Kia ora, Nga mihi nui, kia koutou, Kia ora.

I’m Gareth Hughes, the Greens’ candidate for Ohariu and number 11 on the Green party list. Speakers more experienced and knowledgeable than me – Keith Locke and Metiria Turei, two of the Green MPs give their apologies they couldn’t be here tonight.

I have been asked to talk about justice which is an issue I haven’t had a great deal of experience in, except subjectively and intuitively and I will try my best to encapsulate the Green’s policy and perspective.

Quickly though, unlike many on this panel you haven’t seen my face on the parliamentary TV channel so I’ll quickly talk a little about myself. I’m a 26 year old environmentalist and former Greenpeace-activist. Yes I’ve been arrested doing that. A father to my one-year-old son Arlo. I work for the Greens parliamentary team on climate issues and I am also a part time student in Wellington.

I’m always surprised that Rodney Hide is the only member of the house with an ecology degree and unlike many MPs I don’t have any law studies under my belt. Instead I’m a graduate in religious studies and history and I guess that helps frame my understanding of justice.

What is justice? The Greens believe it is about fairness and we are applying that across the board – and you can see that in our considerable, (considering we are outside of Government) legislative achievements this term – abolishing discriminatory youth rates that paid young people less than those over 18 even for the same work, the so-called anti-smacking bill, the Mother’s with Babies Bill and also very recently with the amendments to the Emissions Trading Scheme legislation – and the $1 billion we secured for insulating cold, damp kiwi homes – that’s fairness in action!

In terms of criminal justice, it is about more than just how we deal with crime. It is about how we create a fair, peaceful and sustainable world. Greens see issues as interconnected and not reductionalistikly. Broadly – its about constitutional reform, it’s about honoring Te Tiriri o Waitangi, it’s about human rights, it’s about rebuilding local economies, celebrating diversity and creativity, ending violence towards each other and our environment, and ensuring that people's needs are met.

Other speakers on this panel and in the media would like to focus on a very narrow track and clamour for harsher and longer sentences. I’d like to say simply New Zealand prison rate is simply too high. I think this is something that is widely recognised though not always acknowledged. We have the second highest prison rate in at least the Western World — second after that of the United States of America, which is a model I can’t understand why we would want to emulate. The Greens aren’t soft on crime we are realistic on crime.

I do want to set a bottom line though. We all have a right to feel safe. I worry about my Mum and my wife walking through unsafe streets and even though I wear a hoody I still feel nervous approached by a group of young men wearing hoodies. We have to ensure people are safe from violent crime.

When one considers that more than half of the people in prison are in for non-violent offences, one has to start to say that there has to be some better and more effective ways of dealing with that kind of offending, and so we strongly welcome this. This brings to mind comments by Judge Andrew Becroft, who talks about patterns of offending, particularly for young people, and the kinds of initiatives that are most useful in reducing their offending. He pointed out that most young people who offend stop offending in their early 20s, even if one does nothing and just leaves them alone.

He was not suggesting we do nothing, but he was pointing out that taking those people and putting them in prison actually puts them on a path to greater crime and more serious offending, and that using non-custodial sentences is much more effective, as is using other kinds of methods. If elected to Parliament I would be the only member with a student loan and frankly would relish the big salary and the chance to pay off the debt, but many graduates from our prisons – our ‘universities of crime’ never get a chance to pay of their debt and unfortunately its just passed on to the next generation..

Even though I’m not that experienced in the fine details justice policy I do have something my colleagues on the platform don’t share – a closeness to most offenders age. The age at which offenders first enter the criminal justice system is significant, as the majority of male offenders in the adult system first entered the system as young people. The Green Party will maintain the age of criminal responsibility at 14 and support the establishment of small-scale and dispersed Youth Rehabilitation Centres to end the detention of young people in police cells and adult prisons. Family Group Conferences (FGC) are the lynchpin of the youth justice system in New Zealand and we support increasing funding and training and encouragement of Family Group Conferences. Early intervention is the key to crime prevention

I’d like to talk briefly about the victims of crime. There is just a strong need for better understanding of victims of crime in general, throughout the judicial system. This goes hand in hand with a need for better procedures and processes within all the governmental agencies that complainants and victims of crime have to deal with as they progress through the system. Too often people feel played by the system. They see ‘the justice system ’ as a game played between lawyers with judges as ref, with not enough focus on justice or truth.

I don’t think it’s about longer sentences as a cure-all, as some would claim to improve victim’s rights. Victims often feel baffled by the justice system, and feel it is cumbersome and slow moving that puts too much in favour of offenders rights. We have a strike a balance between ensuring the right to a free trial vs. finding the perpetrator

The Greens strongly support restorative justice processes. We would encourage greater uptake of this by increasing funding and support for restorative justice in a variety of cultural and geographical settings. We would provide institutional support and resourcing for restorative justice following sentencing. We also need to adequately fund Victim Support to pay for victims to attend restorative justice processes, and develop a public information campaign about restorative justice processes. It would be helpful to have something that focuses on recompensing victims for their loss.

I was hoping to have time to discuss other understandings of justice of which I’m passionate -

Seeing climate justice internationally and also achieving greater social justice in Aotearoa. I would have liked to have talked about cannabis, tasers and child beating but these are positions the Greens already have strong and known positions on.

I’d like to thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight.

# posted by gareth @ 3:40 PM