Christopher Luxon believes new Three Strikes law will benefit Māori

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon had a novel spin on yesterday’s announcement of the return of the Three Strikes law.

Asked if the legislation disproportionately impacted Māori and Pasifika, Luxon said the legislation would target serious harm repeat offenders regardless of ethnicity and the legislation would end up benefiting Māori who were overly represented as victims.

Both Luxon and Associate Minister of Justice Nicole McKee emphasised the legislation would only impact repeat serious harm offenders and said they had revised the previous law (dumped by the last Labour Government).

The new regime will have increasingly tough penalties for repeat offences where, on the second strike, offenders will face no parole and, for the third repeat offence, offenders can expect a maximum sentence with no parole.

The previous legislation didn’t consider the length of a sentence or whether the offence was minor or serious. The new regime ensures the legislation will target serious offences that were eligible for more than 24 months of a sentence.

McKee said there would be narrow exceptions to allow for judicial discretion and the Government would provide guiding principles so decisions could be made in alignment with Parliament’s intent. She cited an early guilty plea whereby, if offenders pled guilty on the third strike, they would be eligible for as much as a 20 per cent reduction in sentencing in order that victims wouldn’t have to be re-traumatised in a courtroom.

McKee aims to take the draft bill and paper to Cabinet by the end of June and will recommend the bill come into effect six months after the bill is passed to allow for the implementation of changes such as IT systems and training.

With the changes comes an estimate of 45 to 90 additional prisoners over the next 10 years at a cost between $4-11 million.

Questioned on the costs, Luxon said it was a worthy investment.

“I think about the pain and suffering that’s caused by those violent offenders and the trauma it causes those families and those victims,” he said.

Once the bill is produced, the Attorney General will consider it and provide advice on any issues but Luxon and McKee were confident there won’t be breaches of the Bill of Rights Acts or international human rights obligations.