Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. It's clear the other side don't want to debate this piece of legislation—we do.Now Part 1 is fundamentally about amending the Sentencing Act. What we're trying to debate here is the Minister's responses to our questions. I think that's a perfectly legitimate thing to do because her answers haven't been adequate in our mind. So the whole point of Part 1 is to amend the Sentencing Act.Now the Minister has said that the continued rise of violent crime is evidence that the three-strikes legislation hasn't worked. So then that raises the obvious question: well if that's the case then presumably the whole of the Sentencing Act hasn't worked because violent crime has continued to rise. So it's a legitimate question to ask: well if the Minister thinks that we should do away with three strikes because violent crime has continued to rise what else in the Sentencing Act does she think may have contributed to this?You know it is perfectly legitimate to ask: well you know everybody understands that the causes of crime are complex. I could suggest that there would be a very strong link between the fact that more than 100000 kids are chronically truant from school and wandering around the streets. That may be a very significant factor in the massive rise in crime recently and we can talk about that—that's off of the topic of this debate. But in relation to the cause and effect she has argued in very simplistic terms given the fact that there is a rise in violent crime therefore three strikes hasn't worked therefore we need to get rid of it. So I look at that.Her second argument was around well this is inappropriate because it forces judges to impose sentences that they might not otherwise want to impose. Then of course we look down to the clause 6 of this bill which is in relation to the imposition of minimum periods of imprisonment—that's amended—and the presumption in favour of life imprisonment for murder. We see two examples of Parliament giving a clear steer to the judiciary about what Parliament wants to see in terms of sentences.Now her argument is that we should never do that and the three strikes is inappropriate because it constrains judges. I suppose the question I had to ask was: why is she then comfortable with the presumption in favour of life imprisonment for murder? Is that not equally constraining the ability of judges to make whatever decisions they choose? So I'm trying to tease out the logic.You know quite frankly the Minister has been flailing around looking for reasons for this—another one that she raised in response to our questions was around cost considerations and whether this bill was being cost-effective. That reminded me of the logic of Kelvin Davis which is to say that prisons are expensive therefore we want to reduce the number of prisoners by 30 percent. Everybody wants to reduce the number of prisoners but I think most people think that there should be a connection between crime and imprisonment. You reduce the number of prisoners by reducing crime first not the other way round. I don't know it strikes me as a logical way to follow. So I just wanted to get an understanding about what comes first. Is it public safety that comes first that is a consideration that is a factor here when it comes to the Sentencing Act or is it fiscal policy which is I would argue somewhat separate?Finally the Minister mentioned some comments from the Criminal Bar Association of New Zealand in terms of being no encouragement for people to plead guilty. Well the criminal bar made a number of points and they rang the same weak argument I thought that the continued violent crime suggested that the three strikes didn't work.The other thing that they raised was that it caught relatively minor crimes. We heard the spokesperson there referring to minor crimes leading to excessive punishment. I'd like to understand whether the Minister agrees with that and what evidence she has for it. But of course the three strikes bill which is being repealed included the ability for judges to alter things if it was a manifestly unjust outcome. If Parliament is concerned that that is not working effectively to avoid manifestly unjust sentences being imposed then an obvious suggestion is to amend the Act to make that more explicit or more effective. I want to ask the Minister whether any thought had been given to amending the Act rather than repealing it. If there is a concern that this legislation has led to manifestly unjust outcomes—somebody being convicted on a third offence and being sent to jail for 10 years for a relatively minor crime; bearing in mind that the crimes involved here are violent crimes and sexual assaults and not minor instances but at the low level of spectrum—and the ability of judges to alter things if the outcome is manifestly unjust. If the argument is that that is not working effectively and is too tight what thought was given to amending that rather than repealing it? I'd like to get a sense from the Minister about that.Also raised by the Criminal Bar Association was another point saying Well because there is no parole for these prisoners that removes the ability for rehabilitation and that's a reason why we should repeal the bill." I would have thought a much more logical approach would be to say "Well if that is a problem why don't we amend the bill to ensure that prisoners who are captured by the second or third strike do have access to rehabilitation in prison?"That's something that the law could be amended to deal with but that doesn't seem to have been an option considered by this Parliament when it moved—under Part 1—to repeal the changes to the Sentencing Act. So there's a number of questions there. Why did the Government not consider amendments around the "manifestly unjust" element of this and whether it's working effectively? Why did they not consider amendments around the ability for rehabilitation for those prisoners? Why did they think that the only option available was repeal?"