonstrate that we take the concerns of victims seriously if we took action to ensure there were much fewer of them in the first place. Unfortunately this legislation does nothing to reduce the number of victims who are created in the first place. 
We have heard some disgraceful examples in this debate of political rhetoric that simply does not square up with the facts. We had the indignity of the Minister in the chair Judith Collins standing up in the Committee of the whole House to say that the only violent crime in New Zealand takes place in South Auckland and that anybody who lives outside of South Auckland has no right to talk about violent crime because they could not possibly understand. I think that is an absolutely disgraceful position for the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections to have taken. First of all it is a dreadful slur on all of the people who live in South Auckland and second of all it is a slur on people from the rest of the country to suggest that they do not know anything about violent crime and that they cannot sympathise with the victims of violent crime. That is absolutely wrong. 
I will mention the reporting of violent crime and crime statistics. We hear crime statistics bandied around the House in justification for this bill and along with a lot of other law and order measures. To some extent the increased reporting of violent crime is a good thing. A lot of violent crime previously got swept under the carpet. It went unreported; it went unnoticed particularly in the case of domestic violence. A big contributor to the increase in violent crime statistics is domestic violence. I think the fact that it is now being reported and it is being properly handled is a really good thing. I think we should not be alarmist about the increase in reporting of domestic violence. I do not think that domestic violence is happening more than it used to; I think it is being brought out into the open and it is being dealt with. That is really good. We should be proud of that. We should be happy that people are not turning a blind eye to it but are reporting it and it is being dealt with. 
There are problems with the “three strikes” policy and I will canvass some of the issues that have been raised. First of all there is not much evidence to suggest that longer sentences reduce crime—they do not. Longer sentences do not reduce crime. The “three strikes” bill provides no incentive for good behaviour and we should be very wary of that. We are sending prison guards into the prison at the same time as we are removing the incentives for violent offenders to reform their ways and shape up their acts. We are putting prison guards at risk if we remove all of the incentives for the prisoners to tidy up their acts and reform and behave properly in prison. We are placing even more of a burden through this bill on the victims themselves. We are less likely to see guilty pleas for violent offending and we are more likely to see appeals. All of these things drag out the process for the victims of violent crime and leave the victims of violent crime even more exposed. 
This bill removes judicial discretion. One of the most fundamental parts of a fair law and order system is providing the judiciary with the discretion to cope with different situations. This bill removes that discretion. In fact it hands it to the police instead. It means that the police will have all of the discretion in the plea bargaining before charges are brought before the courts rather than judges having the discretion in the sentencing. So we are more likely to see the police bargaining before a charge is brought and saying that if offenders plead guilty to a lesser charge which is not a “three strikes” offence they will not put forward the “three strikes” offence as their charge. That circumvents the judicial process; it is not fair law and order. It is not fair and people could get off lightly. The offenders could end up getting off lightly if plea bargaining is going on between the police and the offender in order to lower the potential charge that is brought before the courts. 
Mr Quinn mentioned the process issues. I think it is concerning that we are considering a significant justice issue yet the Ministry of Justice was excluded from the select committee process. The regulatory impact statement raised a significant number of concerns about this bill but the ministry was not given the opportunity to flesh them out and debate them. I think that is an abuse of the democratic process and I think the public should be concerned about that. The Attorney-General—one of the National Party’s own—raised similar concerns. He raised significant concerns with this bill and they have not been adequately addressed. 
The Labour Party agrees with tougher penalties for violent offenders. If one looks back on the track record of Labour in Government one will see that we increased the minimum non-parole periods for serious violent offenders we held people in prison longer and we made it possible for people to be detained for longer if it was in the best interests of the victims—if they were likely to be repeat violent offenders again. We did those things. 
We do not agree with the “three strikes” bill. I think it would be much better to give serious consideration to the causes of criminal offending in the first place to have a serious and honest discussion about the role of mental health in criminal offending in New Zealand and to have a serious and honest discussion about the role of illiteracy innumeracy and low levels of education in the role of criminal offending. We should be talking about the cycle of violence and victimisation because many offenders are themselves victims and were victims beforehand. Many of our most violent offenders were quite often victims of violent crime in their childhood. If we turn a blind eye and we do not deal with that then they are more likely to become violent offenders and we should have an honest discussion about that. We should look honestly and openly at the link between socio-economic status and criminal offending because crime is more likely to take place in low socio-economic areas and criminal offenders are more likely to be from low socio-economic areas. Let us have a discussion about those causes of criminal offending rather than using the “lock them up and throw away the key” mentality that too often characterises debate on law and order issues. Thank you.