National plan for 2000 extra Kiwis in prison per year

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, September 17th, 2024 - 20 comments
Categories: chris bishop, Christopher Luxon, crime, law and "order", paul goldsmith, same old national - Tags: ,

This is a repost from the Mountain Tui substack.

Yesterday, Luxon congratulated his government on a job well done with emergency housing numbers, but advocates have been saying it‘s likely many are on the streets and sleeping in cars.

Q&A featured some of the folks this weekend – homeless and in cars.

Yes.

The government’s also confirmed they stopped funding social service providers who were helping emergency housing tenants. It feels like – anything to make it uncomfortable for these people.

Back in April, when Luxon first announced 9 “highly ambitious” public service KPIs, it seemed obvious how easy the emergency housing target was – in particular.

800 less households in emergency housing?

People with predictable advocates, zero lobbying groups, and who are seen by many in society as expendable and are effectively voiceless?

Find me a bully and I’ll get you a successful KPI on that one.

Promise.

Well yesterday Luxon made it clear that his 9 KPIs were all in progress – but one in particular had made “particularly good progress,” he noted.

You guessed it: emergency housing. [Surprise!]

Here’s how Louise Upton described the eligibility changes in March:

“MSD staff [will] assess anyone applying for emergency housing [and] increase their scrutiny of whether they have unreasonably contributed to their immediate emergency housing need, whether they have taken reasonable efforts to access other housing options [e.g. private rentals/hostels] and whether they have previously paid their emergency housing contribution.

“This will include escalating for further consideration .. and making a grant for one to four days – as opposed to the current options of seven to 21 days – to enable further scrutiny.”

The pressure for applicants, I imagine, would be immense, and the first critiera – “whether applicants have unreasonably contributed to their immediate emergency housing need” feels like it wouldn’t involve much compassion or dignity.

For anyone with anxiety or who finds that level of external scrutiny stressful, I’m guessing many will avoid the process altogether.

National aren’t without other smarts too.

In March, Housing Minister Chris Bishop said that families with children would be prioritised for support.

After all, who needs photos of children living in cars or on streets on the 6 o’clock news?

Progress ensues.

Last month, nearly all government Ministers posted their ‘achievement’ of 1000 less children in emergency housing on their Facebook pages –

Unfortunately though, the Government doesn’t know where 20% of the children went to, and holds little visibility on those that went private (about 30%).

Community providers and charities have warned that a “tsunami of homelessness” is likely despite the short term ‘success’ of the numbers because of reduced staffing and halts to social housing under National.

And Labour’s McAnulty:

“They’re not letting people in…”

“Make it harder for people to get into emergency housing – where are they going to go?”

“They’re certainly not going to the houses that the government is building, because the government put a stop to it.”

Singles or families without children are rendered homeless and off to a life of desperation, mental illness and/or crime many will go.

Talking about crime – Paul Goldsmith and Luxon spent time in the press conference responding to questions about their tougher sentencing and criminal justice regime.

The Press Conference

To the content –

  • Yes, they expected more people in prison as a result of their reforms.

How many?

  • Goldsmith: 1400 – 1700 / year. Luxon later upped that to up to “2000 extra prisoners” a year by 2034

Cost?

  • Goldsmith: $160 – $190 million. But we already know each prisoner costs ~$200,000 per person (Ministry of Justice).
  • That would mean up to $400,000,000 more per year – not adjusted for inflation. i.e. $400mn per year and $1.2 billion over a budget period at max modelling

Luxon intimates money is no object when it comes to incarceration.

Seriously.

In an earlier column, I noted how NZ now has comparable incarceration rates globally – about 173 per 100,000 (Australia 157, and the UK, 145).

And under the last National governments, they acknowledged high incarceration levels were a “moral and fiscal failure.”

i.e. They were not only extremely expensive – but they didn’t stop crime, and only hardened the causes.

I won’t lament the point but observe how the Luxon led right wing government seems to be cherry picking the worst of failed models for NZ (trickle down economics, corporations over people, climate change protection elimination and now mega prisons and higher incarceration)

Achieving a KPI is easy – ask anyone who has worked with data what manipulation means and I think you will see them nod.

But genuinely helping a nation to improve is something altogether.

National is playing funny buggers with the crime numbers and statistics

The video (3:25) also shows that National are fudging their crime numbers sheen.

  1. They used police data in opposition e.g. to claim ram raids increased by 80% during Labour’s term, but now in government they are using the “victimisation survey” instead. This is obviously a marketing trick and Luxon looks down before coming back up to talk a lot about nothing. And this is how RNZ summarised it “There are some questions about the discrepancy on data.”
    • Yet, unfortunately it’s not that simple. They are comparing apples while in opposition with bananas in government. Author update: I see The Standard is already on it too!
  2. Luxon announced crime was coming down in Auckland but ignored the fact that crime – including violent crime – is going up across the entire country. This is how NZME covered it.

And yes – most people just remember the first headlines.

A Scourge, says Goldsmith

Finally, Goldsmith and Luxon were challenged on why they made a change to allow police to enter private homes to search for gang insignia, after the Select Committee closed.

Paul Goldsmith labels gangs a “scourge on society.”

And the PM’s defiant answer – “we back police”.

Yes, except when it’s the police versus an ACT gun lobbyist & Associate Justice Minister, who still meets with gun and firearms groups every single month.

Then he will ignore the 98% of all sworn police who were pleading for a chance to have input on gun laws. In that case, last month, Luxon told them squarely and publicly to get in line.

Flexible principles, flexible Luxon.

Not one extra dollar available for our health system, he said, but he will find whatever money he needs to to put more Kiwis behind bars, while simultaneously pushing more people onto our streets.

Welcome to the new Aotearoa New Zealand.

Related reading:

Paul Goldsmith – The Man Who Wanted Te Reo Maori Gone

Why mere sentiment can be a misleading force in our lives, and lead to unexpected consequences for all of us

20 comments on “National plan for 2000 extra Kiwis in prison per year ”

  • Comments are now closed

  1. Ngungukai 1
    17 September 2024 at 9:44 am

    Great, really progressive policy, by Baldrick, Merkat Seymore and Winston Muldoon.

  2. Incognito 2
    17 September 2024 at 10:10 am

    There’s no reasoning nor room for context & nuance for dogmatic ideologues who capture their flock of faithfuls through re-writing scripts & narratives.

    https://newsroom.co.nz/2024/09/10/govt-resolute-in-allowing-10yos-to-be-treated-as-criminals/

  3. Rodel 3
    17 September 2024 at 10:28 am

    Prison life is pointless and expensive. Rehabilitation is a joke. I don't know what the answer is, but the current situation makes people worse. I heard that Finland has better answers.

    • Mountain Tui 3.1
      17 September 2024 at 10:38 am

      At the "Abuse in Care" press conference, media asked Luxon if his views of gangs had changed and his thoughts on rehabilitation.

      The Inquiry found at least 1 in 3 of all in state & faith based care were abused – often violently and/or sexually.

      Many of those victims went on to form and/or join gangs.

      – Did that affect his view of gangs?

      – What were Luxon's thoughts on rehabilitation? The media asked.

      Luxon immediately spoke about how much his government put into prison beds and officers. He then said he acknowledged gangs had "dysfunctional upbringings" but still, prison would teach what they needed to change.

      i.e. He has no clue what rehabilitation is nor does he have an ounce of empathy in any of his bones by the looks of it.

      Terribly bad choice of government, NZ. And shame on us.

      • dv 3.1.1
        17 September 2024 at 10:42 am

        The other thing is that sentences are supposed to have a deterent factor.

        That implies they can think and make appropriate judgments.

        • Mountain Tui 3.1.1.1
          17 September 2024 at 10:45 am

          Good point and reminds me of how they want to imprison more youths.

          • Incognito 3.1.1.1.1
            17 September 2024 at 11:35 am

            Luxon’s incongruence is grating. On the one hand, 78% of Yr-8 students fail the ‘expected’ (new and not-yet-taught) math standards, but on the other hand they can be treated as criminals.

            • Mountain Tui 3.1.1.1.1.1
              17 September 2024 at 12:07 pm

              Zero consistency in any of their policies or statements. All about ideologies, donor interests and controlling the narrative.

              A thoroughly shallow, un-serious, and dangerous minded government.

    • Ngungukai 3.2
      17 September 2024 at 5:31 pm

      We seem to be going around and around in circles on this issue and not solving the problems ???

  4. Mike the Lefty 4
    17 September 2024 at 12:06 pm

    A simple question:

    If you cracking down on crime then why do you need more prisons?

    If its working so well then logically you would need less prisons right?

    No, not with National, because National's strategy is not to prevent crime but to punish more harshly when crimes are committed. It is designed to bring smiles to the ZB Newstalk ranters.

    Harsh punishment does not itself prevent crime. The most effective means of preventing crime is a numerous, well-resourced, well-deployed police force, as we have seen in Central Auckland – it does work.

    Now we should expect the rest of NZ to get similar policing resources now that we have seen the good results, right?

    • Mountain Tui 4.1
      17 September 2024 at 12:08 pm

      I noticed today Ryan Bridges and Newstalk are praising Luxon for his improved poll numbers and economic results.

      Anything to take off from the disastrous crime numbers.

      NZME doesn't genuinely care about crime – they just need to stir up enough anger to win votes for their corporate politicians.

      • tc 4.1.1
        17 September 2024 at 3:54 pm

        NZME don't care about Health either as the manufactured crises rolls on across multiple fronts from broken election promises in Primary healthcare to Cancer Drug shuffles.

        Just a few days back Tawdrey was banging on about how Seymour hogs the headlines…..by giving him another.

        They wonder why the media has no credibility, as they proprogate the disinformation by letting the likes of Jones, Brown, Bishop, Reti etc get the talking points across unchallenged.

  5. tc 5
    17 September 2024 at 12:11 pm

    "Achieving a KPI is easy – " even easier when you can simply not caputre or report unfavourable facts that counter your narratives.

    Add dirty politics and a compliant media, stir in the culture wars and it sure is some brewing they've got going here.

    • Mountain Tui 5.1
      17 September 2024 at 12:17 pm

      The media is very disappointing – and I have argued for a while that if they cared, they would need to update their operating mode given how much direct disinformation/misinformation this government deals in.

      It's actually essential for good governance as well as preventing the ongoing splintering of society.

      Yesterday, in response to Luxon and Goldsmith being found out effectively fudging crime numbers, this was RNZ's summary

      "There are some questions about the discrepancy on data regarding crime and delivering on the targets.

      Luxon says they look at a range of indicators"

      Without watching the press conference, or finding alternate reporting e.g. Micky Savage's article this morning – who would understand that?

      Jo Moir was on duty at the press conference.

      • tc 5.1.1
        17 September 2024 at 3:29 pm

        The publicly owned media don't fulfill their purpose i.e. to hold power to account. TVNZ and RNZ are pathetic, soapboxes rather than some rigorous Q&A.

        The facade's paper thin from the coalition but it's enough in the absence of a coherent insistent line of questioning on any topic.

        Private media reflects the owners agenda and has advertisers to keep happy so you get as expected from ZB etc, outrage sells.

        We live in different times now as not so long ago the media would be all over the sloppiness in being dodgy from this 3 ring circus of a coalition.

        • Mountain Tui 5.1.1.1
          18 September 2024 at 8:32 am

          I find the RNZ is a mixed bag but overall better than most. For example, they covered and exposed Casey Costello's likely corruption. NZME took it off a findable page.

  6. Ngungukai 6
    18 September 2024 at 8:15 am

    2,000 x $200,000 = $400 Million by my calculations ???

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