It’s barely a week ago that ACT MP David Garrett was telling prison officers that by opposing the governments private prison agenda because of their experiences working in a privately run correctional facility that they “wouldn’t get offered a job anyway.” Now, there are claims he challenged a Labour MP to “take this outside” a during heated debate in a select committee meeting. Prime Minister John Key told the Dominion Post that he doesn’t necessarily believe the claim will turn out to be fact, but stated that “there’s no place for violence in the New Zealand Parliament or even the suggestion of violence.”

Garrett is parliaments most vocal proponent of the “three strikes” law and order policy- three violent crimes and an offender gets life. Back in June he was reprimanded for making sexual comments to a female staff member of ACT’s Parliamentary office. For someone only elected to office last November he hasn’t taken long to build up a record of offences; sexual harassment, bullying prison officers, and now allegedly threatening violence. That’s three strikes even if we overlook his televised homophobia last year. OK, so the more recent offence was (if found to be true) only threatening violence, and the others are morally apprehensive, but not criminal. Besides, with his attitude toward prison staff, locking him may well be considered a health and safety risk.

The best punishment we can hope for is him getting voted out of parliament in two years time. Could it happen? Well, ACT’s far-right economic policies have been losing popularity over the past decade, and if the economy is still in a recession at the next election those policies are hardly going to make a comeback. With neoliberalism hardly a vote winner, its been the “zero tolerance” tough-on-crime policies that have kept ACT up in the polls, and the late announcement of Garrett as a candidate was a clear attempt to gain the law-and-order vote. Will those voters turn away from the party given that Garrett has shown himself to be a hypocrite and an embarrassment? Maybe, if there is a such a thing as natural justice.