Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by Labour’s Reuben Davidson and National’s Matt Doocey to delve into the biggest topics of the week.

On today’s agenda: the manhunt for Tom Phillips and his children has come to an end, but the coverage has only just begun. There’s a fresh plan to restore the Christ Church Cathedral, and the Government has announced some new offences for shoplifting.

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I’m no apologist for shoplifters. I think it is appalling that retail crime costs retailers $2.6 billion a year. And that more than half of them not only have to deal with shoplifters coming in and helping themselves to stuff, close to 60% of retailers also have to put up with threatening behaviour from these thugs.

But I’m not sold on this plan by the Government to turn “innocent until proven guilty” on its head for people accused of shoplifting and, instead, assume they’re guilty from the start until they themselves can prove they’re innocent.

I’m coming at it from two perspectives: the practicality of it, and the risk of it becoming a bit of a slippery slope.

Yes, as Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith was saying on Newstalk ZB today, it would be similar to a speeding ticket, where you get the ticket and it’s on you to prove that you weren’t in the wrong.

Except speeding tickets are issued by the police, and I don’t hear the Government saying that they’re going to have police writing out tickets for shoplifters. Already, if you go to Westfield Mall and get a parking ticket, you can get out of that because they don’t have authority to issue them. The same thing will happen with shoplifters.

The other reason I don’t like this idea is that I see it as a slippery slope. If we start saying shoplifters are guilty until they can prove that they’re innocent, then what or who next?

If it’s okay to tell someone accused of shoplifting that they’re guilty until they can prove otherwise —instead of forcing those making the accusations to prove their guilt— then why not do it with other crimes?

When it comes to the law and the justice system, whether we like it or not, everyone needs to be treated equally.

Whether we like it or not, that includes people allegedly involved in criminal activity. Which is why I think it would be wrong to start telling people accused of shoplifting that, unless or until they can prove their innocence, they’re guilty.

I’m no shoplifting sympathiser, but this mucking around with one of the basic foundations of the justice system is the wrong approach.

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I’ve really surprised myself. Because, even though I think it’s totally shameful that people have been helping Tom Phillips keep his kids in hiding for nearly four years, I’m torn when it comes to how important it is that these people face consequences for their actions.

To the point where I’ve realised that it’s not as important to me as I thought it would be to me.

Locals in the area are already poo-pooing the chances of the police tracking them down. Especially if they’re going to rely on people dobbing them in or people giving themselves in.

Local farmer and former Waitomo mayor Mark Ammon is one of them. He says it’s unlikely.

He says: "If it was me, I'd be just keeping quiet and hoping whatever leads the police get, didn't lead to me.”

He reckons the vast majority of locals back the police, but he doesn’t think anyone will pipe-up because everyone knows everyone and, even though they support the police, they won’t want to narc.

He does say though that it may also depend on the three children’s willingness to share information.

Which brings me to psychologist Kirsty Ross, who is saying some really interesting things which I think are relevant to the likelihood of them spilling all the beans. In the short-to-medium term, anyway.

She’s saying today that they will have been told a story that justified their father’s decisions and actions, saying “they’ve been in an echo chamber for four years”.

“They will have been a really tight unit. This was such an impressionable age when they were taken and four years is such a long period of time to have one person as their sole protector, provider, teacher. That influence cannot be underestimated.”

It can’t be underestimated. And what I would add to that is, can it be undone? Can that influence over four years be eroded to the point where the kids are happy to give away details of who has been helping their father? And who’s to say they even know?

Which is why the likes of Children’s Commissioner Dr Claire Achmad are saying today that these kids are going to have to be treated with the proverbial kid gloves. Which is not going to involve much drilling for information, is it?

But back to how I’m feeling about the police setting out to find the people who have supported their father while they've been in hiding. And why I’m torn about it, even though I think these people are despicable for what they’ve done.

Here are the reasons in my head as to why the police should go after them. If they provided the firearm used to shoot the officer the other morning, then they have blood on their hands. And by enabling Phillips to keep his kids hidden for so long, this person or these people have been complicit in denying the kids of all the things kids shouldn’t be denied – time with both their parents, an education, freedom. I could go on.

But here are the things I’m thinking about that make me wonder whether it’s worth the police even trying.

First and foremost, the kids are back safe. That’s been the number one priority, and it’s been achieved.

Secondly, from what we’re hearing, the locals are very unlikely to narc on their neighbours and the people who have been involved are very unlikely to come forward.

And, finally, I think because of what that psychologist is saying about them being in an echo chamber for nearly four years, it’s unlikely that the kids will spill too many beans.

It’s for those reasons, that finding these supporters is not as important to me as I thought it would be.

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I was wrong and the police were right.

After yesterday’s events, I’ll admit that I was wrong when I said over the last few years that the police were pussy-footing around with Tom Phillips.

That instead of waiting for him to come out of hiding with his three kids, they should've been more gung-ho on it and gone after him.

Yesterday changed all that and proved to me that the police did do the right thing. Even though it dragged out for years, they did the right thing waiting.

If they hadn’t, there could very well have been more than one person dead at the end of it.

Something my thinking hasn’t changed on though, is the shameful way people have obviously been helping Phillips to stay in hiding for nearly four years.

The police have pretty much said that this has been happening, and, if you talk to anyone familiar with the community there, they’ll tell you the same thing.

And that person or those people —however many there are— should be ashamed of themselves.

What has amazed me while this whole thing has been dragging on is the number of people prepared to defend Tom Phillips. In some people’s eyes, he’s been a father who just wanted to do the best for his kids.

A father driven to the brink by the system.

I’m not blind to the complexities of situations like this and I know there will be a lot to it that we don’t know about – a lot we don’t need to know about.

But how anyone could think it was a good idea to support this guy, I’ll never know.

Because without their “help”, those kids could have been back safe long before now.

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What does kicking overstayers out of the country actually achieve?

With just under 21,000 overstayers in New Zealand, the Government is planning a crackdown. But the Green Party wants an amnesty. Reason being that most people living here without visas are what the Greens describe as being “active in their communities”. Plus, they’ve got families here.

Or, to put it another way, if someone overstays their welcome, they’re committing what people sometimes refer to as a “victimless crime”. And I think we need to ask ourselves what kicking overstayers out of the country actually achieves.

If all it does is give us an excuse to bang our chest and say to the world “don’t mess with us”, then is it really worth it? I’m starting to think that it isn’t and maybe this amnesty idea isn’t so bad after all.

It’s not new and it’s not just the Greens that have been pushing it. Just before the last election, Labour leader Chris Hipkins talked about bringing-in an amnesty for overstayers who had been living in New Zealand for more than 10 years.

But not everyone in Labour was keen on that. Andrew Little was Immigration Minister at the time, and he said: “We have to think about the signal that we’re giving to people if they think ‘oh gee, this is a government that just routinely gives amnesties. If we stick around long enough, we’ll be ok’.”

At the time I said that if we went ahead with this amnesty, we’d be telling the world that we are the people’s republic of pushovers.

I said that, nowhere else in the world would you find a country willing to turn such a blind eye to illegal immigrants.

But that was then and, two years on, my thinking is changing.

Because I think it’s very easy to be all anti-overstayer and anti-amnesty without asking the question: what’s in it for me if an overstayer is kicked out of the country?

When you think about it, the answer to that is “absolutely nothing”.

We might feel good because we’re putting these illegal aliens in their place. In their place and out of our place. But how does it make New Zealand a better country? Answer: it doesn’t.

As the Greens’ immigration spokesperson Ricardo Menendez March is saying today: "People without a visa need support. Most are active participants in our communities, have family here, and are also more vulnerable to exploitation."

He says overstayers should be treated with dignity and respect and be allowed to become residents instead of being put on the next plane out of here.

Different story, of course, if someone is here without a visa and commits a serious crime.

As for every other overstayer, why wouldn’t we let them live here legitimately? Because what’s in it for us if we kick them out?

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Today on Politics Friday, John MacDonald was joined by Megan Woods and Matt Doocey to delve into the biggest stories of the week.

They discussed the tougher immigration policies the Government is introducing to tackle overstayers, the struggling and overworked justice system, and housing intensification in Christchurch.

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Sir Ron Young, who used to be a high court judge and used to be chair of the Parole Board, thinks shorter sentences could take the strain off the justice system.

He says shorter sentences make people less likely to re-offend because they don’t spend as much time with other offenders and that would mean less people going through the courts.

There are two ways we could respond to that. We could think about it with a long-term, logical view and let our head guide our thinking, or we could let our heart guide our response.

Sir Ron is saying this today after the release of Chief Justice Dame Helen Winkelmann’s annual report, which says the justice system is under considerable pressure because of under-funding, security issues, delays, and heavy workloads.

Which probably won’t be much of a surprise to anyone who has had dealings with our courts.

But what do we do about it? Sir Ron thinks shorter sentences are the answer. He’s saying today that offenders who get shorter sentences and go through rehabilitation are less likely to join gangs and re-offend.

And, with longer sentences becoming more common, they’re making the crime problem worse because they mean people are more likely to continue committing crimes, and that’s putting more and more pressure on the justice system.

I can see both sides of the argument.

My head tells me that there is something in what Sir Ron is saying. But my heart tells me that it’s a terrible idea, because it doesn’t actually address the problem, which is a justice system pretty much on the edge.

A justice system struggling because, as our top judge says, it doesn’t have enough resources: there aren’t enough lawyers wanting to do legal aid work, there’s been an increase in the number of murder and manslaughter trials, and they’re all taking longer.

But is dishing out lighter sentences to, apparently, reduce the pipeline of criminal offending, the answer?

I say it isn’t. Because reducing sentences just to take the pressure off the justice system doesn’t help the victims of crime in the here and now. If there’s anything our struggling justice system doesn’t need, that’s a further erosion of public confidence.

Which is what would happen if we saw criminals getting off lightly, just because we’re not prepared to resource the system in a way that delivers what the system is there to deliver: justice.

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We would be mad to pull out of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.

ACT leader David Seymour thinks differently though, saying its emissions targets are "disconnected from science and blind to New Zealand's realities".

He says net zero targets have been set with no regard for the real cost to firms, farms, and families, and he wants out.

Out of 197 countries, 193 are signed up to the accord. David Seymour wants us to join what would be a very exclusive club of five.

I can kind-of understand the thinking of the people who would like us to end our involvement, because New Zealand is a tiny cog in the climate change machine and really, what difference can we actually make?

The other reason people are anti-the Paris agreement is their impression that the big countries —the big polluters— aren’t really doing their bit. So if they’re not, why should we?

I get that. The thing is though, when it comes to climate change you have to take a long-term view, and you have to think about the bigger picture. And it’s not just about the climate itself.

The main reason I want us to stay involved is the same reason David Seymour wants us out: the economy.

He says the targets we’ve signed up to are forcing farmers off the land (which you have to question), forcing people out of the regions, and making food and electricity more expensive.

But whether we like it or not, our free trade agreement with the European Union has specific references to climate change and the Paris agreement. If we did pull out, there could be serious trade and economic consequences for us.

So we have to stick with it. Whether we like it or not.

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