Paul Goldsmith: Justice Minister on the Government's new planned law and order legislation

The Justice Minister says new law and order legislation will pass in the next three months, and be implemented by the end of the year.

The Government has laid out 40 actions to meet its third quarterly priorities, which include the economy and better public services and infrastructure.

It promises to crack down on crime by letting police ban gang patches, and confiscate firearms.

Minister Paul Goldsmith says they want to work at speed, but it's important to properly follow select committee processes.

"Now everybody's sort of impatient, they want the police to have the extra power to deal with gangs, they want to deal with the firearms control - but we do have to pass the legislation."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ay, good afternoon. The government's release it's next to do list.
This is the action plan for Q three and a
significant feature is law and order, including passing a Lord
of how police crack down on gangs, a Lord of
Tough and sentencing, and also launching the boot Camps pilot.
The Justice Minister is Paul Goldsmith.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Hey, Paul good, Hey, there you going very well?

Speaker 1 (00:17):
Thank you. How much of the forty things on the
list are actually going to be done by the end
of Q three.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
Well, a number of things are passing. The legislation that
we're working our way through now. Everybody's sort of impatient.
They want the police to have the extra power to
deal with gangs, that they want to deal with the
firearms control. But we do have to pass the legislation
and it's important that to go through the selectmmittee process,
people have a chance to talk about it and make
sure that we've got everything right. But a number of

(00:44):
those pieces of legislation will pass in the third quarter
and then they'll be implemented before the end of the
I'm just looking at.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Things that just having a look at it first blush,
look like they're actually going to be past. It's one
two three, four, five, six, seven, eight nine. Is that
about right? Nine out of forty?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Well, in terms of the list of forty, I just
haven't got that list in front of me. But yes,
I mean we're getting through a lot of work. Yes, absolutely,
it's a very busy government.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Yeah, yeah, is it. Did you manage to finish everything
on the list for Q two? Because I can see
three things that are not finished?

Speaker 2 (01:17):
Well, look useful. I mean not everything has been announced,
but we've made decisions and I think just about every
area we got through everything in the first quarter. And
look the Prime Minister, he cracks the whip. There's no
question about that. He's very determined to focus that we
get things done, and he set a high sort of
threshold and we go as fast as we can, always

(01:37):
sort of balancing the need, as I say, to go
with speed, but also to have enough time for people
to have a say on important legislation. And of course
you don't want to be coming back and having to
fix thing. So you didn't quite get it right because
you were rushing. So there's always a tension that we've got.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
So one of the three things that you don't seem
to have done with the last list was to commission
the study into Marsden Point Oil Refiner around whether it
to reopen it or not. Why not?

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Well, look, there will be something that Shane Jones is
working his way through and I don't have any particular
insight into that. Yes, so yep, Well, I think people
will be pleased that we're actually making progress on the
very big things, which is restoring law and orders right
off the top.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
I'm only asking you because that one seems easy. I mean,
you disappoint some people to do the study.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Don't you. Well, there may be there's probably a very
good reason, but I don't have it on me at
the moment.

Speaker 1 (02:27):
Now, as the Justice Minister, are you prepared to beef
up year three strikes law?

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, look, I look that the basic engine there and
Nicole McKee, my colleague, is shippening this through. The basic
tension is that you can go absolutely hard out but
you face the reality that Heaven forbidden twelve years time
when we get trying out at the next election, the
next government will sort of overturn it in your back.

Speaker 1 (02:52):
Come on, and you're not using that lame argument for
anything else that you're doing. The fact of the matter
is you guys are going to get absolute pressure from people.
When people start a cotton on on how watered down
this is, you're going to get a lot of emails.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Very cross. I don't agree. It's just ensuring all the
only different fundamental difference is ensuring that strike offenses are
for offenses when people have actually been imprisoned for twenty
four months. And you know the whole purpose of it
is to keep our worst repeat offenders off the street
for longer so that they can harm New Zealanders. And
I think that that threshold at twenty four months is

(03:26):
ready to take in.

Speaker 1 (03:28):
Are you prepared to beef it up there? Are you
open minded?

Speaker 2 (03:31):
Well, of course, that's why we're having a select committee process,
and so people can have an argument. It could be
eighteen months or it could be twenty four. Well, you know,
we're not completely closed minded on these things. But I
think it does need to be a higher threshold than
it had in the passed in the first iteration, if
only to increase the chances that we get some measure
of bipartisan support for this and so we can have

(03:52):
a more I think that's the broad issue, is to
try and improve our chances of having something that can last,
you know, last over cross government, which we failed without
last time around. That's why it's important to have this discussion.

Speaker 1 (04:05):
Paul, thank you so much for your time. Appreciate it.
As Paul Goldsmith, the Justice Minister. For more from Hither
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