THREE-STRIKE POLICY'S SUPPORTERS FALL AWAY

Act's flagship three-strikes policy is falling apart, with its format
derided even by the hardliners of the crime debate.

Prime Minister John Key yesterday said the problems were of Act's own
making, because it agreed to the five-year sentence threshold to earn
a "strike" that has rendered it largely ineffective.

The Act MP who designed the policy, David Garrett, will not even
commit to supporting the present version.

The problems are compounded now that Mr Garrett is caught up in a row
over making inappropriate comments about a female staff member just as
the three-strikes policy reaches its most critical point if it is to
progress any further through Parliament.

Act campaigned on the three-strike policy and after the election
agreed to it being merged with National's sentencing measures, with
the change made that an offender had to be sentenced to five years or
more to earn a strike.

That five-year threshold is so high that not even RSA triple-killer
William Dwane Bell or samurai sword killer Antonie Ronnie Dixon would
have been "struck out" before they committed their notorious murders.

Its impact would not be felt for another 10 years when just 25 more
prison beds are expected to be needed.

This prompted the Sensible Sentencing Trust - which did a deal with
Act to get its former legal adviser Mr Garrett into Parliament to push
the policy - to turn against it publicly last week and say it now only
purports to be tough. Mr Garrett told Q+A on Sunday he was unhappy
about the policy as it stood and would not necessarily vote for it.

He would not return calls yesterday.

Mr Garrett and Act may not even get a chance to vote for it as
National only agreed to support it to the select committee stage,
which has just finished hearing submissions on the Sentencing and
Parole Reform Bill it is part of.

National's caucus will decide whether to support three strikes
continuing as a component in the bill's second reading.

It is unlikely National would agree to removing the five-year
threshold as it would require dismantling its own hardline sentencing
measures, which were a key election policy.

Prime Minister John Key said Act turned down the opportunity to have
three strikes run as a separate bill, preferring instead for it to be
"embedded" with National's measures.

He said National had honoured its governing agreement with Act for
three strikes to go to a select committee, and if the threshold of
five years was now causing problems, it was not National's fault.

"We haven't tried to undermine the process - we've simply followed
what they [Act] asked us to do."

Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove said Mr Garrett's refusal to commit to
three strikes was a slap in the face for the murder victims' families
who had appeared before the law and order select committee to support
it.

"Would those victims have shown up if they had known the author of the
bill was not going to support it?"