Clayton Cosgrove

Wellington, Feb 17 NZPA - The Labour Party is questioning Justice Minister Simon Power's commitment to the controversial three strikes sentencing policy, after finding out the legislation has been handed over to Police Minister Judith Collins.

Parliament's law and order select committee is dealing with the bill and in an interim report, released today, it said Ms Collins would handle it through its remaining stages.

A spokesman for Ms Collins, who is also Minister of Corrections, told NZPA she had taken it over "due to the significant operational roles that the New Zealand police and Department of Corrections will have in implementing the changes to the bill".

A spokesman for Mr Power said it was decided Ms Collins was "a much better fit" to deal with the bill because she would be responsible for its implementation.

The spokesman said Mr Power fully supported the bill.

But Labour's law and order spokesman, Clayton Cosgrove, said the change didn't make sense.

"If Simon Power believes in this bill he would front it and allow the Justice Ministry to give the select committee advice on it," Mr Cosgrove said.

"He's washed his hands of it, and I suspect the Justice Ministry would have similar feelings."

The select committee's interim report noted that Ms Collins had asked for advisers from police and corrections to replace the Ministry of Justice for the remainder of the committee's consideration of the bill.

Mr Cosgrove said that didn't make sense either.

"The Justice Ministry were lead advisers and now they've been barred from taking any further part in it," he said.

"It is going to eventually have to go back to the Justice Ministry because they're going to have to administer it."

Labour and the Greens are upset about the way the bill is being handled by the select committee, which has a majority of National and ACT MPs.

Last month the Government announced the three strikes policy, an ACT initiative, would be incorporated into the Sentencing and Parole Reform Bill which was in front of the committee.

The interim report includes changes which would see offenders who committed certain violent crimes get a warning about three strikes on their first offence, a further warning and jail sentence with no parole for a second offence, and on a third offence the maximum penalty available for that offence with no parole.

Mr Cosgrove revealed in Parliament that Labour was not allowed to include its minority opinion in the interim report.

"It is clear that (select committee chairwoman Sandra Goudie) is attempting to prevent Labour members raising our very serious concerns about the process relating to this bill," he said.

Speaker Lockwood Smith said committees were able to pass resolutions by majority preventing minority reports from being included.

Green Party MP David Clendon, a member of the committee, said the process was a joke.

The committee was seeking further submissions on the bill from those who had already commented on the original bill, and those submissions would close on March 5, he said.

The bill would be reported back to Parliament on March 30.

Mr Clendon said the committee was "running a dodgy process" considering the major changes made, and the timeline was ridiculous.

"This legislation won't make anyone safer," he said.

"It's just another example of irrational punitive legislation from a populist government that is doing nothing to reduce crime."