National leader Chris Luxon launches law and order policy at party conference - harsher sentences, more focus on victims and rehab for remand prisoners
National leader Christopher Luxon, announcing policies to reduce crime, during his speech to the Party's annual conference in Wellington. Video / Mark Mitchell
National Party leader Christopher Luxon has unveiled his party’s key law and order policies including limiting sentence discounts and scrapping cultural reports, redirecting the funding to victim support.
The policies also include improving access to rehabilitation programmes for prisoners on remand, numbers of which have exploded in recent years making up nearly half of the prison muster largely due to court delays and backlogs.
Speaking at the party’s conference in Wellington, Luxon took aim at Labour’s handling of the economy, claiming the “taxing, borrowing, wasteful spending” had driven the current cost of living crisis.
He warned of the “coalition of chaos” - a term dubbed by National for the potential Labour, Green and Te Pāti Māori alternative, already branded by party president Sylvia Wood as the “most far-left-leaning in New Zealand history”.
The party’s main focus was law and order, with Luxon claiming in five years violent crime had “increased by 33 per cent, retail crime has doubled, and gangs are growing faster than Police.
“A National government will ensure the justice system holds offenders accountable through sentences that better reflect the seriousness of a crime, denounce criminal behaviour and show the public that justice is being done.
“We’ll also give more support to victims, put more focus on prisoners’ rehabilitation and drop the prisoner reduction target.”
National leader Christopher Luxon during his speech at the party Annual Conference at the Michael Fowler Centre in Wellington. Photo / Mark Mitchell
New policies include imposing a new 40 per cent limit on the amount by which a judge can reduce a sentence. Currently, judges can apply a range of cumulative discounts, including up to 25 per cent for an early guilty plea and taking into account an offender’s background and upbringing.
“However, New Zealand sets no limits on how much a judge can reduce sentences,” Luxon said.
“That means they often end up far lower than victims and the public expect, and far lower than is required to acknowledge the harm and suffering that’s been caused.”
He referenced a 60 per cent sentence reduction given to a 19-year-old who, carrying a knife, kicked down the front door of a pregnant woman, assaulted her and kidnapped another person.
“The sentencing starting point was eight years and six months, but it was reduced to three years and five months.”
It would also make gang membership an aggravating factor in sentences.
National also delved into Act Party territory, vowing to restore the “Three Strikes” policy and scrap government funding for cultural reports – both current policies of their potential coalition partner.
Luxon said the three strikes law - that ensured maximum sentences without parole for a third offence of specific crimes - would be brought back but with clearer guidelines for judges about discretion.
Luxon said $20 million over four years would be redirected from those reports to supporting victims, including a 29 per cent boost to funding that helps victims access services like counselling or transport to attend court.
The party would also ensure remand prisoners could access rehabilitation programmes that currently are available only to sentenced prisoners.
“If you want to try to turn your life around, we’ll help you do that. But if you re-offend, be warned. Under National, you’ll face tough consequences,” Luxon said.
Earlier, National’s health spokesman Dr Shane Reti says he is “done with” Covid-19 being used as an excuse for poor health outcomes, vowing to bring back health targets and holding himself accountable to them.
Reti made the comments this morning at the party’s annual conference in Wellington where hundreds of party members have assembled over the weekend for what is also serving as a mass rallying event ahead of what is shaping up to be an incredibly tight election campaign.
Campaign chairman Chris Bishop also launched into a swinging attack at the Labour Government, branding this election as a “fight for nothing less than the future of our great country” and slating a “soft bigotry of low expectations”.
It also continued familiar criticisms of Labour, claiming crime is “out of control”, concerns about “equality of suffrage” with veiled references to co-governance and attempting to portray the prospect of a Labour, Green and Te Pāti Māori government as a “coalition of chaos” and claiming a vast array of taxes would be on the cards.
“It would be the most far-left-leaning government in history, wealth taxes, capital gains, more ideological policies that will force thousands of our best and our brightest to jump on the next plane,” said party president Sylvia Wood, who was re-elected to the role overnight.
Members heard from a range of spokespeople on party policy, including Reti who spoke of declining outcomes in key health measures, such as child immunisation rates, which have plummeted since the pandemic hit.
National deputy leader Nicola Willis during her speech. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Reti said when National was voted out in 2017 it was almost at key targets around measles vaccinations, which had since declined dramatically.
He said to “please push back” against Covid being used as an excuse.
“I am done with it as an excuse to sanitise bad behaviour,” he said.
“It has been a contributor but the immunisation rates and all of the targets were falling long before Covid even arrived on our shores.”
Reti said one of the reasons was the Labour had removed health targets, which National would reinstate.
In his speech Bishop, as infrastructure spokesman, alongside transport spokesman Simeon Brown, spoke about their plans for a new infrastructure agency to concentrate various funds and projects.
The pair also took aim at Labour, and in particular former Transport Minister Michael Wood, who was forced to resign this week after controversy surroundings shares he held that conflicted with his portfolios despite being told numerous times to sell them.
An image of Wood on the main screen drew howls of laughter from the audience, along with comments about Labour’s failure to deliver light rail in Auckland.
Brown also drew some chuckles when mentioning Wood would only take action on potholes after being told 17 times - a reference to the fact he was told 16 times by the Cabinet office to sell his shares before selling them.
On Saturday, party members heard from deputy leader and finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis about plans for the economy.
It was also inadvertently revealed National has set itself a target of a 45 per cent election result – an ask even Luxon admits is a “very stretch goal.”
The party has been stuck in the mid-30s in the polls for most of the past year – the last time it was in the mid-40s was before Covid-19 when Simon Bridges was the leader.
The 45 per cent goal was not supposed to be made public but it appeared as a line on a slide which was accidentally left up for the opening of the conference.
Asked about it afterwards, Luxon said it was an internal target set by the campaign team which also set specific targets for each electorate and region.
