The Case for a Multi-Party Accord: A Panel Discussion

Source: (2006) In, Report on the 2006 COnference — ‘Beyond Retribution.’ Aukland, NZ: Prison Fellowship New Zealand. pp.59-65.

At the Beyond Retribution Conference a panel of politicians discussed the formation of a multi-
party accord on Law and Order. e vision for such an accord was to have commonly agreed policy
on Law and Order issues and so to circumvent the use of such issues as a ‘political football’.
e appropriate representatives of all Parliamentary parties were invited to be on the panel. Five
of the eight parties sent representatives; the Act Party, New Zealand First and the Progressives
did not send representatives.
ose who took part (in alphabetical order by surname) were: Peter Dunne Minister for Revenue
and leader of the United Future Party; Damien O’Connor Minister of Corrections; Simon Power,
National Party Spokesperson for Law and Order; Doctor Pita Sharples co-leader of the Maori
Party; Nandor Tanczos, Green MP and Green Party Spokesperson for Law and Order.
e panel discussion had two sections. In the first, each speaker was given three minutes to address
the following question: “Do you support a multi-party approach to reducing imprisonment rates
and penal policy reform? If so, why? If not, why not?”
e second section of the panel discussion centred around eight broad principles that Professor
Jonathan Boston proposed as a starting point for a multi-party approach to penal policy reform.
He asked each MP to comment on these principles. (excerpt)