By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

However, while the present government rejected any efforts to include expertopinion when it disbanded the Advisory Board and the Sentencing Council, it waswilling to take a different approach when it came to the economy. Due to the globaleconomy experiencing the deepest recession since the 1930s, New Zealand has beenaffected ‘both directly, through a reduction in demand from our trading partners, andindirectly, through a contraction in global credit’ (English, 2009b: 2). As onesolution, the National government also introduced a National Infrastructure AdvisoryBoard to ‘help formulate the first 20­year National Infrastructure Plan’ (English,2009a: Par. 2). The members were chosen based on their ‘individual skills andcollective knowledge’ to ‘engage with the private sector, local government and otherstakeholders’ in order to discuss barriers that have been slowing investment inNew Zealand (English, 2009a: Par. 3.5) 41 . The government is willing to approach theeconomy using expert opinion and analysis, as it is a way for the government toshow that it is committed to providing security to its citizens. Yet, when it comes tocriminal justice issues the power of penal populism is unmistakable, where expertopinion and analysis is considered to be an unnecessary ‘layer of bureaucracy’ and itis the public, and victims needs, that are of paramount importance (Power, 2008b:Par. 42). One person’s opinion, however much or however little they know, isregarded as the equal of anyone else’s in this field.Overall, the thesis concludes that any attempts to oppose penal populism require thesecure social and political setting to support it. While there continues to be agathering of alternative voices critiquing penal populism and its outcomes, the maindeterminants of penal populism remain powerfully strong in New Zealand: highimprisonment has become an acceptable feature of New Zealand society; little hasbeen done to minimise the mass media’s over­reporting of crime; the victim remainscentral to criminal justice debates, driving groups such as the Sensible SentencingTrust; and public sentiments continually overrule expert opinion and analysis in thedevelopment of sentencing and penal policy and have become the driving force oflaw and order. The opposing forces may be successful in strengthening informedpublic debate on these issues, but they are unlikely to be successful unless these41The government has also established a taxation working group to ‘look at medium term policyoptions for the taxation system’ (Buckle, 2009: Par. 1). The members comprise of ‘officials, privatesector and academic experts’ and are required to provide ‘tax policy discussion that can feed intoadvice to ministers and wider public debate’ (Buckle, 2009: Par. 5).104