Estimates Debate — Justice Sector

Members, we come now to the votes in the justice sector volume—B.5, Volume 7. The question is that Vote Attorney-General, Vote Corrections, Vote Courts, Vote Justice, Vote Parliamentary Counsel, Vote Police, and Vote Serious Fraud stand part of the Schedules.

He mihi tuatahi ki Te Atua, tōku hoa a Pita Paraone, e te rangatira, haere, haere, moe mai rā.

[Firstly I acknowledge God. My friend Pita Paraone, my leader, farewell—rest in peace.]

With other members, I too want to acknowledge the very sad passing of a dear colleague, the honourable member Pita Paraone of Ngāti Hine and of Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu, and to add my words and to go on Hansard in acknowledging what a fine, outstanding New Zealander Pita Paraone was, and his contribution in this House and his commitment to his people of Ngāti Hine and of Ngāpuhi, particularly. It is important for me as the member for Ikaroa-Rāwhiti to send our dear condolences to Pita Paraone’s whānau, Ngāti Hine and of Ngāpuhi-nui-tonu, as well as to our dear colleagues of the New Zealand First Party. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Mr Chair, I’m proud to take a call on this section of our law and order system as the new chair of the Justice Committee. Like you said, we’ve had seven votes that have come before our select committee. You’ve acknowledged them. We’ve had four Ministers—Minister Parker, Minister Davis, Minister Little, and Minister Nash—across the various votes that we’ve examined.

In my own research as a contribution to this debate, I looked at the last five or six years’ votes across the law and order sector, and I see that it has significantly increased, more so in the last two years—particularly, around corrections and police, and don’t the police do a fine job for this country? Don’t the police do a fine job for this country?

I want to acknowledge the former chair of the select committee, Raymond Huo, who chaired this committee—and who was actually present during the Estimates examinations—and also the members of the Justice Committee, who did a thorough job.

I do want to touch on the police, particularly as an immediate result of the horror that happened in Christchurch and the move to introduce the buy-back scheme for guns. Of course, the select committee did ask whether the compensation regime was fit for purpose, and we had several experts come and talk about that. It was a concern raised at the select committee around whether we’d got that right. Today, we’ve had another take on that, with a supposed leak of draft legislation, where we were trying to address the horrors of Christchurch as a nation by taking semi-automatic guns off the street. I do hope the Opposition reconsiders its position as we commit to making New Zealand a safe place.

This is about ensuring the communities in this part of the votes in this debate are safe, but we also are a Government that wants to do things differently. In no better place do we see that but in the corrections area, where in this vote, 80 new policy initiatives were shared with the select committee, including increased funding around custodial services, community-based sentences, rehabilitation programmes, increased services for mental health—and we can see the prevalence of mental health coming across the various votes. It is no different in corrections, which was examined at the select committee around the importance—and it’s interesting, the percentage. Almost 91 percent of prisoners in our prisons actually have mental health issues or substance abuse—91 percent—and this Minister, Kelvin Davis, is addressing that. He is addressing that by ensuring that we have got the support within the prisons for those that suffer from both mental health issues and drug and alcohol addictions.

Of course, one that’s really dear to my heart that was raised in the select committee was this new kaupapa Māori programme which the Minister launched recently, called Hōkai Rangi. It is a new way of operating that I think is going to be world class in this nation, around giving offenders the opportunity to reconnect to their whānau, their people. We all know that over 50 percent of all those who are incarcerated are of Māori descent. I actually believe that this strategy is going to make a big difference as we go forward to make sure both the safety of our communities but also that people are given a fair shot.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Can I just make my opening statements directed towards New Zealand First—and I see there’s still one member in the Chamber—and, again, share our condolences, or my condolences, at the loss of Pita Paraone. Although I only knew him for a relatively short time in my first term in Parliament, I consider him a friend. We would often attend the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast together on a Wednesday morning. He only ever had a kind word of encouragement, regardless of which party members were in. I just feel that actually he carried himself like one of our true statesmen, and he is a huge loss for us, without a doubt, as a country and as a nation. So can I just pass on my condolences.

Obviously, Vote Justice for us this year—it would be fair to say it was a disappointment. It certainly hasn’t seen the investment that it was promised. I was very disappointed that we had the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, we had the Minister for Oranga Tamariki, Tracey Martin, and we had the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice, Jan Logie, all appear in front of the committee, on their request, because they felt that they would be able to provide the committee with clearer, more concise answers around their joined-up approach and the approach that they were taking with our justice sector reforms. We were disappointed because we were promised that the police Minister would be there as well, and we were told at the last minute that he could not attend.

I just quite simply put one scenario to the two Ministers and the under-secretary. I won’t go into the scenario here, but it’s a fairly common scenario that many Kiwis have had to deal with and experience in terms of crime-related matters. I stepped them right through it and I said, “Now, with the two Ministers and the under-secretary and your talk of sweeping reforms and new ideas and a new approach, can you just step the committee through the changes that you’ve made, or the changes that you are considering, so that we can have an idea in terms of the type of reforms that you’re actually going to effect?” There was quite a bit of chatter and talk amongst the two Ministers and the under-secretary. In all fairness to the Minister of Justice, he did come up with one example. He said, “Yes, the victim will be able to give her evidence on video and closed-circuit TV.”—but that was our initiative. That was an initiative that the National Government brought in. That’s not a new initiative.

You could probably understand our genuine consternation, or my consternation, that 18 months into this new Government, with an incoming Minister stating very clearly that this was going to be one of the biggest reformist Governments that we’ve seen in a generation when it comes to our criminal justice sector, and between the three of them they couldn’t put up one example—one clear example—of a change that had been made, in a case that I’d put up as an example, that covered the whole criminal justice system in terms of how we could get a feel for what was actually happening. To me, that’s a real worry.

I think that there’s a real problem. I think the Minister has got a real problem here. I think that he’s genuine. I’ve known him since I came into Parliament. I think he’s driven genuinely by wanting to make change and make our criminal justice system better—there’s no doubt about that—but I think that every time he tries to do something or take a paper to Cabinet, or actually get some momentum, some energy going behind that, he’s stopped, and he’s stopped either by his partner on the left or he’s stopped by his partner on his right. Therefore, we’re not seeing the reforms that we were promised.

If I just quickly move through some of the other things that were very disappointing—very disappointing—in the justice appropriations, and that was the fact that under National, we established two very good courts. One was the drug and alcohol court. If you talk to the judges, if you talk to the officers, if you talk to anyone—if you talk to the offenders that have had to go through that system—they’ll tell you that it’s very effective and that it’s working. Yes, we set those up as pilots, because we wanted to make sure that they were going to work, that they were actually going to make a difference. If we were in Government, I can assure you that we would be rolling those drug and alcohol courts out right around the country. We’d be making sure that Kiwis—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: But you didn’t. They’ve been piloted for seven years—you didn’t do it.

—had access. The Minister says that we didn’t. Well, I’m stating to him now that we would roll those out. If the Minister takes a call, I have a question for him: why, Minister, didn’t you roll out the drug and alcohol courts? It seems to be a very sensitive subject. It seems to be a very sensitive subject over there. So my question is quite simply this: someone stand up, someone take a call, and explain to us why you didn’t roll this programme out. It’s successful.

Let’s not just talk about the drug and alcohol courts; let’s talk about the family and sexual violence courts. That’s another model that’s working very well, so I’d be very interested to know why there’s not more funding and why these aren’t being rolled out.

Let’s move on. Unfortunately, I don’t have much time—I need a lot more. Let’s move on to the advisory group. I have to say, I do want to genuinely acknowledge the Hon Chester Borrows. He was a colleague and friend of mine—still is a friend of mine—that I worked with. But Chester and I, we disagreed—we disagreed when this panel was formed. We disagreed because I didn’t like the fact that the chairman of the committee came out and said, “There’s to be no emotion. Remove emotion from the debate, and we don’t want any tough-on-crime talk.” So he was already signalling where the committee really was going to be taken, where it was really going.

It’s probably fair to say that the committee is very aligned with the philosophy that actually this Government has adopted around no policies in terms of actually being able to reduce or fight crime, with policies only focused on letting prisoners out of prison. That doesn’t work. That doesn’t make communities safer, it doesn’t deal with the real problem; all it does is it opens a door and allows someone out that is probably better off in prison, because, number one, the community is safer, and, number two, there actually can be some programmes delivered in terms of rehabilitation and the hope to reintegrate them back into the community.

So, in my view, for this advisory group, the complete wrong signals were sent, and I felt very strongly that, actually, it would probably start to fall apart—it would probably start to split for that reason. And what happened? Sadly, that’s exactly what happened. You had—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: No, it didn’t.

Well, the Minister says no. From my understanding, two members have resigned and left the group. If I’m wrong, then stand and correct me. I also understand that there was a lot of tension that was created between the panel—between the group—and the secretariat.

So, number one, it shouldn’t have been outsourced. The Minister should have taken control of this, and, actually, after nine years in Opposition, you should have had some ideas. You should have had some ideas, you should have known what you wanted to do, and you should have known how to implement. I make this promise—I can tell you this: after three years in Opposition, we’ve got a plan for next year. We know what we’re going to be doing next year, all right? Nine years of Opposition, one discussion paper; two years in Opposition, we’ve got four. That’s the difference. That’s why the country is slowly losing confidence in the Government, because they actually don’t know what they’re doing.

They didn’t do the homework, they’ve got no plan, and it’s showing in the justice reforms. There’s nothing going on. There’s nothing happening. Long-term effects of mental health and addiction programmes—again, where’s the funding? The only real piece of legislation that we saw brought to this House was to deal with victims of domestic violence, which is important, without a doubt. We all, in this House, acknowledge that. But they came to this House and all they did was they passed the responsibility on to employers and said to employers, “You’ll pay to support victims of domestic violence. Doesn’t matter when it occurred or how it happened; you’ll just have to fix it. Another 10 days’ annual leave.”, and said to small business and medium sized business, “You guys sort it out.” When we said, “I’ll tell you what, in fairness, why doesn’t the Government fund that? Why doesn’t the Government pay for that programme, instead of forcing the cost on to small and medium sized business?”, the answer was no. We’re not. They can pick up the cost.

Methamphetamine—why did they not restore the $10 million programme around methamphetamine? The Minister says because it was due to stop. That doesn’t stop you, Minister—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Chairman. It’s a pleasure to take a quick call on this very important issue, which is about the Estimates for the justice sector. There were a number of points that the member Mark Mitchell, who’s just resumed his seat, has made.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Oh, God, he went on, didn’t he?

Well, I think I could charitably describe them as unfortunate.

So let’s be very clear about the legacy that we inherited when we took office. We had a prison population at nearly 11,000—11,000 people in our prison system—after a rapid rise after the members opposite were in Government. What was happening was more than $1 billion—nearly $1.5 billion—was being spent on locking up, containing, and controlling 11,000 prisoners and nothing useful happening. Worse than that, 60 percent of them—60 percent of them—after they were released reoffended. They call that success. They call that a criminal justice system. Absolutely hopeless—absolutely hopeless. They hang their heads in shame, as they should, because that’s not a justice system; that is a failure of a justice system.

Now, the member opposite, the Hon Mark Mitchell, talked about the alcohol and other drug treatment court. They’ve been under a pilot for seven years. When we came here, they had just renewed the pilot for another two years, so we let that pilot go, because we had to, because they’d set up an evaluation process at the end of that two years. Seven years they ran the pilot, because they did not want to make the hard decision about rolling them out.

Then they came up with another great idea: “We’ll pilot another court—the sexual violence court.” They didn’t even start that pilot; we started it—we started it. That has now come to its end, and we’re now undergoing the evaluation, and I think we’re going to get some good information from that. I feel very confident about the future of that, because the reality is, when you look around the world—and here’s an interesting place to have a look at, and it’s the state of Texas in the United States, regarded as kind of the lone cowboy and all the rest of it. They had one of the most amazing transformations in their criminal justice system, supported by both Republicans and Democrats at the state level and at the federal level as well. They managed to reduce their prison population by something like 45 percent over a number of years.

They reduced criminal offending by 25 percent, serious criminal offending by 20 percent, because they just made a decision. They said, “You know what?”—the equivalent in New Zealand—“spending a billion and a half dollars on just locking people up and seeing a 60 percent reoffending rate ain’t doing anybody any good, and we have to change it.” They had the courage, the Republicans and the Democrats in Texas, to say, “We’ve got to do things differently.”

Members on this side of the committee have said we’ve got the courage to do things differently. But here’s the other thing—here’s the other challenge we have in New Zealand: we know that in our criminal justice system, Māori, who comprise 15 percent of our general population, are well over half of those who go through our criminal justice system, whether it’s at the point of arrest, whether it’s going through the courts, or whether it’s entering prison. You’ve got to actually deal with that issue seriously, and you’ve got to talk to the people affected.

You see, the culture on this side of the House—one of the underlying values of this Government is we, proudly, have departed from the old Tory value of “We know best—we know best—and we will just tell everybody what’s good for them.” We’ve had quite a few years of that—in fact, some would say nine long years of that—years and years of telling people what’s good for them without talking to the people affected themselves. It’s amazing, when you give people a chance to have a say on the stuff that’s affecting them, what comes out of it. There’s a bit of venting, there’s a bit of talking about stuff that’s been deeply held for a long time, but, actually, you give people a chance to come up with some constructive suggestions and it’s amazing what they’ll come up with. Now, that’s just in criminal justice.

We’ve reviewed the Family Court, because the previous Government’s changes in the Family Court system have been an absolute disaster—an unmitigated disaster. People left bereft, children left for month after month after month not knowing what their care arrangements are because mum and dad can’t reach agreement and the court doesn’t have time to tell them. So we had to make changes there.

Right across the board, this Government has taken on the hard issues, the long-term issues, the difficult issues, because that’s what decent, responsible Governments do.

Thank you, Mr Chair. Could I commence as other members have done by honouring the memory of the late former member Pita Paraone. He was a very fine and principled member of this House. He always spoke with great mana, dignity, and he was heard with respect not only in this House but right around the country. I send my aroha and condolences to his whānau and hapū. I was proud to consider Pita a friend during our time in the House together.

I wasn’t on the Justice Committee when the Budget was presented, but I was subsequently delighted to be appointed the shadow Attorney-General, and, more by good luck than by good management, I was subbed on to the Justice Committee just a week before that appointment, on the morning that the Attorney-General appeared. I want to focus on some of the important issues that the committee traversed that day.

Before I do so, could I pay tribute to my predecessor in that role as shadow Attorney-General, the previous Minister of Justice, the retiring member for Selwyn, and my very dear friend, the Hon Amy Adams. She will be dearly missed and is a great loss to our caucus. Amy has, of course, a keen legal mind and a dazzling intellect, and I make no claims to either of those attributes. I’m more than a little intimidated to be following in her footsteps and, indeed, those of her predecessor, the equally erudite and highly respected former Attorney-General, the Hon Christopher Finlayson QC. I should probably sing his praises even more, but I’ve noticed that Chris divides his time fairly equally in retirement between blasting his way out of a bunker in the 17th at Heretaunga and watching Parliament TV. So I won’t cause him greater embarrassment by extolling his considerable virtues should he happen to be watching now. Truth be told, I have absolutely no idea if there is a bunker on the 17th at Heretaunga, but let’s not be pedantic.

Members will remember that in the week leading up to the Budget, there was an unprecedented incident which saw the Opposition gain easy access to Budget information via the Treasury website, only to face the extraordinary and utterly fatuous allegation of having participated in some form of hacking. In his typically inflammatory style, the Deputy Prime Minister smugly claimed that he knew exactly what had gone on and that all hell would break loose as the Opposition faced criminal prosecution for dastardly deeds.

Well, once again Mr Peters was talking nonsense, while demonstrating his total ignorance of basic matters of cyber security and modern technology. But, more importantly, he made serious, fatuous allegations as a senior member of the executive. Then the Minister of Finance waded into the fray, compounding Mr Peters’ error and, again, making wild accusations that were subsequently proved to be utterly unfounded. Of course, and as the Opposition had repeatedly asserted, it very quickly became apparent—

CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I’m sorry to interrupt the member, but it has come time for me to report progress.

House resumed.

Bill reported with progress.

Report adopted.

The House adjourned at 9.55 p.m.