Hipkins Chris: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
Hipkins Chris: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — In Committee 
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CHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka) 
: 
 I want to know why National is so keen to shut down debate on this bill before it has even got under way. Less than half an hour into the debate on this bill with not one single National member having taken a call on it National members have been trying to shut it down. 
Hon Judith Collins 
: Excuse me. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: Not one single National member other than the Minister in the chair the Minister of Corrections has taken a call on it. They have tried to shut it down. That is outrageous. Why is National so afraid of debating this bill? It could be that the reality does not live up to the rhetoric that they have been putting forward. In fact it is very easy for National members to screech as they are doing on the other side of the Chamber at the moment that Labour members are soft on crime because we do not support the bill. We do not support the bill because it will not work. We will support measures that work. It is wrong to suggest that we are soft on crime. The track record of the last few years would suggest otherwise. 
Some of the rhetoric that has been put forward to justify this bill does not stand up to scrutiny. To claim for example that the previous Labour Government did not do anything to keep the worst violent offenders in prison for longer is simply not true. For example the new sentencing and parole laws that came into force in July 2004 increased the minimum non-parole period for the worst murderers from 10 to 17 years; the time that the worst offenders have to wait between applications for parole has increased to up to 3 years instead of their having the ability to apply automatically every year; automatic release at two-thirds of the sentence for serious violent offenders has been abolished; and preventive detention is now available to keep the worst sexual and violent offenders in prison for longer. So it is simply wrong to say that we have not done anything to keep those offenders in prison for longer and make the public safer. 
The point Labour members are making on this bill is that “three strikes” will not work. It will not work and there are already other things available that could deal with many of the concerns that have been raised. National knows that and that could well be why it is not willing to debate this bill and why it is more interested in closing down debate. 
I turn to the regulatory impact statement on the bill because I think it raises a number of legitimate concerns. This is the Government’s own regulatory impact statement and it found for example in public safety that “it is not possible to conclude with any certainty to what extent any of the options will improve public safety” and “there is a possibility that removing the worst repeat violent offenders from the community for longer periods of time will result in less serious violent offending”. However offenders who commit serious violent offences do not necessarily have previous sentences for serious violent offences. So surely that is where the debate should be at. It should be about how we make the community safer how we crack down on serious violent offending before it takes place. What are the key causes of serious violent offending and how can we address those? We are not hearing anything from the Government about what it is doing on that. 
Public confidence in the criminal justice system could be undermined by this legislation. The regulatory impact statement argues this; it states that public confidence could be undermined if the policy on worst repeat offenders raises the potential for disproportionate outcomes which may negatively affect public confidence in the criminal justice system. It is really important the public have confidence that the criminal justice system is netting out a punishment that is fair and proportionate. If it is not then the public confidence in the system will be eroded and that has to be to the detriment of everybody. 
Most research has found—this is again from the regulatory impact statement—that “imprisonment has little if any specific deterrent effect.” There is a great deal of evidence indicating that offending rates decrease only marginally as a result of penalties being increased. The regulatory impact statement states that. That is not my claim. Here we have the Government putting forward the idea that we will deter repeat offending I suggest that if offenders are already on their second strike the knowledge that they will go away to prison for a lot longer will not necessarily act as a deterrent. One would think that the sentences that were available on the first and second strike would have acted as a deterrent. There are obviously other factors at play here that we need to deal with; this bill does nothing to address those. 
Looking at the financial cost we see that both the life without parole and the worst repeat violent offender policies represent a small but gradually increasing transfer of cost within the funding available to the justice sector from the detention and prevention of offending to the detention of offenders who may particularly once they are elderly pose no risk to the public. Surely we should be focusing the resources on the detention and prevention of offending as much as we are— 
Sandra Goudie 
: Boring! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I say to Sandra Goudie that I would much rather prevent the crime in the first place and prevent the creation of victims in the first place than have an ambulance at the bottom of the cliff to deal with criminal offenders once they have already committed their crimes. I would rather have fewer victims in the first place and Sandra Goudie seems to think that that is boring. I think that is an absolute disgrace and highlights National’s position. It is not interested in preventing crime in the first place. It is more interested in punishment and retribution after the fact which does nothing to make the community safer. Sandra Goudie thinks prevention is boring. I think that is absolutely disgraceful. It says it all about National’s approach. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: Although this is a robust debate this continual screaming across the Chamber is unacceptable. I ask members to tone it down. Interjections should be rare and reasonable. I am happy with those but yelling across the Chamber is unacceptable. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I remind members that I am actually drawing from the regulatory impact statement on the Government’s own bill. This regulatory impact statement I think in this particular case has been prepared by the police. These are the concerns they are highlighting about the bill. I think many of them are very valid concerns they have been raising. 
Other concerns that have been raised about the bill are around the increased powers that it gives to the police as opposed to the judiciary. It places a lot more discretion with the police regarding prosecutorial decisions—who gets prosecuted and for what crimes—rather than leaving the discretion with the judiciary so that could potentially create some perverse outcomes. It could result in bargaining between police and the offender to lower the seriousness of the crime that is being prosecuted and I think that that would be wrong. That could lead to a worse outcome for the victims and a less safe community and that is something that should be taken into account. Again from the police’s regulatory impact statement regarding homicide this is a point put forward from the analysis of a number of leading studies of “three strikes” laws in the USA: there is evidence that these laws may have resulted in an increased rate of homicide. 
David Garrett 
: Rubbish! 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: I am not making that claim. That claim is in the regulatory impact statement to the Government’s bill so that is a Government department or a Government agency putting forward that argument not me. It argues that studies from the USA have concluded that the “three strikes” policy could have actually increased the rate of homicide. This bill could lead to unintended consequences. 
Both options are likely to result in fewer guilty pleas and that is something I am very concerned about; particularly at stage three or where life imprisonment without parole is to be imposed more appeals against individuals’ convictions and sentences can also be expected. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. There is a convention in the Chamber that if members are going to interject they do not walk up and down the Chamber. They do not move around—they interject from their seat. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch) 
: I thank the member for that. The member is correct. When one is walking around within the Chamber one cannot speak at all and certainly cannot interject and make comments. 
CHRIS HIPKINS 
: The Attorney-General has raised concerns about the consistency of this current bill with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I will not go into those but will make a few concluding comments with regards to the position of victims. Of course I sympathise with the victims. Of course my heart goes out to them. Of course I would like to see a greater focus on the rights of victims. Of course I believe that there are some people who should be locked up and kept locked away for a very long time. I am interested in what we can do to reform the criminal justice system so that we have fewer people entering the prison system in the first place and to reduce the rate of violent offending in the first place rather than having the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. If any members have a constructive suggestion about how that could happen I am willing to engage in that debate wholeheartedly. I would much rather focus the emphasis of debate on how we prevent offending and on how we reduce the number of victims created in the first place rather than on how we punish the offenders after the fact. It would be much better. Victims deserve better than a punitive debate following becoming victims—I think they deserve better than that. They deserve for this Parliament to put all of its energy and all of its effort into preventing them from becoming victims in the first place. If we can prevent criminal offending we should do so. Unfortunately there is a real absence of any policies or any ideas coming forward about how we can do that.