KEY POINTS:
Toughening parole, bail and sentencing laws will be a priority for John Key if he becomes Prime Minister.
The National Party leader yesterday addressed a meeting of Asian community leaders, during which he heard calls for a Singapore-style justice system - and even the death penalty.
The Asian
leaders, representing 12 ethnic groups, told him they wanted National to get tough on crime and "make New Zealand safe again".
The meeting, attended by about 200 people, came a week after more than 10,000 people, mainly Asians, took part in a march in Botany Downs calling on the Government to take a tougher stance on crime.
However, march organiser Peter Low, who said he would use triad gangsters to protect Asians if the Government failed to act, was not invited.
National list MP Pansy Wong said: "I did not invite Mr Low because we did not want the meeting to just focus on the issue of the march and what he said about the triads."
Mr Key said the number of people in the march was a clear indication of the "level of frustration on crime among Asians" and the message "didn't go unheard".
He told the Herald he would be announcing policy changes on bail and parole in the next few weeks, and one of the first things he would do if he became Prime Minister would be to toughen parole, bail and sentencing laws.
Paul Yoo, representing the Korean community, said he felt the punishments here were "too soft" to serve as a deterrent.
Capital punishment needed to be reintroduced to make people feel safe again.
Singapore Club president Allan Yee said that in New Zealand prisoners had "a cushy time" and he suggested that an island could be turned into an Alcatraz-type prison.
Mr Key lived in Singapore in 1995 and said the city was "amazingly safe", but he said it was highly unlikely his party would introduce the island state's style of justice.
Some of what Singapore did to contain crime would not be accepted in New Zealand society, he said.
Last month, Prime Minister Helen Clark said parole laws, bail and sentencing had been tightened under Labour, and figures showed prisoners now served 72 per cent of their prison sentence when under the National Government it had been 52 per cent.
But Thomas Chan, originally from Hong Kong, said many in the Asian community had "given up hope on Labour" and were pinning their hopes on National.
He said the community was disappointed Helen Clark did not attend the funerals of Asians Joanne Wang and Yang Yin Ping or Indian Navtej Singh, who were killed last month.