July 6, 2025 • 10 mins
The Acting Prime Minister says judges need to hear the message when it comes to tougher sentencing.
The Government's increasing maximum sentences for several offences and isn't ruling out more minimum, or mandatory, sentences in the future.
David Seymour told Heather du Plessis-Allan judges need to think outside their position of privilege.
He says someone who has been attacked, or has had their car or property stolen, wants the perpetrator to be punished.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We have Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour in for Christopher
Luxen with us mourning David.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Where's Chris?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh, he's taken a pretty well earned break. I can't
reveal his exact location, but he is having some time
with Amanda. And the guy works basically fifty out of
fifty two weeks a year, so I think he deserves it.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, first first holiday of the year.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
As far as I can tell you, I don't track
him that religiously, but I think you're probably right.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Is it coincidental that he's timed it with Mike first
holiday of Mike's.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, Well we don't know where Mike is either, so
who knows?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Could be something going on here? Now? What do you
think of these minimum sentences? Are you into this? Look?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think it's really important that the judges actually set
the law, and they do so or interpret the law, sorry,
and they do so independently. I don't want to live
in a society where some strong man starts messing out
the punishments. It took hundreds of years for us to
get away from that, and I don't particularly want to
go back to it. That said, I think it is
(00:59):
important that that independent judiciary is constantly getting feedback from
the rest of the community, and that they're sentencing reflects
community norms. Now, I know there'll be people listening who say, yeah,
all right, I just read about a sentence that doesn't
reflect my idea of a community norm and one way
that you can fix that is for Parliament to start
giving them a bit of feedback of our own through
(01:21):
the democratic process. We say, look, actually, you know you
can't discount more than forty percent. You can't give more
than twenty five percent for a guilty plea. You can't
keep giving discounts for remorse because though sorry, last time, they're.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Tying their hands, right, you are tying their hands in
your own way.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
We're leaving the ultimate decision up to them, but we're
giving some guidelines on behalf of the community. And that's
about where you want to be. You want the judiciary
to be reflecting community norms and expectations, but giving them
the discretion to work out the individual case.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Because you think that they actually respond to what I mean,
They must be aware that people are pretty upset about
what's going on. At least some people are pretty upset
about it. Do you think they're responding to it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, look, I just make the observation that I don't
want to be seen at all as criticizing the judiciary.
But on average, if you become a judge, you're someone
who's had a very successful law career. Chances are you
live in quite a nice suburb, and chances are you're
actually a very intelligent person who's very good at thinking
(02:23):
and reasoning, and oh, well, they did this because they
had a bad time. If you're someone who has just
been bashed up or had your kid or your partner attacked,
or had your car nicked and that you don't have
any money and you need to get to work, then
you're not thinking like that. You're thinking, I want that
person dealt to and I want this crime to stop.
And I think one of the reasons that we've put
(02:45):
in place three strikes, one of the reasons we put
in place these limits on sentence discounts is that the
Parliament is basically giving feedback from people like that to
the judiciary that we need you to make sure you
reflect what the community wants. So I think we've got
just the right balance between a free and independent judiciary
with a bit of feedback on the side.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Hey, how's the shoplifting fine going to work? Can you
actually find somebody on the spot without determining their guilt.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it's in infringement notice offense. So for example, you
get stung for shoplift, sorry, speeding, then you can choose
to go to court and defend yourself. No one can
be punished without a court hearing and a trial before
a judge or a jury of your peers. That's all
still there. But the default is you just pay the fine,
(03:31):
and this will be exactly the same. The default as
you just pay the fine, and frankly, most people in
this situation will know they're guilty, just like some of
us do with speeding, and you're just going to pay.
It saves a lot of time. Look at it the
other way. If you had to go to court to
get a conviction every time someone was done for speeding,
it'll be like the D five hundred out there.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So what's going to happen, though, is you're going to
have somebody who gets nicked for shoplifting. They're simply going
to say, yes, I did it, cop the fine because
they know they're not going to pay the fine, so
they just get that thing. Get that process going faster
is what we want.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, it may be that they are not going to
pay the fine, but that has further penalties down the line.
So yep, I get it. And people will say all
the penalties down the line. Well, ultimately, if you don't
pay your fines, you can be put in prison. That's
the ultimate penalty. And I know that there'll be people
who say, oh, well, look, people don't pay fine, so
there's no point. My question is where do we start?
(04:25):
Because right now we've got a society where people work hard,
pay their bills. You know, they end up taking stuff
out of the trolley because it's so damn expensive at
the supermarket, and then they see someone else just walk
out scot free. I believe it's important that we start
putting in some penalties and some computed community norms that
there's actually consequences for this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
See the Children's commissioner wants a carve out for kids
so that they don't get this fine. Would you consider that?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Well? I saw that. But frankly, here's the two worlds
that a kid can grow up, And there's one where
you do something wrong, relatively small thing, and you get
corrected and then you go on and live a better life.
Or there's an New Zealand where children say, look, what
would happen if I dot dot dot, And a school
principle said this to me recently. The answer is often
(05:09):
if I dot dot dot, nothing happens. Just about anything
you fill in the dot dot dot, nothing happens. So
I think actually having more consequences earlier on for younger
people is far better than getting away with it. Getting
away with it then all of a sudden, you're eighteen,
you commit a real crime and you see a real
door slam shut. Yeah, that's what we want to avoid.
So I'm all for actually more graduated penalties for younger
(05:31):
people and a society with some norms where actually, if
you do the right thing, you're going to be okay.
Not if you scrimp and save and try your best
and people nick your stuff anyway, it's just demoralizing and
it's infuriating people.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Would you consider funding or partially funding with GOVI.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I wouldn't. FARMAC might, but I've always been really clear
that the arm's length and it's important that they're independent,
because otherwise you end up in a situation where you're
just having a popularity contest. And I'll just give you
one example of why that matters. I had a woman
in my office years ago, now it was a local MP,
and she said, look, I've got this cancer head and neck.
(06:09):
It's it's disfigured. I've had to have a lot of
my jaw removed. She said, I wish this cancer was
in my breast because you know breast cancer and good
on the Breast Cancer Foundation, and you know Brook van
Valden and I we put on a pink ribbon breakfast.
They've they've got the profile up, no question. But we
don't want to live in a world where something has
(06:29):
to be high profile and dare I say it's sexy
to get attention and get funding. Farmac has to make
the decision should they fund we GOVI that's up to them.
But you can see the benefits right. We're spending a
huge amount on dialysis for people with diabetes. We're spending
a huge amount on orthopedics. People are too heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
On that drink and could this would the NHS considered
in the UK would bankrupt them if I gave it
to everybody with a BMI over thirty five. And we're
looking at a BMI over thirty.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I understand that, but that's why that's why farmak
have got to do the maths. And it may be
that the maths it up or they don't. That's why
that decision's arm's length. I'm just laying out the case
and where we want to go with FARMAC generally is
to start instead of just managing a fixed budget and
saying no all the time, saying well, okay, if the
government was to spend more on pharmaceuticals, what could we
(07:16):
save elsewhere? Classic example tricafter since that's been funded for
people with cystic fibrosis, lung transplants have fallen off a cliff. Now.
I don't know what a lung transplant costs, but it's
probably the most expensive thing on the health So.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Stand upfronts that you don't spend heaps later on at Yeah. Absolutely, Okay,
listen this independent costing unit. Do you think this idea
is dead? Now?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I do. I don't think it's ever made sense. I mean,
speaking just for a moment for the act Party. You know,
we've put out fully costed alternative budgets every year we've
been in opposition, never had a problem, So there's no
need for this thing. On the other hand, do you
want the bureaucracy, who, by the way, gets stuff wrong
all the time? You know, just because you get a
job at a government department doesn't mean you're suddenly right
about everything. Do you want them to effectively be the
(07:58):
gatekeepers to the the policies in the election when the
whole point of the election is to hold them account On.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
The first, why would we pay for stuff that you
guys as political parties are paying for yourself, like you're
bearing the cost of your independent costings. I don't want
to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I almost want to make a plug for people to
donate to political parties. But absolutely right, it's not just
the one point two million that's been floated. Any government
department would have to drop tools before an election, stop
doing the work for the government that's actually elected, and
start arguing about some other potential policy that's not a
good use of resource.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
David, how do you rate your chances that you're going
to be able to convince Winston to partially privatize the ferries.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It won't be me that will persuade them, It will
actually be for school. Reality. Right now, we're spending over
nine billion a year on interest payments that's more than
the top eleven taxpayers in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Most when has money actually made sense to Winston? Right?
So who's going to convince them in ken.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'll tell you what I've learned working with Winston is
that while we may have different views on a lot
of things, when it's time, when the chips are down,
he does actually look at reality. And in this case,
the question is do we want to spend nine billion
in interest payments every year or do we want to say, look,
you know, owning a faery business that's dead on the
(09:17):
books that we're paying interest on, there's already a private
faery company that's doing very well. Maybe this isn't something
the government needs to give me Your chances out of
ten out of ten, let me put it, let me
put it about an eight A well, I tell you
to look forward to look that the challenges that we
face as a government are tough, and we face them
(09:37):
on behalf of all New Zealanders who are facing tough
financial times. Every business, every household, every farm has to
make tough choices and the government is going to have
to make those tough choices as well.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
David thank you very much for coming in really pretty
very much, David Cymore, and for Chris Lux and the
Prime Minister who's on leave. For more from the Mic
Asking Breakfast, Listen live to news talks it'd be from
six am weekdays, or follow the podcas cast on iHeartRadio
We have Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour in for Christopher
Luxen with us mourning David.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Good morning.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Where's Chris?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Oh, he's taken a pretty well earned break. I can't
reveal his exact location, but he is having some time
with Amanda. And the guy works basically fifty out of
fifty two weeks a year, so I think he deserves it.
Speaker 1 (00:19):
Yeah, first first holiday of the year.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
As far as I can tell you, I don't track
him that religiously, but I think you're probably right.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
Is it coincidental that he's timed it with Mike first
holiday of Mike's.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Yeah, Well we don't know where Mike is either, so
who knows?
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Could be something going on here? Now? What do you
think of these minimum sentences? Are you into this? Look?
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I think it's really important that the judges actually set
the law, and they do so or interpret the law, sorry,
and they do so independently. I don't want to live
in a society where some strong man starts messing out
the punishments. It took hundreds of years for us to
get away from that, and I don't particularly want to
go back to it. That said, I think it is
(00:59):
important that that independent judiciary is constantly getting feedback from
the rest of the community, and that they're sentencing reflects
community norms. Now, I know there'll be people listening who say, yeah,
all right, I just read about a sentence that doesn't
reflect my idea of a community norm and one way
that you can fix that is for Parliament to start
giving them a bit of feedback of our own through
(01:21):
the democratic process. We say, look, actually, you know you
can't discount more than forty percent. You can't give more
than twenty five percent for a guilty plea. You can't
keep giving discounts for remorse because though sorry, last time, they're.
Speaker 1 (01:35):
Tying their hands, right, you are tying their hands in
your own way.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
We're leaving the ultimate decision up to them, but we're
giving some guidelines on behalf of the community. And that's
about where you want to be. You want the judiciary
to be reflecting community norms and expectations, but giving them
the discretion to work out the individual case.
Speaker 1 (01:54):
Because you think that they actually respond to what I mean,
They must be aware that people are pretty upset about
what's going on. At least some people are pretty upset
about it. Do you think they're responding to it.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
Yeah, look, I just make the observation that I don't
want to be seen at all as criticizing the judiciary.
But on average, if you become a judge, you're someone
who's had a very successful law career. Chances are you
live in quite a nice suburb, and chances are you're
actually a very intelligent person who's very good at thinking
(02:23):
and reasoning, and oh, well, they did this because they
had a bad time. If you're someone who has just
been bashed up or had your kid or your partner attacked,
or had your car nicked and that you don't have
any money and you need to get to work, then
you're not thinking like that. You're thinking, I want that
person dealt to and I want this crime to stop.
And I think one of the reasons that we've put
(02:45):
in place three strikes, one of the reasons we put
in place these limits on sentence discounts is that the
Parliament is basically giving feedback from people like that to
the judiciary that we need you to make sure you
reflect what the community wants. So I think we've got
just the right balance between a free and independent judiciary
with a bit of feedback on the side.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Hey, how's the shoplifting fine going to work? Can you
actually find somebody on the spot without determining their guilt.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Yeah, it's in infringement notice offense. So for example, you
get stung for shoplift, sorry, speeding, then you can choose
to go to court and defend yourself. No one can
be punished without a court hearing and a trial before
a judge or a jury of your peers. That's all
still there. But the default is you just pay the fine,
(03:31):
and this will be exactly the same. The default as
you just pay the fine, and frankly, most people in
this situation will know they're guilty, just like some of
us do with speeding, and you're just going to pay.
It saves a lot of time. Look at it the
other way. If you had to go to court to
get a conviction every time someone was done for speeding,
it'll be like the D five hundred out there.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
So what's going to happen, though, is you're going to
have somebody who gets nicked for shoplifting. They're simply going
to say, yes, I did it, cop the fine because
they know they're not going to pay the fine, so
they just get that thing. Get that process going faster
is what we want.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
Well, it may be that they are not going to
pay the fine, but that has further penalties down the line.
So yep, I get it. And people will say all
the penalties down the line. Well, ultimately, if you don't
pay your fines, you can be put in prison. That's
the ultimate penalty. And I know that there'll be people
who say, oh, well, look, people don't pay fine, so
there's no point. My question is where do we start?
(04:25):
Because right now we've got a society where people work hard,
pay their bills. You know, they end up taking stuff
out of the trolley because it's so damn expensive at
the supermarket, and then they see someone else just walk
out scot free. I believe it's important that we start
putting in some penalties and some computed community norms that
there's actually consequences for this stuff.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
See the Children's commissioner wants a carve out for kids
so that they don't get this fine. Would you consider that?
Speaker 2 (04:47):
Well? I saw that. But frankly, here's the two worlds
that a kid can grow up, And there's one where
you do something wrong, relatively small thing, and you get
corrected and then you go on and live a better life.
Or there's an New Zealand where children say, look, what
would happen if I dot dot dot, And a school
principle said this to me recently. The answer is often
(05:09):
if I dot dot dot, nothing happens. Just about anything
you fill in the dot dot dot, nothing happens. So
I think actually having more consequences earlier on for younger
people is far better than getting away with it. Getting
away with it then all of a sudden, you're eighteen,
you commit a real crime and you see a real
door slam shut. Yeah, that's what we want to avoid.
So I'm all for actually more graduated penalties for younger
(05:31):
people and a society with some norms where actually, if
you do the right thing, you're going to be okay.
Not if you scrimp and save and try your best
and people nick your stuff anyway, it's just demoralizing and
it's infuriating people.
Speaker 1 (05:42):
Would you consider funding or partially funding with GOVI.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
I wouldn't. FARMAC might, but I've always been really clear
that the arm's length and it's important that they're independent,
because otherwise you end up in a situation where you're
just having a popularity contest. And I'll just give you
one example of why that matters. I had a woman
in my office years ago, now it was a local MP,
and she said, look, I've got this cancer head and neck.
(06:09):
It's it's disfigured. I've had to have a lot of
my jaw removed. She said, I wish this cancer was
in my breast because you know breast cancer and good
on the Breast Cancer Foundation, and you know Brook van
Valden and I we put on a pink ribbon breakfast.
They've they've got the profile up, no question. But we
don't want to live in a world where something has
(06:29):
to be high profile and dare I say it's sexy
to get attention and get funding. Farmac has to make
the decision should they fund we GOVI that's up to them.
But you can see the benefits right. We're spending a
huge amount on dialysis for people with diabetes. We're spending
a huge amount on orthopedics. People are too heavy.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
On that drink and could this would the NHS considered
in the UK would bankrupt them if I gave it
to everybody with a BMI over thirty five. And we're
looking at a BMI over thirty.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, I understand that, but that's why that's why farmak
have got to do the maths. And it may be
that the maths it up or they don't. That's why
that decision's arm's length. I'm just laying out the case
and where we want to go with FARMAC generally is
to start instead of just managing a fixed budget and
saying no all the time, saying well, okay, if the
government was to spend more on pharmaceuticals, what could we
(07:16):
save elsewhere? Classic example tricafter since that's been funded for
people with cystic fibrosis, lung transplants have fallen off a cliff. Now.
I don't know what a lung transplant costs, but it's
probably the most expensive thing on the health So.
Speaker 1 (07:28):
Stand upfronts that you don't spend heaps later on at Yeah. Absolutely, Okay,
listen this independent costing unit. Do you think this idea
is dead? Now?
Speaker 2 (07:35):
I do. I don't think it's ever made sense. I mean,
speaking just for a moment for the act Party. You know,
we've put out fully costed alternative budgets every year we've
been in opposition, never had a problem, So there's no
need for this thing. On the other hand, do you
want the bureaucracy, who, by the way, gets stuff wrong
all the time? You know, just because you get a
job at a government department doesn't mean you're suddenly right
about everything. Do you want them to effectively be the
(07:58):
gatekeepers to the the policies in the election when the
whole point of the election is to hold them account On.
Speaker 1 (08:04):
The first, why would we pay for stuff that you
guys as political parties are paying for yourself, like you're
bearing the cost of your independent costings. I don't want
to pay for it.
Speaker 2 (08:12):
I almost want to make a plug for people to
donate to political parties. But absolutely right, it's not just
the one point two million that's been floated. Any government
department would have to drop tools before an election, stop
doing the work for the government that's actually elected, and
start arguing about some other potential policy that's not a
good use of resource.
Speaker 1 (08:30):
David, how do you rate your chances that you're going
to be able to convince Winston to partially privatize the ferries.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
It won't be me that will persuade them, It will
actually be for school. Reality. Right now, we're spending over
nine billion a year on interest payments that's more than
the top eleven taxpayers in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (08:49):
Most when has money actually made sense to Winston? Right?
So who's going to convince them in ken.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
I'll tell you what I've learned working with Winston is
that while we may have different views on a lot
of things, when it's time, when the chips are down,
he does actually look at reality. And in this case,
the question is do we want to spend nine billion
in interest payments every year or do we want to say, look,
you know, owning a faery business that's dead on the
(09:17):
books that we're paying interest on, there's already a private
faery company that's doing very well. Maybe this isn't something
the government needs to give me Your chances out of
ten out of ten, let me put it, let me
put it about an eight A well, I tell you
to look forward to look that the challenges that we
face as a government are tough, and we face them
(09:37):
on behalf of all New Zealanders who are facing tough
financial times. Every business, every household, every farm has to
make tough choices and the government is going to have
to make those tough choices as well.
Speaker 1 (09:48):
David thank you very much for coming in really pretty
very much, David Cymore, and for Chris Lux and the
Prime Minister who's on leave. For more from the Mic
Asking Breakfast, Listen live to news talks it'd be from
six am weekdays, or follow the podcas cast on iHeartRadio
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