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Speaker 1: Frame Bridge sentencing laws passed today They will limit how

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Speaker 1: much judges can discount a sentence. This will be a

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Speaker 1: cap at forty percent. Paul Goldsmith is Justice Minister. High minister,

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Speaker 1: good afternoon, how are you here? Good? Thank you? So

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Speaker 1: sentencing discounts, So the cap is now a maximum of

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Speaker 1: forty percent. What can you get a discount for? Can

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Speaker 1: you get a discount for your culture or because you

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Speaker 1: grew up poor?

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Speaker 2: Well, look, the primary discount is for pleading guilty, and

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Speaker 2: that's something that is important. Obviously. If people plead guilty,

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Speaker 2: then the victims of crime spared all the trauma of

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Speaker 2: the trial and so forth, so there's a discount for that.

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Speaker 2: What we're doing though was making sure that you can

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Speaker 2: get up to twenty five percent discount if you plead

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Speaker 2: guilty right at the start of the process, but not

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Speaker 2: on the morning of the trial, which has started to

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Speaker 2: creep into a practice. So we're having a sliding scale

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Speaker 2: of that. But there are other things such as youth

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Speaker 2: and remorse and the the background all situation and so

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Speaker 2: what we're also saying with this as well, yes you

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Speaker 2: can be remorseful, but only once. You can't be remorseful

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Speaker 2: five times, and you can't get a discount for being

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Speaker 2: young a whole set of times. Either, you've got to

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Speaker 2: take some consequences.

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Speaker 1: What about the background, because that's one of the things

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Speaker 1: that you talked about in the election a lot, and

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Speaker 1: you can still get a discount for it.

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Speaker 2: Well, look, I mean part of the sentencing principles is

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Speaker 2: to take into account the circumstances and background of the offender.

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Speaker 2: What we stopped was the cottage industry that had developed

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Speaker 2: around cultural reports, which was starting to cost millions and

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Speaker 2: millions of dollars. So we put a stop to that.

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Speaker 1: But you can change they, can't you. I mean, you

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Speaker 1: say it's the principle. You can change those if you want.

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Speaker 2: And so the basic approach that we have is that

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Speaker 2: Parliament sets maximum sentences for serious war for crimes, and

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Speaker 2: then there's discretion for the judiciary. What we're doing with

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Speaker 2: this legislation is limiting that discretion because we're concerned that

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Speaker 2: there's been too many instances of two these massive discounts

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Speaker 2: where people are sentenced are convicted of serious crimes, violent offenses,

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Speaker 2: sexual offenses, and then through a series of large discounts,

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Speaker 2: end up on home detention and sentences that we don't

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Speaker 2: think reflect the gravity of the crime. And so that's

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Speaker 2: why Parliament sending this signal and this government sending the

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Speaker 2: signal that we want to have stronger consequences.

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Speaker 1: Explain to me this idea of it. You're encouraging the

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Speaker 1: use of cumulative sentencing. For you know, if you do

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Speaker 1: something while you're on bail or you're in custody or whatever,

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Speaker 1: then you get a cumulative sentence or that's being encouraged.

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Speaker 1: What does that mean.

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Speaker 2: Well, it is sometimes a practice that if you're convicted

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Speaker 2: of one thing and then two weeks later, or another

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Speaker 2: thing and then another thing, if you serve them all cumulatively,

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Speaker 2: you could end up having a prison sentence of twenty

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Speaker 2: years or fifteen years, and that has real consequences for

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Speaker 2: the whole system. And so sometimes those sentences are put together. Now,

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Speaker 2: part of our coalition agreement with New Zealand first was

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Speaker 2: to insist upon concurrent sentencing and so adding them all

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Speaker 2: together into one sentence. But we've got to work at

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Speaker 2: that piece by piece because the reality is that would

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Speaker 2: have a huge impact on our prison population. So we're

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Speaker 2: just working our way through it and encouraging that in sentencing.

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Speaker 1: Do you want because it doesn't seem fair. I mean

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Speaker 1: if you're the victim of it. So let's say somebody

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Speaker 1: robs a bank, stab somebody and then rape somebody. If

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Speaker 1: you're the one who got raped or got stabbed, why

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Speaker 1: should you the sentence not be just as long, do

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Speaker 1: you know what I mean? It's almost like they're getting

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Speaker 1: off just because they did other stuff. They're getting off

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Speaker 1: on your crime.

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Speaker 2: Well, yes. And the other broader concern is if somebody

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Speaker 2: is on bail for a serious offense already, and they're

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Speaker 2: on bail and they go out and create another fresh victim,

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Speaker 2: if there's no additional penalty, then that sentence a very

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Speaker 2: bad signal. So that's the thing that we're worried about,

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Speaker 2: and that's why we're encouraging those sentences to be added

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Speaker 2: one on top of the other. We haven't gone so

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Speaker 2: far as legislating that that should always happen every time

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Speaker 2: at this stage because it does have very very significant

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Speaker 2: impacts on the prison population and our ability to cope

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Speaker 2: with it. So we're tackling it one step at a time.

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Speaker 1: All right, Minister, will leave it there. Paul Goldsmith, the

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Speaker 1: Justice Minister, on the new sentencing walls that have been

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Speaker 1: passed today, much talked about, big feature of the election

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Speaker 1: campaign you might remember, and so finally made their way

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Speaker 1: through Parliament. What are we Now? March of twenty twenty five.

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Speaker 1: For more from Heather Duplassy Allen Drive, listen live to

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