Brooklyn Spedding (9Plt) gained second place in The University of Canterbury Law Essay Competition in the Law and Justice Category. 

This is a tremendous achievement and a testament to her hard work and skill. The competition was open to secondary school students across the country. 

Law and Justice

I have chosen Law and Justice as my topic because currently we have been learning about parliament and law and justice and thought that since I have been learning about that, then why not write an essay on it. One of my political parties I have chosen is Labour. Labour is a very strong party and they are doing very well in the ratings, due to the fact that Andrew little resigned and Jacinda Ardern came forward to be leader. The other party I have chosen to write about is National, they are rated number one in the country, for the past nine years, Labour is just coming through the standing polls at 39.4% and National standing just at 43.3%. I thought that having the two biggest parties will make my essay more interesting. Both parties have different ideas and points of views. The two parties represent different societies with National representing the farming communities and those with higher incomes and Labour representing the low and middle income families. I will compare their policies and their differences of Law and Justice, and which party has better opinions about my topic. I will look at whether we should be harder on Criminals or whether having the ability to prevent crime is better than trying to just lock them up.

The first Political Party I will look at is National. National has been in Government for nine years, since 2008.The National Party has decided to step up attempts to reduce drug addiction by introducing hardline anti-gang measures and funding more places in rehabilitation centres. National leader Bill English and police spokeswoman ‘Paula Bennett’ announced the $82 million package at an Auckland drug treatment centre in Te Atatu on Sunday morning. Of that total, half would be spent on creating 1500 additional drug treatment places and funding education and prevention services. The other half would be invested in a crackdown on gangs and drug dealers (Davidson, 2017)

Davidson, I (2017) National Pledges Crackdown on Gangs, ODT

[Accessed on 3/5/2017]

In February 2017 the National Party announced that they will be putting $503 million into a safer community package. This package includes 1,125 more police officers in the next four years which would take the total amount of police officers to more than 13,000. This will mean that 95% of all New Zealanders will be within 25km of a 24 hour police presence. New Zealand will receive more police officers in all twelve districts. Police officers will have a target that all burglaries will be attended within forty eight hours. There will also be 24 hour capability for the police eagle helicopter, with a response time of 10-15 minutes. Our Courts will receive $115 million to handle more cases, More than 90% of all ‘111’ calls will be answered in 10 seconds.National has accomplished this and now New Zealand has been rated the fourth safest country in the world. National is giving money for criminals to go to jail rather than finding our the real cause of why they are ending up in jail and not knowing the real problem of why they had chosen to do that, instead of talking to them and trying to fix the problem (National, 2017).

‘We want to deliver a more responsive Police service, prevent crime and victimisation, resolve more crimes, and more effectively target criminal gangs and organised crime.’

(National Party, February 2017)

Now let’s have a look at the Labour Party. ‘Let’s do this.’ comes from the words of Jacinda Ardern. The Labour Party’s main focus is to be as accessible as they can be. The equivalent of Hamilton’s work force of young people did not vote last election and that's got to change.

‘Ardern said she wanted the campaign to reach people who didn't vote last election a population the size of Hamilton.’

(NZ Herald Article, 4 Aug, 2017 2:01pm)

Labour has promised to bring New Zealand some changes to help with law and justice. For example, Labour will fund 1,000 more Police Officers and the equipment that they need to make our communities safer, Labour will work with police to tackle the increasing number of assaults, sexual assaults, burglaries, robberies, as well as drug supply. They will provide funding to increase police population each year, with the total of 1,000 increasing in the first term. Labour will support police officers with $180 million a year of extra support. Labour will work with Police to make sure that these Police Officers are concentrated on the crimes that are out of control under National, and restore community policing.

Investigations into assaults and, in particular, sexual assaults will get more police resources so that the criminals who commit these crimes and hurt New Zealanders are brought to justice. Labour have said they would create more jobs and lift incomes, reduce poverty, make training and education more readily available to young adults and better resourcing for health including mental health and addiction services. These Policies will have the effect of reducing crime and also trying to deal with it before it starts.

So let’s compare the two party policies and look at the advantages and disadvantages. From what I read and understood National is putting money into dealing with Crime and sending the criminals to jail without knowing what even happened. While Labour is looking to invest money into other areas that will hopefully prevent crime from happening in the first place. Labour is looking to put more money into helping low income families and families that can not afford their own house or clothes, or schooling or even food. People that can not afford food will start to steal food, and money and that is what Labour is trying to help families with and also kids that do not go to school with no lunches, shoes or even a waterproof jacket, causing kids to be hungry all day which would make their learning harder. Without shoes, jackets or any kind of clothing items the kid would also go to school cold which would make them not concentrated on their learning. There are too many people in New Zealand who are homeless or who can not afford the simple things that New Zealand families need. Labour will invest in these areas and that will hopefully prevent Crime from happening in the first place.

Gathering all the information I have got I think Labour is doing the right thing by preventing the problem before it gets worse and giving money for families that need it most. National is also doing great as well but criminals might just be stealing food or money for their families that need it most and should probably talk to the criminal before they go to jail. Criminals that do murder someone or do something other than stealing for there families or getting money they need should go to jail because in New Zealand we do have some bad people out there and should be going to jail for what they have done. I now understand National and Labour's policies and where both of those parties are coming from.