The new Three Strikes is such a watered down version ofthe OG law that it’s going to at best disappoint voters wanting a tougher stance on recidivist offenders, at worst anger them.
So soft is the law, that the Sensible Sentencing Trust - which has been mothballed for years - has revived itself with the sole purpose of fighting to beef up the law.
There are two main problems with Three Strikes 2.0. The first is that the law will only apply to sentences of two or more years in prison. At first glance, that may seem like a smart move, to avoid a repeat of a bottom pincher ending up with seven years in the slammer, which is simply too harsh for that crime.
But the trouble is, plenty of very bad people doing very bad things will slip under that threshold.
Ranapera Taumata, 30, appeared in the High Court at Napier charged with the murder of Taylor-Jade Hira.
For example, Ranapera Taumata, who murdered his girlfriend by beating her to death in 2019. He was a third striker. But under this new law, at least two of his strikes would never have qualified. One strike - an aggravated robbery - only copped him 8 months home D. Another - a robbery in which he king-hit another man - got him 20 months jail. Neither are considered bad enough under the new law to get him strikes. Yet, he demonstrably should’ve earned strikes under any law given that he then went on to bash his girlfriend to death.
Here’s another example. Tauhu David Mitai-Ngatai repeatedly indecently assaults women and has over 100 criminal convictions. He earned a first strike for an indecent assault on a little girl which apparently earned him 15 months in jail, and a second strike for feeling up an ambulance officer which earned him 13 months in jail. He would earn no strikes under the new law.
The second problem with Three Strikes 2.0 is that it will reportedly wipe clean the slates of more than 10,000 serious offenderswho earned strikes under the old law. Which means guys like Taumata and Mitai-Ngatai get to start again with no strikes to their names, no matter how bad they are.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee argues this has to happen because she can’t carry over strikes from an old law when the new law is so different.
Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee. Photo / Mark Mitchell
The easy fix is to simply make the new law the same as the old law. Problem solved.
It’s surprising that it is an Act minister watering down a tough-sentencing law, not only because the OG version was an ACT law which the party was unendingly proud of, but also given how strident the party was on law and order at the last election.
McKee’s argument is that she has to compromise so that a future Labour-led government won’t simply repeal the law like it did during the Ardern years. That argument will have some appeal, but creating a poor version of a law in order to ensure its survival is no solution. It will appeal to no one. Critics will still hate it, those who expected more (like Act’s voters) will be gutted.
As a result, not only Act but all Government MPs should expect pressure to ramp up on them to beef up this law during the parliamentary process. The revival of the Sensible Sentencing Trust is the first warning that MPs’ inboxes will soon be full of emails telling them to do just that.
