Estimates Debate — Vote Police

What a muddling mess this Minister, the Hon George Hawkins, is making of this portfolio. It does not matter where one goes across the country, on one extreme the front-line coppers are saying: “We are under stress and under-resourced.”; and at the other end of the spectrum, up the executive ladder of the New Zealand Police, they act more like politicians than anything else, and they say, as they have one eye on the Minister of Police to make sure they are giving the right answers: “No, we have got plenty of resources. Our front-line police are not stressed.” Right in the middle of all of that is the public of New Zealand, who are the victims of rising crime every day. A tidal wave of crime is coming over this country, and all this Minister can do is say that things are OK. It is the leadership of this Minister that is causing the New Zealand Police to be in disarray. Front-line police—

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: What a sad, sterile speech.

There is a member calling out. I do not recognise him. I think he may have had his head in an oven somewhere. I do not know whether anyone knows his name, but he looks very, very strange. I do not know what it is about the Minister of Police that he can thumb his nose, when he comes to the select committee, and say to people that crime is on the way down. He says: “We are getting on top of crime.” The Minister is confused and has selective memory loss. He cannot even read things put in front of him.

Before I came down here I got some statistics about crime and how it is trending. These are police statistics that go back to the year 1999 and relate to total recorded crime. In 1999, there were 438,704 recorded crimes in this country; in 2002 there were 440,129; and in 2003 there were 442,489. Yet the Minister of Police looked me in the eye at the select committee and said: “We are getting on top of crime; it is trending down.” I asked him: “What about violent crime?”. He gave me this answer: “Violent crime is on the way down.” Even this well-meaning buffoon could not have got that wrong. In 1999 the figure for recorded violent crime was 39,688; in 2002 it was 44,960; and in the year 2003 it was 45,614. The Minister thinks that that is being on top of crime and that it is going the other way.

Well, I have news for him, and here is some more news. He said that drug crime was plateauing. I dragged out the statistics on drug crime as well. Recorded drug crime statistics in 2001 were 53,340; in 2002, they were 55,366; and in 2003, they were a whopping 58,822, and the Minister of Police told everyone that they were on top of crime. Violent crime, drug crime, and property-damage crime—the crime that leads to the next spate of burglaries—is trending up, and that Minister thinks that it is going the other way.

Let us talk about the Southern Communications Centre. I have to commend the Minister for at least turning up today. When these questions were posed yesterday he ran a mile. He was not going to be seen anywhere to answer those questions, but today we have him. When the Minister went to the select committee to deal with the estimates he said that the stress and the under-staffing at the Southern Communications Centre was a problem and he recognised it. When I asked what he would do about it he said they were going to get more staff.

That was fine. I gave him a tick for that. I asked whether he had budgeted for more staff—“Er, um . . .”! I said that I would help him by asking whether he had budgeted for more staff at the Southern Communications Centre than the 79 staff he had already allocated for policing. The Minister said “No”. I thought that was OK; it was fairly short notice. My next question was whether over the next 3 years any of 109 staff allocated were going to the Southern Communications Centre, and his answer was “No”. Then on 23 June this year he changed his tune. He was asked in the House about staffing and performance at the Southern Communications Centre and he said that there was no problem.

I intend to carry on in a similar vein about what a horrible mess we have. I recall being very proud, as a member of the Labour Party, of some of the speeches delivered by the Hon Phil Goff and George Hawkins on what they would do about crime and law and order under the leadership of the Rt Hon Mike Moore. I believed that those people meant what they said and would do what they said. Years went by, things changed, and I ended up in a coalition Government with National, listening to the screaming and the ranting from that side of the House. On some occasions I feared for the very life of Phil Goff. I feared that the vein in his forehead would pop as he went ballistic about parole, bail, and the things that were happening in the streets with violent crime. I fully expecteded that when those two men got to the Government benches they would get rid of gangs, smash the methamphetamine rings, smash organised crime, and make our streets safer, because those were the things they promised whilst they were in Opposition.

After 5 long years of governance, on the back of 9 years of preparation, we look at this rubbish. That Minister is not smashing organised crime or the methamphetamine industry. He is policing it. The last time I heard the word “policing” being used was by the United Nations. I think it was in Uganda. I think it might well have been in Bosnia, where they stood by, and through their policing action, watched 8,000 people being slaughtered. That is what is happening on the streets of this country. I am tired, and the citizens of New Zealand are tired, of hearing this Government and that Minister say that the police have adequate resources. I get messages from a gentleman who sent a personal plea—

💬 Clayton Cosgrove: Another source?

This is a letter to the Minister, from another man, stating: “Just when are you going to stop trying to pull the wool over New Zealanders that there are sufficient police in New Zealand? Over the weekend I attended a family function in a large New Zealand city of 60,000-plus. During the evening I had contact with the constabulary who advised us that he was one of two patrol cars on duty that night, and there was only one person—that is, himself—in his car.” Crime is down? What an absolute load of rubbish! Members should look at the police statement of intent and at the graphs. The graphs of recorded crime are going up and have consistently gone up since this Government came to power—and that is according to a Government document. The worst thing about it is that it is recorded crime. The national survey on victimisation states that unreported crime is two to three times greater than recorded crime.

The Minister of Police and the Minister of Māori Affairs have the audacity to tell us that crime is going down. Their own documents, and answers to written questions, show quite clearly that they are telling porkies to people. Crime is going up.

If members want evidence they should go to the Bay of Plenty, where people are struggling because they do not have insurance to cover their homes. A tragedy is in front of the Minister’s eyes in relation to his other portfolio, and why do those people not have insurance? It is because they cannot afford it. The net result is that when people get burgled they do not report it. How many burglaries go unreported and give us a false impression of real crime? The reality is: two times as many more burglaries as are recorded.

The only way this crime wave can be dealt with, and the only way people can be made safer in their homes, is to have more police on the beat, as we have consistently been asking for. The number of police should be doubled. If people do not believe that, they should see the over-stressed, over-worked, and over-pressured bobbies on the beat, or get in a car to go around with them at night. Maybe they should spend a whole weekend, or sit in a communications centre for 24 hours and see for themselves the pressure those people are under.

I rise to support these estimates. With regard to that member’s contribution—and I believe he has family connections with police, and obviously they are honourable connections—it would be nice if occasionally he supported his local police force and the police in general. Generally, all we have from that member is the boot going in. I shall contrast that member’s contribution with what the general public thinks in terms of how the police are doing their job. If members looked at the police annual report in relation to the estimates, they would note that comments on public satisfaction surveys were “very satisfied” and “satisfied”. All contact was “75 percent satisfied”; crime-related contact “70 percent people satisfied”, and “all other contact”, 83 percent of people satisfied—[Interruption] The member says that it is not right. I invite him to open his eyes and look at the statistics and data in the police annual report. [Interruption] The Minister does not write that report, so Mr Connell should not play politics. The police write that report, and I do not believe that they lie.

Mr Mark waved a piece of paper, as he is wont to do, banged his finger on the desk, as he is wont to do, threw his pen down, and cited yet another source. When that member talks about his crime sources I can do no better than quote an article in the Christchurch Press on 17 July titled “MP Feels heat as cold facts revealed”. That member leapt into print on a rumour—from a police source, so he said—about the young hoons who had stolen cars, were apprehended by the police, and placed in the custody of the Department of Child, Youth and Family Services. It was then alleged that they went on a ski trip. That story was proved to be wrong. I challenge the credibility of that member and his so-called sources in the police. I believe that the police are credible.

The Christchurch Press stated in relation to Mr Mark’s statements that the only problem was that Mr Mark’s statements were not true. But in its haste to publicise the story, the MP’s party, New Zealand First, failed to check the facts. What did Mr Mark say in response to that? Mr Mark, “a law and order spokesman, conceded last night that his sources could have got it wrong. ‘This would be the only time any of my sources have been wrong. I stand by my sources.’ ”

💬 Hon David Cunliffe: Was he lying?

I will not comment on what that member behind me said. I challenge the credibility of Mr Mark. He had a few years in Government, as the chief Government whip, to do something about policing. When he was in Government in coalition with the National Party, Bill English launched a staffing review to cut police numbers by 540. That is a fact. The answers proving that fact are not sources such as Mr Mark talked about; they are answers to parliamentary questions.

Since we came to power 450 extra police are on the streets. There are now more police staff than at any time in history—and that is not from some ghostlike fictitious source; that is a fact, and we stand by that because we deal with facts, just like the survey of citizens who had interactions with the police force—83 to 70 percent satisfaction. That is a fact. This Government puts its money where its mouth is.

The people of Oxford in my electorate battled for 10 years for a second policeman. They now have it. They have now also got an extension to the police station. That community battled for 10 years. There is a new police station in Kaiapoi. My predecessor, Mike Moore, in Opposition worked his guts out to get a new police station, but now, under this Government, we have it. He could not get them out of the National Party, but we now have extra police numbers in my electorate. There are now extra police in Papanui, Oxford, and Kaiapoi.

💬 Brian Connell: Not true!

I challenge that member to say that to the police in Kaiapoi, because under this Government the people got extra police in Oxford and an extension to the police station; Kaiapoi got a new police station; more resources went to Papanui—and it took the Minister a couple of years to do it. It took that former Government over there 9 years to refuse those communities in my electorate. I am proud to stand by those facts; they are not unattributed sources.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave of the House to table the New Zealand First - National Government coalition agreement that specified and catered for, and delivered 500 extra police under New Zealand First governance.

Document not tabled.

I raise a point of order, Madam Chairperson. I seek leave to table a Christchurch Press media report entitled “MP”—referring to Mr Mark—feels heat as cold facts revealed” of 17 July 2004.

Leave is sought to table that document. Is there any objection? There is.

Firstly, I want to praise the police for tracking down and trapping those Israeli Mossad agents who were trying to obtain fraudulent New Zealand passports and undermine our sovereignty. The police did a great job, and it shows that resources should be put into the estimates for the police to allow them to do that sort of national security work, rather than too much funding sitting in the Security Intelligence Service budget. It is obvious that in this particular case the Security Intelligence Service and its Australian partner did not catch Eli Cara, one of the agents who have been imprisoned who had crossed the Tasman 24 times. It seems that the Security Intelligence Service in this particular case was seen as a bit of a soft touch, and according to the New Zealand Herald yesterday there is information that Mossad approached the Security Intelligence Service to try to get its help to have the charges against those Mossad agents dropped. The Australian Security Intelligence Organisation did not seem to do anything about Mr Cara or about the operation, which may have been largely run from Australia. In fact, it seems that the Australian Government is too closely associated with the Israeli Government. A few days ago it was one of only six nations in the United Nations to support the Israelis building the West Bank wall, which has been condemned by the International Court of Justice. I think the Australian Government and its intelligence services have fallen down very much in not supporting New Zealand in that important matter.

I would also like to praise the police activities on the hīkoi. The police did very well in making sure it proceeded peacefully and in a very orderly fashion from one end of the North Island to the other. I would like to contrast that with some of the mistakes that the police have made recently in prosecuting other protesters.

In the court last week Mr Hopkinson, who had burnt a flag at a protest last year, was let free. It was not right for the police to proceed with that prosecution in the first place. That law has been on the books for 22 years. There have been plenty of flag burnings in that time but no prosecutions. That law is contrary to the New Zealand Bill of Rights, as Justice France pointed out in his decision last Friday, and the police should not have proceeded in that case.

The police should not have proceeded, either, with the prosecution against Aucklander Bruce Hubbard for sending an email to the United States Embassy referring to the United States “napalming babies”, which was considered offensive by the people at the embassy. However, that case had to be dropped after quite a bit of harassment of Mr Hubbard, because, whether or not we like what he said, the prosecution infringed Mr Hubbard’s right to free speech. All of us have the right to free speech.

The third case that the police should not have proceeded to prosecute, and was a waste of police time and of the money put into the police estimates, was the case of Auckland teacher and animal rights protester Jesse Duffield. He had drawn the attention of the threat assessment unit of the police because last October he had gone up to Tegel chicken headquarters with a couple of mates, and he had handed out a letter saying they did not like the way the company treated chickens, and a couple of his mates had thrown a bit of straw on the floor. He was subject to a charge that has now been dropped. For 9 months he had a large proportion of his possessions seized—his computer, hundreds of disks and videos, cellphones, posters, and even an anti-GE T-shirt produced by the Young Greens in Christchurch a year or two back. It was just a simple, anti-GE T-shirt, but it was seen as an illustration of nefarious activities.

The police should take heed of those three cases, which were either overturned by the court or dropped due to public pressure, and they should do the sort of thing they did on the hīkoi.

I am grateful to colleagues that I have been given a second shot at that mob over there. I am very grateful because, like all Labour members, when I get a chance to get those members and the odd New Zealand First member in the cross hairs, I enjoy the opportunity. It is a bit like shooting ducks on the water.

💬 Brian Connell: That’s illegal.

I know, and we would never do that. And I would never liken National Party members to ducks—maybe a few other animals, but never to ducks.

Some mention was made of comparative crime figures. I remind members of what this Government’s appropriations have done. I will deal with facts here, of course, not unattributed sources. In respect of Mr Locke’s comments about Mossad, maybe some of Mr Mark’s unattributable sources have something to offer there, as well! Let us look at the crime rate figures. Violent crime rose 77 percent in the period 1990 to 1999, and has risen just 15 percent since 1999. Let us look at overall recorded crime, which rose 16.6 percent from 1990, to peak in the calendar year 1996 at 477,596 recorded offences. Members over there do not like the facts; they prefer ghostlike sources, but we will give them the facts, anyway. Since 1999, total recorded crime has risen just 1 percent, and is now 35,000 offences—7.4 percent—lower, and the crime rate per head of population is 13.8 percent lower than it was in 1996. Unfortunately—and I do apologise to the Opposition for the humiliation that those statistics cause them—those statistics are facts.

As I said in my previous contribution, the facts are that National was going to cut 540 police out of the system. Members should ask any policeman or policewoman around the country; the police remember what the previous Government, aided and abetted by its coalition partner, was proposing to do if it were re-elected in 1999. We came in and we said we would put more police on the beat, and we did—in the order of, I believe, 450.

Mr Mark challenged people to go out and talk with the police, and to get in police cars at night, all of which I have done. I regularly go around my police stations every couple of months or couple of weeks, and talk with police. We had the Minister of Police down there about a month or so ago, and he listened to what the police had to say. Of course the police, like any other honourable civil servants—especially the police, who put themselves in harm’s way—always want more resources in order to do a more effective job. But I tell members that when I go into the Papanui Police Station and talk about the history and about what is happening now, I find that the morale there is fantastic, with people like Andy McGregor leading a great team of individuals. I go to the Kaiapoi Police Station and talk to the lads and the women police there; I talk about morale, and I listen to those people. They are out there actually doing the job while Mr Ron Mark puts the boot into them every day about the job they do. I understand that Mr Mark was a soldier, and an honourable one. I do not know the details of his history, but I assume he was in harm’s way at some point in his career. I have not been in harm’s way, but I would have thought that a man who had been in harm’s way in the soldiering profession would have deep respect for, and would deeply support, others such as the members of the New Zealand Police who go out every day to protect ordinary folk—and also flash individuals like Mr Connell, with his ranch or whatever it is in Ashburton—and their property.

I can point to many, many constituents in my electorate who have been assisted by the resources given to the police. Their crimes have been resolved. I just tell Mr Mark that he ought to stand beside the police, get behind them, actually encourage them, and get up in this Parliament every once in a while—not every day, not every week, just once in a while—and say something supportive about the men and women in blue, and not put the boot into them every day. He should not do what he did to a policeman in my electorate in Rangiora, and that was put the boot into a very good community cop because that community cop actually wanted to continue serving as a member of the Waimakariri District Council. Why does he not support people like that man—one of the most popular community cops we have—instead of putting the boot in?

We have a new nickname for that member now—“Repetitive Clayton”. He was really starting to scramble. I think he said the same things about 10 times in the last minute. Never mind, one has to commend the guy for getting up and trying to defend the indefensible. George Hawkins does not have the courage to stand up and take a call, so he said to Clayton Cosgrove: “Mate, can you help me out, because I’m really scrambling here. These guys have got the better of me.”

The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley): The member knows that is not acceptable. He will stand, withdraw, and apologise.

I withdraw and apologise. That Minister is not prepared to stand up and take a call, and he would rather have someone do his bidding for him. But he has forgotten something. After his name is the title “Minister of Police”. That, in my book, means he has to take some responsibility. That man should get on his feet, take some responsibility, and try to defend the men in blue, as the last member was trying to do.

I tell Clayton Cosgrove, the “Clayton’s” member for Waimakariri, that this piece of paper emphatically states that crime is on the way up, not on the way down. It does not matter what the village idiot says when he comes to the select committee—the crime rate in this country is going up. One cannot say that black is white, or white is black, when it is not true; one simply cannot say that. As for Clayton Cosgrove saying he had done so much work in getting police resources for the good people of Waimakariri, he completely forgot to say that the majority of those resources had been programmed under the last National Government.

The other issue I want to take him to task over is this. I have never in this House—and I do not do it publicly—bagged front-line coppers. The coppers in Darfield, Ashburton, Leeston, and Lincoln know that I come to this House, line up the Minister of Police, and say we want more resources in those areas. No matter what I say, he is not giving them to us. I was quoting an example of the Southern Communications Centre before, and I will go back to it, because it puts it into some sort of stark reality. The Minister came to this House on 23 June and said that there was no problem with the Southern Communications Centre—that its performance target in despatching coppers to 111 calls was to do so within 2 minutes, and 90 percent of the time, he said, it was being achieved. Well, barely a week before that I had in my possession, and the Minister would have had access to it as well, a memorandum from the manager of the Southern Communications Centre, who said: “We on some occasions only achieve 73 percent of that target.” The other thing this Minister of Police said to me in the select committee was that sick leave at the Southern Communications Centre was not a problem. Well, someone is confused, because the Southern Communications Centre manager, in the same memorandum, stated that sick leave was going through the roof. Do members know what the response of the Minister is when we say that issue has to be fixed? “Oh, I am going to find some more staff, but I haven’t budgeted for it.”

The real rub about the stress and the strains at that Southern Communications Centre is that coppers are not being despatched to crime scenes quickly enough. The waiting time in some cases, down in the South Island, for coppers to get to burglaries is nearly 4 days, and the Minister of Police sits there and will not take a call. He sits there with a smile on his face—a pathetic smile because he knows that I am right and he is wrong, and he is on the way out because we will not tolerate that.

Do members know what is really bad about all of this—his response to limited police resources? He is directing more and more of them to trap hitherto law-abiding motorists on the road.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: Like the Prime Minister!

Well, that was an exception, was it not? She can zoom through south and central Canterbury at 160 kilometres an hour with police affirmation, and nothing happens. The Minister gets up in the Chamber and says: “If you don’t want a ticket, don’t speed.” Well, I will not use the “hypocritical” word, but, boy, we have got him on his feet at long last.

We have heard another case of exaggeration—a wee bit like that member’s CV that used to circulate around the place. I must bring it down to the House and table it again just to remind people that that person is always into fiction. He is probably related to—a direct descendant of, possibly—Hans Christian Andersen. They are fairy tales.

I just want to put a few facts. The amount of violent crime increased by 77 percent between 1990 and 1999. I tell Mr Connell it was 77 percent, and he should listen. Violent crime has risen just 15 percent since we became the Government. Overall recorded crime rose 16.6 percent from 1990 to its peak in 1996. That was a huge increase. That is National’s record. Our record, of course, has been far better. I say to the member that under National crimes reached 477,000, and last year there were 442,000—and that number is dropping. I know that that member does not have the nous to be able to work that out, but if he had a calculator he could work out that crime is dropping. But the rate of crime is also dropping.

What did the National Party Government do when it was trying to look after the police? It had a computer scheme called INCIS, which took all the money, so National could not build new police stations, like those Clayton Cosgrove has in his area. That Government spent only $720,000 on capital works at police stations in each of the last 3 years it was in power. This Government is spending well over $70 million in 5 years—$70 million compared with $720,000. See the difference! When it came to police cars, what happened? One year the previous Government spent only $4 million on police cars—just $4.7 million. How much is this Government spending this year? We are spending some $29 million.

We have settled the police wage round for the next 3 years. The police are not marching on Parliament, as they did when National was in power. The police marched on Parliament in huge numbers because they could not get a fair deal from that Government. What that Government was doing was cutting police numbers by 540, as part of the Martin review. The numbers were going down. The numbers of non-sworn staff were also going down. We had immediately to inject extra money. I know that my colleagues now call me the “Billion-dollar Minister” because I got a billion dollars for the police in the Budget. It was the first time that had ever happened. What happened under National? The amount was just over $850 million. It was pitiful. National members were not prepared to put the money where they said they would. National members say we need more police, but the reality is the National Government cut the numbers.

I can tell members of some very good results on the North Shore. I heard last week that household burglaries on the North Shore have gone down by 54 percent, over 3 years. That is great. I have been to Wanganui and the crime rate there has dropped by 34 percent since Labour has been in Government. There is always good news. But, of course, what do those negative members do? They put the boot into the cops and say they are not catching enough criminals. Well, they are catching more than ever. Under National, 29 percent of crimes were resolved. What is it under Labour? It is 43.7 percent, and it will probably rise. That is one of the best results anywhere in like countries around the world. We have more police, more equipment, and better laws. DNA sampling is actually helping us to catch more criminals, and some of the crimes have been serious. Burglary suspects now have to give DNA samples.

💬 Hon John Tamihere: Boy racers.

What happened there? A problem has been solved. I have to say my good friend and colleague Clayton Cosgrove did an excellent job. I went down to Christchurch with him and saw the haul of cars that had been taken from young people. This Government moves; it addresses problems. I have to say we have a different police force from the one under National and under the National - New Zealand First coalition, where the idea was to cut money. They tried it and they did.

It is always good to see a Minister rise and defend himself, as opposed to relying on another member of Parliament to do so. I want to touch on a couple of points. There is an old saying—and most grandmothers tend to remind us younger people of it—that there are lies, damned lies, and statistics. Do members remember that saying? This afternoon’s debate about statistics, as to whether the crime rate is up or down, can be very simply put into perspective by picking up a Government document and turning to page 18 of the statement of intent for 2004-05. This is not a source; this is a Government document. It is easy to read. The graph there is the one that the Government’s agency has printed for the Government. It has not been sourced from Mr Connell or from myself. The Government, the Minister’s own department, has produced the graph, and what does it show? It shows that the trend in violent crime, every year from 1995 to 1999, was steadily and consistently tracking down. It is not my document; it is the Minister’s own document. What happened from 1999 until now? The Government’s own statistics show that the graph has steadily and consistently, after a massive leap between 1999 and 2000, continued to rise. If we pick up the national crime statistics trends as published, what do we see? We see that in 1999 there were 39,688 cases of violent crime, and in 2003 there were 45,614. Excuse me! If the Government’s own documents give us those figures, what credibility is there in the Minister’s claims and in the claims of Labour members of Parliament that they have violent crime under control—that it is going down? There is no control on it, as the public would see it.

What is the crime that most concerns, upsets, annoys, and worries elderly New Zealanders, and mums and dads? It is violent crime. I am sorry, but long and loud speeches do not change the facts in the Minister’s own documents, which are that violent crime is going up. We do not like that, and I know that the Minister does not like it. But we need to look clearly at why those things are happening. Some of us would point to the methamphetamine rings. It is fair for the Minister to criticise past Governments and to talk about police staffing cuts. Yes, there was a party that sought to replace cops with a computer, and that was wrong. New Zealand First tried to curb that by getting in 500 extra police, which countered directly against the then Government’s intent.

💬 Hon George Hawkins: Voted for it.

The Minister can say that, but the facts are the facts in the coalition agreement, and in the subsequent estimates and the subsequent financial reports. They are there for everybody to read; no amount of yelling will change that.

I challenge the Minister by asking whether, if at the end of this year violent crime has again gone up, he will resign from Parliament. It is a simple question. Helen Clark came to this Chamber and in her opening speech, when Government members took the benches for the first time, said that New Zealand would see a new era of accountability. That is what she said. The country said: “Halleluiah, on the back of the last 9 years we are looking for that. On the back of Fay Richwhite, we are looking for that. On the back of the wine box, the bloodstock industry, and the film industry, we are looking for that.” I say to the Minister that now we want to see it. It is time to put the money where the mouth is. It is not about what is said before an election and what is said after an election—the “Maharey principle”. It is about accountability.

We accept that everybody cannot get everything right every time. Mr Cosgrove has made some criticisms of me, but I ask whether I was right when I said that home detention was a mess. Yes, I was right. How do I know that? The Minister himself admitted it to me. Was I right when I said that there were people on home detention who were baking P, and that someone had died from a P overdose? The Minister’s first reaction was to say it was wrong—it was a made-up story. But I was right. The Department of Corrections confirmed that. Was I right when I said there were rapists, thugs, and wife-beaters serving home detention? Minister Barker stood up and said there were no violent offenders on home detention. Was I right? I was right. Was I right when I said that the light armoured vehicle project would blow out to $700 million? Yes, I was right. The Minister cannot be right all the time, but there is one distinct characteristic that comes before a fall, and I will bring members back to nana again. Apart from saying there were lies, damned lies, and statistics, she also said that pride comes before a fall. Arrogance tends to be a commensurate requirement in order for pride to be allowed to get out of control, and I am seeing plenty of that now.

Vote agreed to.

Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Defence agreed to.

Vote Veterans’ Affairs - Social Development agreed to.

Vote Defence, Vote Defence Force, Vote State-Owned Enterprises, and Vote Tourism agreed to.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Vote Communications agreed to.

Vote Corrections