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Restoring Law & Order
ACT believes protecting the safety and property of its citizens is the government’s first and most important job. The rights of victims should trump the rights of criminals.
Our Values
The Government’s first job is stopping crime. People who work, save and sacrifice for a better tomorrow shouldn’t live in fear that someone else will hurt them, or take away what they’ve worked for.
It’s not just about stopping crime, it’s about preserving the values of our society. That means protecting each person’s dignity and rewarding their creativity. If you want something you need to create it yourself and trade with others, not take from them by force.
Our Achievements
ACT has driven many of the Government’s important changes in law and order. These changes restore consequences for criminals, and rights for the innocent. They include:
Bringing back Three Strikes: Sending a clear message to the judiciary that violent and sexual offending has consequences. Offenders get one chance. If they commit a second violent or sexual offence, they receive no parole and serve their full sentence. A third offence results in the maximum sentence. By taking the worst of the worst out of circulation for as long as possible, we make everyone safer.
Ending taxpayer-funded cultural reports: When ACT entered Government, $6 million a year was being spent on reports for convicted criminals, pleading for lighter sentences based on personal background. These reports insulted victims, who were ignored, while taxpayers footed the bill. ACT had this funding stopped so that justice puts victims, not offenders, at the centre.
Scrapping Labour’s prisoner reduction target and expanding prison capacity: Labour thought they could lower crime by letting people out of prison and not replacing capacity. ACT ensured that consequences for crime were restored, recognising that removing dangerous offenders from the community is one of the most effective ways to protect the public.
Introducing new aggravating factors at sentencing: If the victim of an assault is a sole-charge worker, or working in a business connected to their home, this is now an aggravating factor at sentencing. This means longer sentences for offenders who target vulnerable shop staff, bus drivers, and other at-risk workers.
Strengthening police powers: ACT has backed changes that give Police stronger tools to target gangs and organised crime, while ensuring those powers are not used to erode the rights of law-abiding citizens.
Our Next Goals
The coalition Government has not gone as far as ACT would like, but it’s gone further than it would have without ACT. We always have more ideas ready, and here are some we continue to advocate.
Prisoner rehabilitation, to save costs and reduce crime
Early release for those who learn to read, take on a trade, and get a qualification in prison. ACT has long campaigned to get more value out of prisons. Yes, the worst need to be taken out of circulation for everyone else’s sake, but what then?
Locking up prisoners is the best money we’ll ever spend, because it’s hard to attack an innocent person from prison. Then what? If we’re going to spend $200,000 a year locking someone up, and the Corrections Department has their undivided attention, shouldn’t we expect them to come out better than they went in?
This is where incentives come in. ACT believes people want to live a better life, but they’ll take easy options if they’re offered. The incentives Government sets up matter, and the incentives we should give are the ones that create win-win.
Most people in prison want to get out. The win–win here is that they get out faster by learning skills that will help them go straight once released. Under ACT’s proposal, a prisoner sentenced to six years, with the usual minimum non-parole period of two years, would not be eligible for parole unless they have upskilled.
Ensure sentencing reflects community safety
ACT will continue to push for sentencing laws that put the safety of the community first. That means keeping dangerous offenders in prison for as long as they pose a threat, and ensuring parole decisions are based on evidence of rehabilitation, not political targets.
Focus police resources on frontline crime-fighting
ACT supports refocusing police resources away from political or bureaucratic distractions and onto the prevention and solving of serious crime. That means targeting gangs, violent offenders, and repeat criminals, while cutting the paperwork and compliance burden that keeps officers off the street.