Paul Goldsmith: Justice Minister unpacks the Government's new sentencing rules

The Justice Minister says the Government is still fleshing out some sentencing details as new rules pass through Parliament.  

Legislation passed today caps judges' sentence discounts at 40 percent. 

It also encourages cumulative sentencing for offences done on bail, in custody, or on parole. 

Minister Paul Goldsmith says it sends a bad signal if sentences aren't added together. 

"We haven't gone so far as legislating that that should always happen every time at this stage, because it does have very, very significant impacts on our prison populations - and our ability to cope with it."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Frame Bridge sentencing laws passed today They will limit how
much judges can discount a sentence. This will be a
cap at forty percent. Paul Goldsmith is Justice Minister. High minister,
good afternoon, how are you here? Good? Thank you? So
sentencing discounts, So the cap is now a maximum of
forty percent. What can you get a discount for? Can

(00:22):
you get a discount for your culture or because you
grew up poor?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well, look, the primary discount is for pleading guilty, and
that's something that is important. Obviously. If people plead guilty,
then the victims of crime spared all the trauma of
the trial and so forth, so there's a discount for that.
What we're doing though was making sure that you can
get up to twenty five percent discount if you plead

(00:45):
guilty right at the start of the process, but not
on the morning of the trial, which has started to
creep into a practice. So we're having a sliding scale
of that. But there are other things such as youth
and remorse and the the background all situation and so
what we're also saying with this as well, yes you
can be remorseful, but only once. You can't be remorseful

(01:07):
five times, and you can't get a discount for being
young a whole set of times. Either, you've got to
take some consequences.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
What about the background, because that's one of the things
that you talked about in the election a lot, and
you can still get a discount for it.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Well, look, I mean part of the sentencing principles is
to take into account the circumstances and background of the offender.
What we stopped was the cottage industry that had developed
around cultural reports, which was starting to cost millions and
millions of dollars. So we put a stop to that.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
But you can change they, can't you. I mean, you
say it's the principle. You can change those if you want.

Speaker 2 (01:42):
And so the basic approach that we have is that
Parliament sets maximum sentences for serious war for crimes, and
then there's discretion for the judiciary. What we're doing with
this legislation is limiting that discretion because we're concerned that
there's been too many instances of two these massive discounts
where people are sentenced are convicted of serious crimes, violent offenses,

(02:05):
sexual offenses, and then through a series of large discounts,
end up on home detention and sentences that we don't
think reflect the gravity of the crime. And so that's
why Parliament sending this signal and this government sending the
signal that we want to have stronger consequences.

Speaker 1 (02:21):
Explain to me this idea of it. You're encouraging the
use of cumulative sentencing. For you know, if you do
something while you're on bail or you're in custody or whatever,
then you get a cumulative sentence or that's being encouraged.
What does that mean.

Speaker 2 (02:37):
Well, it is sometimes a practice that if you're convicted
of one thing and then two weeks later, or another
thing and then another thing, if you serve them all cumulatively,
you could end up having a prison sentence of twenty
years or fifteen years, and that has real consequences for

(02:57):
the whole system. And so sometimes those sentences are put together. Now,
part of our coalition agreement with New Zealand first was
to insist upon concurrent sentencing and so adding them all
together into one sentence. But we've got to work at
that piece by piece because the reality is that would

(03:19):
have a huge impact on our prison population. So we're
just working our way through it and encouraging that in sentencing.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Do you want because it doesn't seem fair. I mean
if you're the victim of it. So let's say somebody
robs a bank, stab somebody and then rape somebody. If
you're the one who got raped or got stabbed, why
should you the sentence not be just as long, do
you know what I mean? It's almost like they're getting
off just because they did other stuff. They're getting off
on your crime.

Speaker 2 (03:46):
Well, yes. And the other broader concern is if somebody
is on bail for a serious offense already, and they're
on bail and they go out and create another fresh victim,
if there's no additional penalty, then that sentence a very
bad signal. So that's the thing that we're worried about,
and that's why we're encouraging those sentences to be added

(04:08):
one on top of the other. We haven't gone so
far as legislating that that should always happen every time
at this stage because it does have very very significant
impacts on the prison population and our ability to cope
with it. So we're tackling it one step at a time.

Speaker 1 (04:24):
All right, Minister, will leave it there. Paul Goldsmith, the
Justice Minister, on the new sentencing walls that have been
passed today, much talked about, big feature of the election
campaign you might remember, and so finally made their way
through Parliament. What are we Now? March of twenty twenty five.
For more from Heather Duplassy Allen Drive, listen live to
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(04:45):
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