PM Christopher Luxon and Nicole McKee to announce justice changes

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee will hold a press conference this afternoon, where they are set to announce justice changes.

This is likely to be a return of the last National Government’s Three Strikes sentencing regime, which was abolished under the last Labour Government.

Reinstating Three Strikes was a policy campaigned on at the election by the parties of the coalition. The Government’s first quarterly action plan pledged to “take decisions to restore Three Strikes”.

The Three Strikes system was implemented in 2010 under the Sentencing and Parole Reform Act. It was a punitive measure aimed at repeat offenders. The law primarily targeted serious violent and sexual offenders.

Offenders were given three “strikes”. After being convicted of a third serious offence, the offender would receive the maximum sentence without parole.

Under the system, the first and second strikes incurred normal sentencing. However, upon the third strike, the offender faced harsher consequences, irrespective of the severity of the third offence. Even if the third offence is relatively minor, the offender received the maximum penalty for that offence.

Labour first attempted to repeal the law in its first term but was blocked by NZ First. When the law was repealed in 2022, then-Justice Minister Kiri Allan said it had ed to some “extremely concerning sentencing outcomes” and there was “little evidence” it had worked as a deterrent.

Allan said serious and repeat offenders would still be held to account, but discretion would go back to the judiciary.

Back then, National promised it would reinstate the legislation if elected.

The party’s then-justice spokesman, Paul Goldsmith, said at the time that the purpose of the law was to keep those “serious repeat offenders out of circulation for longer to keep the community safe”.

He quoted a submission that stated that, after 10 years, 13,000 people had been delivered their first strike.

“If it had no effect, it’s surprising that only 640 have had their second strike and only 21 have had their third strike.

“On average, the people who have had three strikes have had around 70 offences each

“This law was designed to take these third strike offenders out of circulation to reduce the number of victims, to give the victims a break. Victims are still scared to go out at night.”