Oh dear. It seems that ACT MP and death-penalty advocate David Garrett has been caught out deliberately lying to the New Zealand public about the expected costs of his proposed "three strikes" law. Rethinking Crime and Punishment - a sane voice on "law and order issues" - had estimated the cost of "three strikes" at $7.5 billion over 25 years. Garrett responded by claiming the figures the costing was based on were false. But it turns out that those figures were provided by Corrections, and had been provided to Garrett back in 2007 in response to a request he had made. Which begs the question: why hadn't Garret used them in his estimate of the costs? Could it be because they were... inconvenient?
(Meanwhile, I - like a lot of other people - have an OIA in with Corrections to get their advice and costings on "three strikes". The results will no doubt be interesting)
[Hat-tip: The Standard]
