Goldsmith PaulTUESDAY 2 AUGUST 2022(continued on Wednesday 3 August 2022)THREE STRIKES LEGISLATION REPEAL BILLIn CommitteeDebate resumed.Part 1 Amendments to Sentencing Act 2002 (continued)CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): The House is resumed. The House is in committee for further consideration of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill and consideration of the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill and the Animal Welfare Amendment Bill. I'll just remind members that it would useful if you asked multiple questions of the Minister in charge. We come first to the interrupted consideration of the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Bill. When we were last considering this bill Part 1 was being debated.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Look this has been an interrupted debate. We got started last week for about five minutes and then had to stop and then we started last night for about five minutes and had to stop. So a little bit of indulgence from the Chair would help just to recap so that people who might have been tuning into this debate have a chance to catch up.What we're dealing with here is legislation that was passed by the previous National Government that targeted the most serious repeat offenders in New Zealand. After a first strike and then a second strike—and this is not any old crime. It is for serious violent crimes or sexual crimes and they would have to carry out the full sentence the maximum sentence for that deed if they had the third strike. And if we look at the overall numbers after it had been introduced for 10 years of 13349 first-strike offences—and they got their first-strike warning—only 640 people have carried on to their second strike where they've got their second-strike warning and then only 21 have gone on to their third strike. So the initial concerns 10 years ago that you'd see lots of people locked away for ever because of trivial offences was never going to occur. What has occurred is that 21 of our worst serious offenders have been kept in prison longer than they would otherwise have been probably in order to keep them off the streets and to reduce the number of offenders.This bill introduced by the Government repeals that. I have asked two questions of the Minister which I'm hoping to get some clarity on. One was around the rationale for the bill and Part 1 which we're talking about is the crux of the bill—it is repealing the Act. I quoted Kris Faafoi's first reading speech where he said It's bad legislation. We know because it hasn't worked." And then we looked at the advice from officials that turned up and low and behold the officials' advice was "There is no substantial international or New Zealand evidence on the effect of three-strikes law on crime and we need to do some more research." So there was no evidence so he was quite incorrect The current Minister Kiritapu Allan told us that it's clear if you look that violent crime has continued to increase and there's been a stark rise in sexual offending and therefore the Act hasn't worked—which struck me as very very feeble logic and reasoning to be hearing from a Minister of Justice. It might be possible that there might be other factors involved in the rise of violent crime other than the actions of the three-strike legislation and I could suggest one or two. One is the soft on crime approach that we've had for the last 4½years. So I was keen to get the Minister to be a little bit more expansive on what she thought might actually be going on in terms of crime levels and the role that that one piece of legislation has played in it.The second question was in relation to—I did have a second question and now I can't remember what it was.Hon Member: It was the question after the first question.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: That's right and it was a very good question and I'll come back to it at a later point. There has been lots of reference to the fact that three strikes has led to people being locked away for trivial offences. The second point that she was raising was that having that legislation was somehow disrespectful to the judiciary and the judges as it limited the options that judges could have in sentencing and that somehow this was a breach of constitutional practice or some other. I'd like to hear the official advice. Obviously Parliament had many pieces of legislation put in place—minimum sentences and maximum sentences and it constrained the total flexibility that judges might like to have but Parliament has got the ability to pass laws. There is nothing unconstitutional about that. It sets a framework and sends a clear message that we want the worst offenders to stay in prison for longer.The other question I asked was why she thought this was a priority at a time of rapid rising—CHAIRPERSON (Ian McKelvie): The member's time has expired."