Auckland (The NZ Today)
New Zealand First has unveiled one of the toughest law-and-order packages of the campaign, proposing life imprisonment without parole for some of the most serious crimes and a possible move towards US-style “stand your ground” self-defence laws.
Winston Peters announced the policy in West Auckland, saying the justice system needed to put greater weight on victims and ensure serious offenders faced stronger consequences.
The centrepiece is a new degrees-of-murder system. NZ First says first-degree murder would carry life imprisonment without parole, while second- and third-degree categories would have different minimum non-parole periods. The party also wants life without parole available for rape or murder of a child.
NZ First would also lift the minimum non-parole period for murder from 10 years to 20 years under its proposed framework and raise maximum sentences for attempted murder and wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm from 14 to 25 years.
Another major proposal is a review of “Castle Doctrine” and “Stand Your Ground” laws, which are used in some overseas jurisdictions to give people wider legal protection when defending themselves or their property.
The party is not promising to immediately introduce those laws, but says it would investigate whether New Zealand should adopt similar provisions and change prosecution guidance in cases where people use force while defending themselves at home or at work.
NZ First also wants tougher treatment of so-called coward punch killings, proposing a mandatory minimum non-parole period of eight years where a single punch causes death.
The package goes beyond sentencing.
The party says it would abolish the Serious Fraud Office and move its functions into a specialist Police division, while also creating a separate agency focused on organised and transnational crime.
Other proposals include greater use of mandatory minimum sentences for serious violent and sexual offending, limiting most sentence discounts to 10%, increasing standard parole eligibility to 75% of a sentence for long-term offenders, and treating burglary of a home more like aggravated burglary or home invasion.
Peters said the party believed the current sentencing system had too often failed to deliver adequate accountability.
The proposals would require substantial changes to New Zealand’s existing criminal justice and sentencing laws if NZ First was able to secure support for them after the election.
Source: New Zealand First law-and-order policy announcement.
