Bill reinstating controversial three strikes law passes second reading

A bill to reinstate the controversial 'three strikes' legislation - which will see repeat offenders automatically receive the maximum prison sentence allowed, without parole - has passed its second reading.

The Sentencing (Reinstating Three Strikes) Amendment Bill was among a raft of legislation debated under urgency in Parliament on Thursday.

It passed its second reading 68-54, with National, ACT and NZ First MPs all voting for it, and Labour, the Greens and Te Pāti Māori all voting against.

It then moved immediately to the committee stage.

That was still ongoing at midnight, when Assistant Speaker Greg O'Connor suspended the House for the night.

The previous three strikes law was repealed by the previous Labour government in 2022.

The coalition government's new version will tighten the legislation, lowering the qualifying sentence threshold for the first strike from 24 months' imprisonment to 12 months.

The first strike would be a "warning strike" only, Associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, of ACT, previously told RNZ, while the second strike would mean no parole. For a third strike, offenders would have to serve the maximum penalty without parole.

Speaking in Parliament, NZ First MP Casey Costello said the legislation would put victims of crime first.

"Sometimes when bad people do bad things they need to be punished. And sometimes when bad people do bad things they do them again and again," she said.

National's James Meager, the chair of the justice committee, said other pieces of legislation would address other issues in the criminal justice system.

The three strikes bill was about "taking bad people, dangerous people, harmful people, off the streets and keeping members of the public safe", he said.

The Green Party's Lawrence Xu-Nan said the bill would do nothing to rehabilitate offenders. He said punitive measures often led to reoffending.

"Will [offenders] feel let down by society? Will they feel like 'You know what, society's against me anyway'? ... That's not how we integrate people into our communities."

Labour's Ginny Andersen said other measures were far more effective at reducing reoffending, as they got to the "root causes of crime".

Those included the drug and alcohol treatment courts and Te Pae Oranga, the iwi community panels, she said.

Hana-Rawhiti Maipi-Clarke, of Te Pāti Māori, said the bill would disproportionately impact Māori, who were "more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and convicted" than anyone else.

Discussions on the legislation would resume at 9am Friday.

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