By Tess Bartlett - Rethinking Crime and Punishment

Despite its manifest contradictions, this question resulted in a 91.7 percentaffirmative response from the electorate and went on to dominate penal debate inNew Zealand for several years thereafter (see, for example, Ministry of Justice,2002a). From the outset, the referendum had been a genuine community enterprise,with Withers receiving no assistance from trade unions or political parties in theinitial stages (Pratt, 2008). The only support he did receive was particularlycontroversial, as the question itself was written by the leader of the ChristianHeritage Party, who was later sentenced to prison for nine years for acts of rape,sexual violation and sexual indecency with minors ("Party official asked to resign,"2005). Withers’ determination in bringing about the referendum marked a crucialstage in penal policymaking in New Zealand, demonstrating how ‘ordinary people’could be an authoritative force in penal policy development.The press used the 91.7 percent affirmative response as a way of pressuringpoliticians, rather than interrogating the validity of the referendum. In one instance,the [Wellington] Evening Post noted that if governments chose to ignore publicsupport ‘[they] would be punished by voters’ ("Tougher line," 2000: A2).Consequently, politicians used the referendum as a backbone for their respectivepolicies, drawing the victim into the centre of the law and order debate (see, forexample, Alley, 1999; Binning, 2004; Stepfather's loss," 2001; Tan, 2008). WhileLabour Party leader Helen Clark chose to speak out against the referendum sayingthe question was ‘woolly’ ("Clark and Anderton," 2000: 2), there seemed to be nofurther doubt in the validity of the question when her Party then launched a ‘gettough’ campaign in response to public expectations regarding sentencing.Furthermore, the result of the referendum seemed to legitimise common sense as thedriver of policy rather than expert knowledge. For example, in 2000 the JusticeMinister warned judges that they risked losing their discretionary powers ‘if thepublic did not believe they were imposing sufficiently tough sentences for the worstcrimes’ (Bain, 2000b: 1). Subsequent legislation noted the need to ‘respond to the1999 referendum which revealed public concern over the sentencing of violentoffenders’ (Ministry of Justice, 2002a: 1). The triumph of the ordinary citizen overestablishment elites would be reflected in the amount of control the vocal public, orthose who claimed to speak for it, would have in the implementation of penal policyin the aftermath of the referendum, as the next chapter illustrates.39