RMA to be relaxed for farm recovery after floods – but court sentences are being hardened in a crackdown on criminals
On the one hand, the government can expect to win kudos for suspending the law – or one bit of it. On the other, it can expect to get plenty of support for hardening its law-and-order credentials.
The law is being over-ridden by an Order in Council intended to enable severe weather recovery works to continue in the Hawke’s Bay.
This will make temporary changes to the Resource Management Act to allow rural recovery works to occur as a permitted activity in the region until 30 April 2026. Rural landowners and occupiers will be able to use the Order for recovery works on their land.
But no, the government has not gone soft. Tougher sentences for criminals are in the offing after the Government agreed to introduce sentencing reforms to Parliament this week.
The reforms will strengthen the criminal justice system by:
But no, the government has not gone soft. Tougher sentences for criminals are in the offing after the Government agreed to introduce sentencing reforms to Parliament this week.
The reforms will strengthen the criminal justice system by:
- Capping the sentence discounts that judges can apply at 40 per cent when considering mitigating factors unless it would result in manifestly unjust sentencing outcomes.
- Preventing repeat discounts for youth and remorse. Lenient sentences are failing to deter offenders who continue to rely on their youth or expressions of remorse without making serious efforts to reform their behaviour.
- Responding to serious retail crime by introducing a new aggravating factor to address offences against sole charge workers and those whose home and business are interconnected, as committed to in the National-Act coalition agreement.
- Encouraging the use of cumulative sentencing for offences committed while on bail, in custody, or on parole to denounce behaviour that indicates a disregard for the criminal justice system, as committed to in the National-New Zealand First coalition agreement.
- Implementing a sliding scale for early guilty pleas with a maximum sentence discount of 25 per cent, reducing to a maximum of 5 per cent for a guilty plea entered during the trial. This will prevent undue discounts for late-stage guilty pleas and avoid unnecessary trials that are costly and stressful for victims.
- Amending the principles of sentencing to include requirement to take into account any information provided to the court about victims’ interests, as committed to in both coalition agreements.
These will deal with …
- Adults who exploit children and young people by aiding or abetting them to offend;
- Offenders who glorify their criminal activities by livestreaming or posting them online.
Christopher Luxon kicked off by saying the first quarterly report on progress against nine public service targets showed promising results in some areas and the scale of the challenge in others.
The targets had been reinstated to focus the public sector on driving better results for New Zealanders in health, education, law and order, work, housing, and the environment by 2030.
“The targets we set were deliberately ambitious and the results from the first quarter confirm that they will be challenging to achieve – but it’s a challenge our Government is up for.
“We are making particularly good progress on emergency housing, with the results showing that the Government is outperforming previous forecasts.
“Our plan to get children and families out of motels and into a home is working – as of June, there has been a 34 per cent reduction in the number of households in emergency housing and since then there has been further improvement.”
But Luxon said violent crime was “of particular concern”. The data show that almost 30,000 more people have experienced violent crime based on the New Zealand Crime and Victims Survey which shows people’s experience from up to two years ago.
This reinforces Police data which showed a concerning rise in reports of violent crime in recent years.
“It is also further proof that the previous soft-on-crime approach has emboldened offenders and created a crime wave that will take a much tougher approach to stop.
“That’s why our Government is taking action to hold offenders accountable through tougher sentences.”
The next quarterly progress report is expected to be released before the end of the year.
The Target Quarterly Report Summary for June 2024 can be found at https://www.dpmc.govt.nz/our-programmes/government-targets
The nine Government Targets to be delivered by 2030 are:
- Shorter stays in emergency departments: 95 per cent of patients to be admitted, discharged, or transferred from an emergency department within six hours.
- Shorter wait times for (elective) treatment: 95 per cent of people wait less than four months for elective treatment.
- Reduced child and youth offending: 15 per cent reduction in the total number of children and young people with serious and persistent offending behaviour.
- Reduced violent crime: 20,000 fewer people who are victims of an assault, robbery, or sexual assault.
- Fewer people on the Jobseeker Support Benefit: 50,000 fewer people on Jobseeker Support Benefit.
- Increased student attendance: 80 per cent of students are present for more than 90 per cent of the term.
- More students at expected curriculum levels: 80 per cent of Year 8 students at or above the expected curriculum level for their age in reading, writing and maths by December 2030.
- Fewer people in emergency housing: 75 per cent reduction of households in emergency housing.
- Reduced net greenhouse gas emissions: On track to meet New Zealand’s 2050 net zero climate change targets, with total net emissions of no more than 290 megatonnes from 2022 to 2025 and 305 megatonnes from 2026 to 2030.
Latest from the Beehive
17 September 2024
Cabinet has approved an Order in Council to enable severe weather recovery works to continue in the Hawke’s Bay, Environment Minister Penny Simmonds and Minister for Emergency Management and Recovery Mark Mitchell say.
From today, low-to-middle-income families with young children can register for the new FamilyBoost payment, to help them meet early childhood education (ECE) costs.
16 September 2024
The Government has today agreed to introduce sentencing reforms to Parliament this week that will ensure criminals face real consequences for crime and victims are prioritised.
The first quarterly report on progress against the nine public service targets show promising results in some areas and the scale of the challenge in others, Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says.
The statement from Penny Simmonds and Mark Mitchell reminds us that Cyclone Gabrielle and the other severe weather events in early 2023 caused significant loss and damage to the Hawke’s Bay region.
Ninety-four per cent of Hawke’s Bay landowners who responded to a Hawke’s Bay Regional Council survey earlier this year still had recovery works to complete. These works included reinstating tracks and access to properties, repairing culverts, dams, roads and bridges, removing silt and reinstating eroded areas.
Without the Order in Council in place these activities would require resource consents.
“The Order will support landowners who so far haven’t been able to complete these works due to delays in finalising insurance claims, a lack of available contractors and extended wet weather,” Simmonds says.
Mitchell said the temporary change had been developed in response to a request from the Hawke’s Bay Regional Recovery Agency.
More information about the proposed Order in Council is available on the Ministry for the Environment’s website.
Orders in Council under the Severe Weather Emergency Recovery Legislation Act 2023 allow the Government to make temporary law changes to help communities continue their recovery from the severe weather events of early 2023.
These law changes are temporary, apply only in specific severe weather-affected regions and must be made for the purposes of severe weather recovery.
Point of Order is a blog focused on politics and the economy run by veteran newspaper reporters Bob Edlin and Ian Templeton
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