Citizen’s arrests, three strikes, bootcamps: Justice Minister’s half-term report

Monday, 10 March 2025

It had been an unrelenting couple of weeks for Paul Goldsmith when he sat down with The Post.

The Justice Minister’s proposal to expand citizens’ arrest powers garnered widespread criticism from those directly affected, while the National Party had been left reeling after the shock resignation of MP Andrew Bayly.

Yet, sitting at a conference table in his office on the fifth floor of the Beehive, Goldsmith gives the appearance (at least) of being in control. His answers are considered and measured, as he sits with his fingers steepled.

Having inherited hooks arranged in a haphazard fashion on the wall, Goldsmith has done his best to make the space his own. He’d thrown up works from his old office on his first night there, which were all still exactly where they’d been put in November 2023.

Across the room, behind a glass sheet, is a limited edition Hairy Maclary picture book. Pictures of his family are dotted around the space.

The justice portfolio certainly isn’t for the faint of heart, with the Government having committed to delivering 20,000 fewer victims of serious crime by 2030 as part of their crime crusade.

So far, Goldsmith is in the process of introducing tougher sentences for convicted criminals, restoring the Three Strikes legislation (with associate justice minister Nicole McKee, who introduced the amendment bill), criminalising foreign interference and overturning name suppression practices in the case of sexual violence.

He has also, with Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, already aided in the establishment of military-style academies for serious young offenders and been instrumental in the banning of gang patches in all public spaces.

But how did the father-of-four get here, and ‒ now he is here ‒ how is he doing?

Becoming Justice Minister

Goldsmith grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, with a maths teacher as a dad and a nurse as his mum. He’s worked as a PR adviser, a historian for the Waitangi Tribunal and as a press secretary and speech writer for both National MPs and Labour’s Phil Goff.

At 40, Goldsmith completed a master’s degree in history from the University of Auckland, examining the observations Christian missionary William Colenso made of Māori while he lived in New Zealand through his thesis. He’s also a gifted pianist, a double bass player and a second-dan black belt in taekwondo.

While this all makes for an incredibly impressive CV, those who have known Goldsmith for years emphasise his dry (sometimes blistering) wit, an awe-inspiring ability to knock back dozens of oysters in one sitting, and his occasional cameo-appearances in his children’s social media videos.

He has also written or co-written 12 books, including several biographies on political and business figures like John Banks and Don Brash. It’s through this writing, Goldsmith previously told The Post, that he ended up in politics.

When working with Kiwi businessman and entrepreneur Alan Gibbs, Goldsmith was asked the somewhat harsh question of when he was going to stop living vicariously through writing about others and get out and do something himself: “I thought, well, I might as well get up off the fence.”

Today, as well as holding the justice portfolio, Goldsmith is also: Minister for Arts, Culture and Heritage, Minister for Media and Communications, Minister for State Owned Enterprises and Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations.

A ‘victim-centric’ approach to politics

Throughout his tenure as Minister of Justice, Goldsmith has been clear: he wants to adopt a “victim-centric” approach to politics. But what does this actually mean?

“A lot of the nuts and bolts of the justice system are around dealing with perpetrators of crime. A relatively small group of people created a lot of the crime, so naturally there’s a real focus on rehabilitation and trying to deal with those long-term drivers.

“But, it’s important that the system recognises the needs of victims. The best thing you can do for the victims of crime is to avoid them being a victim of crime in the first place.”

One of the ways in which he hopes to do this is through “restoring real consequences to crime”, such as through his Sentencing Reform Amendment Bill and the restoration of the Three Strikes legislation.

While the sentencing reforms were criticised by then-Labour Justice Spokesperson Kiri Allan as placing a burden on an already struggling prison system, heavy weights in the sector like victim’s advocate Ruth Money praised the change as ending the prioritisation of offenders.

“From a victim’s point of view, when something horrendous has happened to you, part of the justice system is denouncing the act ‒ and if that’s not really happening, then that’s a real problem for victims.

“The other element, which is more of a backroom issue but equally important, is that the best thing we can do for victims is speed up the processes of the courts.”

Certainly the reforms will be welcomed by the likes of Luke Smith’s parents. Luke, 21, was killed when he was punched once to the head on Courtenay Place last October.

Smith’s killer, former amateur boxer Siale Siale, was afforded a 50% discount to his sentence because of his early guilty plea and his difficult upbringing, making his sentence two years and three months’ imprisonment.

It’s a sentence Luke’s parents say doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the scale of their loss.

“Irrespective of the length of the sentence, nothing will bring Luke back, not even a 10-year sentence could do that,” his father, Brian Smith, told The Post.

Speeding up the justice system is, however, one of the harder battles that lie ahead.

“There’s not one thing we need to do there, there’s about 20 things. And once we’ve done those things, there’ll be another 20 things. It’s about bringing the whole justice sector together ‒ the police, Corrections, the judiciary ‒ and all working together to chip away at that issue.”

So, what victims has Goldsmith been meeting with himself to inform his policy-making and prioritisation?

“In the work that I do, I’ve met with many, many victims of crime, particularly in the retail space,” he says. Has he ever invited the victims of serious crime, such as the whānau of a homicide victim, to his office?

“Not that I recall in this office. My primary experience of direct interaction with victims of crime is out in the community.”

The contentious citizen arrest reform

One of the things that has undoubtedly marked Goldsmith’s stint as minister is the proposed expansion of citizen arrest laws. In February, Goldsmith announced his intention to give businesses more power to detain those stealing from them.

A torrent of criticism ensued. From police officers, who fear it poses “huge safety risks”, to a human rights lawyer who warned it could open a“Pandora’s box of chaos”, the feedback was clear: this is not a good idea.

To his credit, Goldsmith hasn’t shied away from answering questions about the proposal, instead acknowledging that a vigilante response to crime was never the aim.

But just as he says the proposal brings New Zealand into alignment with Australia, where “the world hasn’t come to an end … It’s not the Wild West”, recent citizen’s arrests have also gone very wrong there.

In 2024, Matej Radelic was found guilty of two counts of aggravated common assault after he used cable ties to detain three Indigenous children he caught swimming in his pool in Broome, Western Australia.

“That’s always the challenge,” Goldsmith says, when The Post puts this example to him.

“My starting point is that we have a law where during the night people can detain other people under a citizen’s arrest for breaking the Crimes Act, but during the day they can’t at a lower threshold.”

Quite what will constitute “reasonable force” is also a point of contention, but Goldsmith defines it as “the minimum force required to keep somebody in place”.

“It really is just providing an option for dealing with what is a serious problem that we have in our retail context, and it may be something that security guards can use in certain circumstances and if that makes a difference, then I think it’s something that we’ve got to consider.”

Similarly, the youth justice “bootcamps”, or military-style academies, have also courted criticism. Two of the youths taking part led police on a cross-country chase when they went on the run, one after having attended a fellow former bootcamp participant’s tangi.

While the face of the academies has been Children’s Minister Karen Chhour, Goldsmith has worked with her on them and the bootcamps were both a National and ACT policy, campaigned on by both parties, including Goldsmith.

A ‘modest improvement’ in the numbers

From day dot, Goldsmith has been eager to set himself apart from his predecessor, Labour’s Ginny Andersen.

“We started off with a clear set of things that in the coalition agreement we were keen to do, which first and foremost was to shift the focus away from the previous administrations, whose only clearly articulated target was to reduce the prison population by a certain amount,” he says.

Where Labour placed their focus on looking at the structural causes of crime across Aotearoa, National has focused on results ‒ tangible, numerical targets.

Central to this is the promise to reduce the number of victims of serious crime by 20,000. Does Goldsmith think he’s on track to achieve that target?

“Well, there are different measures out there. There was a police measure that we referred to last year, which showed we were starting to see a modest improvement.”

The real success of the Government’s crime crusade will take longer to see, however, as peaks and troughs settle into distinct trends.

Clarification: This story has been updated to clarify that the Three Strikes legislation amendment has been led by associate Justice Minister Nicole McKee, and the military style academies have been led by Children’s Minister Karen Chhour.