Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Mr Speaker where do I start?Chlöe Swarbrick: With the letter I sent you!Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well I can tell the member right now that I haven't seen any letter from her but I'll be very interested to read it when I receive it. I assume—Chlöe Swarbrick: Point of order Mr Speaker. Addressing the points just made by the speaker—DEPUTY SPEAKER: No. They're debating points; you can wait for your turn.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Mr Speaker. The reality of it is with the three-strikes legislation that when we debated this in the House at the committee stage there were three times—three times—I got to my feet and I asked the Minister the same two questions. And she didn't respond and she didn't answer because it was asking for evidence around—there have been several reasons why that have been put up to the House by varying Ministers in terms of why we're having to repeal the three-strikes legislation at a time in our country when we're experiencing the worst levels of violent crime that I certainly remember in my lifetime highlighted I think by a report in the New Zealand Herald today that there was a young lady on the streets here in Wellington who was surrounded by patched gang members on bikes that kicked her mirror off and in her words terrified her. I don't know about the rest of the members in this House but I don't want to live in a country like that where a young lady is driving her vehicle through the streets of Wellington and is surrounded by patched gang members that feel they can start punching and kicking her car and ripping the rear-vision mirror off causing her to be terrified. That is not the country that we need to live in and unfortunately at a time when we need tougher penalties and we need stronger and more consequences the priority of this Government was to come into this House and repeal the three-strikes legislation which actually removes tougher penalties.And by the way this House should recognise and respect the role of our courts and our judges and our court system but there is a separation and the only thing that I've heard this Minister stand up and say is that because the Supreme Court and the High Court made judgments and they don't like this legislation and they don't like the fact that they've lost some of their discretion—I don't think their voice should be any louder than the voice of the public or the victims or those that come in front of the committee and took the time to make submissions against this bill groups like the Sensible Sentencing Trust or the Dairy and Business Owners Group which are facing ram raids and assaults and attacks and armed robberies. We saw an armed robbery in the middle of the day in Queen Street where members of the public felt like they had to try and make an intervention. Thank God no one was hurt or killed in that situation. The Minister said Oh we're worried about a disproportionate outcome or we're worried about offenders or defendants not being able to do a plea deal because the three-strikes legislation might get in the way." What a perverse reason to put up to support them wanting to repeal this Act. What a perverse reason—that they want to protect a defendant's right to be able to negotiate some sort of plea deal against the victim's right to justice. I think that is a disgrace. The Minister would not actually stand and respond to that when I put it to her.Nick Tuitasi—can I acknowledge Nick Tuitasi. I had the honour of serving with Nick and I had enormous respect for him. In fact he was hugely respected inside the police service because even at that time he was working tirelessly—tirelessly—inside his communities in South Auckland and West Auckland. If there's one man in this country that understands and knows what's going on inside his community it's Nick Tuitasi. If he takes the time to make a submission to our select committee saying "Please leave the three-strikes legislation in place because what it does is it takes the worst offenders the offenders with 72-plus convictions out of the community and it makes it safer."—and the other question that I have and this is this is relevant and this will probably upset the Government members but I want to know what's going to happen when this legislation is repealed and it is repealed and there is an offender that is out in the community who otherwise would have been inside prison under the three-strikes legislation and that offender seriously injures sexually assaults or kills someone. Who's going to stand up and defend the decision then? Who's going to be standing up making the speeches then saying that was the right thing to do?—"Yes we have a new victim or victims. Yes someone's been killed. But do you know what? That was just the price we had to pay to get this legislation repealed." I'm making a prediction—and God forbid and I hope that I'm wrong but I'm predicting—that we're going to have a serious recidivist violent offender that should have been incarcerated in prison under the three-strikes legislation that isn't going to be and they're going to be out in the community and they're going to create another victim. And I'll be interested to see when that happens whether or not the Government has got the belly to actually stand up and defend it. I don't think they will be.I just want to look at some of the numbers because I asked the Minister during the committee stage to please bring the evidence—show us the evidence. There was no evidence. Three times I asked that. Three times there was a failure to actually provide any. But actually when you look at the numbers—and by the way I want to acknowledge the chair and I want to acknowledge the other members because she does do a good job of chairing that committee. On the whole we try to get on and we try to be bipartisan. We try to do the best that we can because justice and public safety is important to all of us on that committee. But I just want to clarify here: when she stood up and she started pulling stats out and saying "Justice said that this has made no real tangible difference to the level of sexual assaults and serious violent attacks" and things like that—the data was being collected back in the 1980s and '90s; is that correct? Or were you referring to data that was collected from 2010 when the legislation came in—Ginny Andersen: From 1993 to 2014.Hon MARK MITCHELL: 1993? That's well before the three-strikes legislation even came in. So they're using data—you can't take and use data to—Chlöe Swarbrick: No you're not listening.Hon MARK MITCHELL: I thought you said '93.Ginny Andersen: It's data and 2014 ends—Hon MARK MITCHELL: Yes I know. So if you're actually going to collect data to try and show the impact of a bill you start collecting data for when the bill actually becomes law. That's when you start collecting the data. And by the way what a perverse ridiculous argument to say that because crime rates are going up because we've still got serious assaults because we've still got sexual abuse and domestic violence and all those—oh it's the three-strikes legislation's fault! So let's get rid of that!Chlöe Swarbrick: No one is saying that.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well that's the argument that's being put up: there's been a continuing rise in serious crime so let's get rid of three strikes; that'll fix the problem! What a ridiculous argument. We may as well look at all our sentences if that's the argument that's being put up. And by the way if you actually look at the numbers—let's just go through the numbers to see whether or not three-strikes appears to be a deterrent. First strikes: 13349 first-strike offences—offenders would get their first strike. Let's go on to second strikes. So let's see how many of those offenders reoffend and actually pick up that second strike. The second offence is 640 second strikes. That's only 4.8 percent of first-strikers that have progressed to the second strike. So looking at those numbers it appears that the first strike has been enough; they don't want to progress to a second-strike offence; only 4.8 percent of them do. And now let's have a look at the third-strike offences. So we go to third strikes: there's 21 third-strikers. So that's only 3.2 percent of second-strikers that have gone to that third strike. So if you actually look at those numbers and you analyse the numbers what would that tell you? It would actually tell you that maybe—maybe—the strikes are a deterrent. Maybe a first-striker doesn't want to pick up a second strike and maybe the second-striker doesn't want to pick up the third strike. That's actually the evidence. That's actually what's in front of us. When they get to the third strike on average they've got 74 convictions. They're serious recidivist offenders. This piece of legislation—all the victims groups that came in front of the committee didn't want to see it go; their voice was ignored. It's the High Court and the Supreme Court judges that are being listened to on this not the victims not the members of the public not the people that are actually affected directly—it's the judges. This legislation should not be repealed—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."