KEY NOTES

• This is a poll of 1,000 New Zealand voters commissioned by Family First New Zealand and run by Curia Market Research in August 2023.
• The National-led Government introduced the Three Strikes Law under The Sentencing and Parole Reform Act 2010.
• It was repealed by the Labour Government in 2022 under the Three Strikes Legislation Repeal Act 2022.

KEY INSIGHTS

• 4x more New Zealanders support bringing back the ‘Three Strikes’ legislation (65%) than oppose it (16%), with 19% being unsure
• More females than males support bringing it back:
  • Females = 69% support, 14% oppose = 4.9x (17% unsure)
  • Males = 62% support, 18% oppose = 3.4x (20% unsure)
• Support totals are higher in older age groups, but support ratios and ‘unsures’ are higher in younger age groups:
  • 18-40 = 61% support, 13% oppose = 4.7x (25% unsure)
  • 41-60 = 67% support, 16% oppose = 4.2x (17% unsure)
  • 61+ = 69% support, 19% oppose = 3.6x (12% unsure)
• The greatest difference comes when broken down into who we plan to vote for, and we’ll rank this based on the support:oppose ratio:
  • ACT = 90% support, 5% oppose = 18.0x (just 5% unsure)
  • Other Parties = 70% support, 13% oppose = 5.4x (17% unsure)
  • National = 72% support, 15% oppose = 4.8x (13% unsure)
  • Labour = 63% support, 17% oppose = 3.7x (20% unsure)
  • Green = 41% support, 39% oppose = 1.1x (20% unsure)

KEY QUESTIONS

1. With 4:1 majority support for the Three Strikes Law, including Labour voters, and crime increasing, why did the Labour Government remove this?
2. Why are ACT and Green voters so different in their views on this issue?
   NOTE: more Green Party voters do support bringing it back (41%) than oppose (39%), with 20% being unsure.
3. Do you support bringing back the Three Strikes Law:
   1. New Zealand Labour Party?
   2. The New Zealand National Party?
   3. ACT New Zealand?
   4. The Greens, The Green Party of Aotearoa/New Zealand?
   5. New Zealand First Party?
   6. Te Pāti Māori?
   7. Others parties?
   8. New Zealand voters?

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HAVE YOUR SAY

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FULL DATA ANALYSIS
Please contact us if you would like the full data set and research.

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ADDITIONAL NOTES:

• We published the overall voter result and the breakdown by party in the graph, but not by sex or age because:
  • There were only small differences between different sexes and age groups, so fewer insights.
  • A graph with 11 pie graphs is harder to read.
• There was also a confusing ‘Children under 18’ metric which was not explained. We presume this means applying the Three Strikes Law to criminals under 18, but have asked Family First New Zealand and Curia for clarification.
• The political party logos were taken from the internet. If we have used an older or incorrect version, please let us know.
• We have tried to make all political party logos proportional in size.
• We presented the political party results in the same order as the research did.
• In our question above, we have used the full political party names, and ranked these in order of the last 3 polling results, e.g. ACT being higher than the Greens in 2/3.
• Legislation information can be found via https://www.justice.govt.nz/justice-sector-policy/key-initiatives/repeal-of-the-three-strikes-law/, but it does appear to be biased towards the oppose camp.
• Further information can be found in the media release from Family First New Zealand.
• Sharing this research in no way shows support or opposition to the views and values of Family First New Zealand. Crime is an important issue for New Zealanders, this is a good discussion, and we consider Curia to be a fair and respected research organisation.
• All numbers are provisional and subject to revision.

Thank you to the Factors who helped pull this together.

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SOURCES:

• Curia Poll Results = https://familyfirst.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Three-Strikes-Law-Poll-August-2023.pdf 

(c) Family First New Zealand

Republished with permission.

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Did we make a mistake, or have you got smarter data?  Let us know.