Hide Rodney: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — Second Reading 
Hide Rodney: Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill — Second Reading 
[Volume:662;Page:10683] 
Hon RODNEY HIDE (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 This is a very proud day for the ACT Party and for our members and supporters who have campaigned for many many years for the better protection of law-abiding citizens. It shows that those people who have supported the ACT Party and voted for it have made a difference to our country and will make our country a safer place in which to live. The ACT Party as part of its constitution has the view that the primary role of any Government is to keep citizens safe in their communities in their places of work and at home. We are also aware as a party that keeping our communities safe is part of the wider set of policies that are needed in order to deal with disadvantage in our society. 
I take on board the comments made by the Labour Party and the Green Party. The way that the ACT Party looks at the wider issues is that in order to address poverty and economic and social disadvantage we must reform welfare keep our communities safe from crime improve education through providing a choice of schools and stop taxing low-income people as punitively as we do. Instead our taxation system punishes enterprise and hard work our welfare system encourages attitudes that destroy personal responsibility self-reliance and self-confidence and our schooling system fails up to a third of our children. Out of all these failures has come a crime rate particularly a rate of violent crime that should shame us all. Our poorest communities suffer the most from criminal offending—from petty offences through to the most violent offences. Murder rape and aggravated robbery have become all too common. I say to Mr Horomia that it is from amongst Maori that the ACT Party in comments has received the most support because Maori suffer so badly from violent crime. 
Our sentencing system is weak and the parole system has clearly failed us. Offenders who are released on parole all too often commit further violent crime. These criminals have torn apart the lives of their victims. Their victims must live with the effects of the crime—the pain the fear the anguish—for the rest of their lives. For victims the crime is just the beginning. ACT campaigned hard for tougher sentencing with the “three strikes” policy at the 2008 election. After the election we negotiated an agreement with National to give ACT’s “three strikes” policy a fair hearing at the Law and Order Committee and throughout the past year ACT and National have worked constructively together to agree on a “three strikes” policy designed to keep Kiwis safe. I particularly single out the Minister of Justice Simon Power; the Minister of Police Judith Collins; the Prime Minister; and the entire National caucus as those with whom we have had many discussions over the past year. 
The Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill is a huge step towards getting the most violent repeat offenders off our streets and keeping law-abiding citizens safe. The “three strikes” policy that it implements is focused on a small subset of criminal activity. It is not by any means a policy that addresses the wider set of issues surrounding effective policing or that gets younger people off a pathway towards committing crime. Those issues are of course of the utmost importance but the “three strikes” policy is an essential part of the full mix of policies that are needed. It is focused solely on the worst violent crimes; it is focused on the few offenders who repeatedly commit violent crime. Unlike the Californian law people will not receive severe sentences under this law from conviction for relatively trivial offences. The offences on the qualifying list all represent serious crimes. This policy is about protecting our citizens from violent repeat offenders. It will keep our communities safe by deterring those criminals who are rational enough to see that their repeat violent offending will be met with an escalating level of punishment. Those who are not rational will be locked away which is as it should be. 
On strike one the offender will receive a sentence with parole as determined by a judge as at present. Nothing will change except this: the judge will tell the offender that that is strike one. At strike two the offender will receive a sentence as determined by a judge but now with no parole. Again the judge will tell the offender that that is strike two. At strike three the offender will receive the maximum sentence for that crime with no parole. That is strike three: the maximum sentence with no parole. An essential element of the “three strikes” policy is that it deliberately escalates the punishment for repeat violent offenders. Most offenders will not want to risk a second strike so when they are told about their first strike they will have to think very very hard about whether to amend their ways or carry on with a life of violent crime. Is it not a good thing to send a signal to young male violent offenders that it is a good idea to stop their violent offending? Is that not the sort of signal that we would want to send to Maori Pacific Islanders Europeans or whoever else commits that crime in our community? That is what this bill will do. Most offenders will not want to risk a second strike and they certainly will not want to risk a third strike. 
The evidence demonstrates that these policies work. Some offenders modify their behaviour and I ask again whether that is not a good thing. No longer will they hurt people but more particularly they will improve the way that they live their lives. Those who do not modify their behaviour will be locked away for longer than is the case currently—and so they should be because as I said the ACT Party has the view that our first priority is to protect people from violent crime. If people cannot modify their behaviour and if they are going to come out and kill rape and maim people then we say our first priority is to keep our citizens safe. That is what the “three strikes” policy is all about. 
This policy is about making New Zealand a safer place in which to live work and raise our children. It is about sending the very powerful signal to repeat violent offenders that their repeat violent offending will no longer be tolerated. I say it is about time that we all stood up as New Zealanders and said no to violent crime. It is time that all of us in this House stood up and said we will not tolerate repeat violent crime and we will not make excuses for it. I am astonished to be sitting here and listening to members of the Labour Party and the Green Party excuse it. I think that that might be OK for those people who are protected and safe from violent crime and who do not live amongst it on a day-by-day basis. But I say that for the first time ever we have a Government that hears the message of New Zealanders. It is responding to the concern of New Zealanders and is saying “Halt enough!” to violent crime. We will not tolerate repeat violent crime. I say to New Zealanders that everyone can see on this day in this Parliament that the ACT Party has made a difference that people’s support for the ACT Party has made a difference and that their vote for the ACT Party has made a difference. I think it is a shame that more MPs have not heard the concerns of their communities that it is now well past the time when we should have said no to repeat violent offending. This is a good bill and I commend it to the House.