Cam Slater: Labour – The Party for Crims

While the Government moves to honour an election promise by introducing legislation to bring back the Three Strikes laws, Labour is hell-bent on proving that they are the party for the criminal classes in New Zealand.

The opposition has laid into the government’s plan to reintroduce a “three strikes” regime, saying it is inequitable and there is very little evidence it works.

The government says the new policy will apply only to sentences of at least two years, give judges more discretion in cases where harsh outcomes would be “manifestly unjust”, and bring in some benefit for offenders on their final strike to plead guilty.

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon, who announced the move alongside Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee earlier today, said criminals “need to know that their actions will not be tolerated by this government, and we are determined to keep our community safe”.

But Labour leader Chris Hipkins pointed to the cuts to Customs and said it showed the government’s priorities were all wrong.

“On a day when the government are trying to talk tough about crime, they’re rolling out the welcome mat to organised crime, and there is an inescapable link between organised crime and violent offending in New Zealand,” he said.

He said Three Strikes was not good policy, and there was no evidence it would reduce violent offending, but “it’s difficult to critique an announcement of an announcement”.

“I’m very sceptical about mandatory minimums generally. If you look around the world … where they are imposed they generally lead to unjust and inequitable outcomes.

“I think when Parliament starts telling judges how to rule, then actually we start to break down some pretty basic, important constitutional principles.”

In a statement, Labour’s justice spokesperson Duncan Webb said Three Strikes had “little evidential backing” and the government was reviving it “just to look tough”.

“This is political posturing of the worst kind,” he said. “There was almost no evidence to show it deters offending, and instead it resulted in severe distortions in sentencing third strike offenders.”

Radio NZ

The very last party we should listen to on law and order issues is the Labour Party. Their criminal-friendly policies saw a massive increase in street crime, ram raids and firearms offences, so much so that Woolworths staff now have to wear body cameras because of the huge number of assaults on them.

Labour emptied the prisons and then was awe-struck when crime became uncontrollable.

Worse still, Police Minister after Police Minister, from Chris Hipkins to Ginny Andersen, gaslit us about the rising crime epidemic, telling us that we were all wrong and that it was just that they had better statistics.

Little wonder then when Indian dairy and bottle store owners flocked to the waiting arms of National, Act and NZ First.

But it is rather hypocritical of Chris Hipkins to be wailing about crime when he was the Police Minister for a good chunk of the last six years. At least the current Police Minister knows personally how to deal with gangs, even if it means Police dogs get a little chew on them now and then.

If Labour wants to fight the next election opposing three strikes then by all means let them. Three strikes legislation is very popular, with only 1 in 6 people opposed to these laws. That’s just around 17% of the population, probably where Labour will land in opposing three-strikes legislation.

Labour’s whinging about bizarre outcomes and its failure as a policy will fall on the deaf ears of the public. Almost all of us want to see criminals get their beans. Labour cannot profit from this stance. Great, isn’t it?

Cam Slater is a New Zealand-based blogger, best known for his role in Dirty Politics and publishing the Whale Oil Beef Hooked blog, which operated from 2005 until it closed in 2019. Cam blogs regularly on the BFD - where this article was sourced.