Estimates Debate — Justice Sector (continued)

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. It’s a great privilege to be able to talk about the great work being done under Vote Justice. What I really like about being able to speak on this issue is it really demonstrates how this Government is, in fact, tackling the long-term issues facing New Zealand. Vote Justice is such a good one to use as an example for that, because it really looks at, particularly, those areas that are really difficult problems for New Zealand to confront, like family violence and sexual violence.

Focusing on breaking the cycle of offending is so important to be able to get into that space and make some real changes for New Zealanders. We know some things: if we tackle offenders there’ll be less offending and less reoffending, if there’s less reoffending there will be fewer victims of crime, and if there are fewer victims of crime then we are able to better support those victims of crime and stop that cycle of reoffending—which is the real difference that this Government is driving. It’s really good to see that under Budget 2019, there are a range of votes that contributed to, really, bringing together a wide range of different organisations to be able to target family and sexual violence. From previously working in this space—it was incredibly disparate; there were different groups with different funding that weren’t able to collaborate and get together. By bringing this together, under this Government, we’ve seen a far greater sense of information sharing that really saves lives.

As a former official, who looked into family violence death reviews in New Zealand, one of the outstanding factors that we’ve seen in the past is that lives have been lost in New Zealand because there was an inability for Government agencies and NGOs to work together and collaborate to share information that, in real-time, can actually save lives. That’s where initiatives under this Government have enabled us to address those silos and bring information together, and in real-time, share information that will enable those lives to be saved and be so much better. Facts are important, so let’s bring those into the debate. In New Zealand, $4 billion to $7 billion is the estimated cost of family violence to New Zealanders in a year, so it is so vital that we put that investment in there. We’ve seen over $320 million invested in that space, which is so good to see. We know that there are a million New Zealanders affected by family and sexual violence, and of that 300,000 are children.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Sorry to interrupt the member, but we did agree that family violence would be debated—because it is cross-agency, it would be debated as a whole in the social services and community sector. So you’re just slightly ahead of yourself.

Apologies, Madam Chair. Thank you very much, anyway. So the other area that was very interesting to learn about through Vote Justice was also the good work being done in the area of drug use in New Zealand. In particular, the issue of methamphetamine was raised in that space. When the Minister spoke to the committee, he acknowledged the fact that it’s important that we do take a balanced approach in New Zealand; that’s exactly what we’re doing: taking a balanced approach. So it’s important to acknowledge that if there is manufacture, and if there are areas of cultivation and manufacture, that those are prosecuted. But it’s just as important to acknowledge those underlying factors that go into ongoing drug use, and that those are treated as a health issue. That’s incredibly important. They are also tightly tied to mental health, another area that is working so well—much better—in New Zealand under this Government.

So when we look at some of the programmes that are funded to address this issue, a really good example of being able to take a balanced approach is Te Ara Oranga, which has been funded for $4 million. Te Ara Oranga works in Northland, and that’s that example of looking at those that are manufacturing and prosecuting, in that aspect, but for those who are using—to be able to separate that out and be able to provide drug treatment, to provide wraparound services, to break that cycle of reoffending. That makes this Government so much different from the past one, because it is tackling those long-term issues. It’s breaking that cycle and identifying those issues that are generating crime, which will mean a long-term change. We know that these are big issues. We know that these are difficult issues, but that is not deterring this Government from tackling them and making sure we make a real long-term change in these areas.

One of the things that is really important in that space is how much we see police collaborating with communities to tackle meth use. That is a great area to see that we are driving real change in. It’s been a privilege to be able to speak on this area, and it shows I’m proud to be part of a Government that is delivering real, long-term change for New Zealand.

I want to contrast the Government’s claims of the year of delivery, with the broken promises and the incompetence that has occurred in the justice portfolio area. Can we, firstly, start with the big justice reforms that we were promised by the Government nearly two years ago? Whether it’s been three-strikes, whether it’s been a whole series of bills, the Government has actually been extending sentences—not the big reform that was proposed. Then we’ve got the taskforce that’s been set up for justice reform, of which the wheels have fallen off with the resignations of Warren Young and Jarrod Gilbert. Such is the embarrassment and the lack of delivery. Even if we look at the inquiry that the Government has done into children’s care in State institutions, we’ve just had the resignation of former Governor-General Anand Satyanand—just another example of the shemozzle that has become Government policy in the area of justice.

I have to highlight the failures in corrections, because they have become an international embarrassment for New Zealand. We have the worst offender ever in New Zealand history, a man charged with the death of 51 people; we have the Prime Minister lecturing the world on how we need to use modern technology to shut down the spread of hate, we have the man writing letters around the world trying to infect and expand the terrorism, and we are yet to have explanations from the Government as to how that occurred. We even have Government members of the Justice Committee preventing an inquiry into how that letter occurred.

💬 Todd Muller: Really?

And they call themselves—I say to my colleague—the most open, transparent Government ever, and they’re blocking the Justice Committee from getting to the bottom of that basic failure. Here’s the one that really amuses me, and I’d love to get an explanation from members opposite: Kelvin Davis campaigned for six long years, on the evil of double-bunking in prisons. My colleagues will remember the campaign that he ran, and now he’s got a bill before Parliament that—you know what?—makes double-bunking easier. What a contradiction. What a double standard that has come in that area.

Then I particularly want to challenge the Minister around the very serious issue of electoral law. He is the first Minister of Justice to ignore the convention that electoral law changes should be developed on a cross-party basis. In fact, if you look at the last Government—a very good record, and I pay compliments to former justice Ministers Simon Power and Amy Adams, who went to great length. But it’s worse than that: this Minister has been dishonest in the way in which he has promoted electoral changes. He puts a press release out saying that we’re going to introduce same-day enrolment in voting, but conveniently ignores telling the public that that means the vote count will be delayed by 10 days. It was sneaky, it was wrong, and the Minister owes this House an explanation.

I also want to challenge the Government about its policy in respect of referendum, because it is all about politics and nothing to do with principle. I’d love the Minister in the chair to say whether he agrees with the New Zealand First Party that you can’t trust Parliament, and only Cabinet can decide on the referendum. I point out to the committee that in the many referendum that we’ve had at election time—every single one of them—the wording has been determined by Parliament. It is outrageous what the Government is doing to manipulate the 2020 election. This is a desperate coalition that will stoop to whatever level is required to try and ensure their re-election. It is a disgraceful approach for a country that has such a proud democratic tradition. I challenge the Minister to actually raise the standards, live up to the heritage of the brave people recognised on the walls of this Parliament, and respect the democratic traditions of this country.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the great ironies of the ongoing hyperbole of Nick Smith is that on the one hand he champions democracy and on the other hand opposes the ability for the ordinary person to have access to vote on election day. He’s in favour of keeping the structural barriers that currently exist to prevent people who have not made it on to the electoral roll to actually vote on election day. So let’s just call a spade a spade.

When we became Government in 2017, the country faced some huge endemic issues from nine years of neglect under that previous National Government. What we did was we committed to building a strong economy and we also committed to introducing, alongside that, a values-based approach to governing: compassion, kindness, fairness—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s very interesting—

—those things that the National—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Member, Order!

—Party scoff and laugh about—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Order! Order! Order! The member should be debating the Estimates before us. Now, it’s not about a strong economy; it’s about Vote Justice, Vote Corrections, and Vote Police. And when I call “Order!”, the member stops speaking.

Point of order, Madam Chair. When the—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): A point of order, the Hon Clare Curran.

The Opposition was shouting so loud, I couldn’t hear the Chair, and I apologise. I would have stopped immediately. Thank you.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): You may continue, but focus on the vote in front of us.

Yeah, so—

💬 Hon Members: She hasn’t read it.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): That’s not helpful.

—one of the things that we needed to do was to look at new ways of measuring success, which is why we’re focused on wellbeing. One of the incredibly important parts of a wellbeing approach is—and this goes to Vote Corrections in the justice Estimates—to focus on offenders and offenders’ mental health, access to drug and alcohol treatment, the overrepresentation of Māori in the justice system, successful reintegration, and our high imprisonment rate compared with other jurisdictions.

So between 2002 and 2018, the prison population trended upwards. From 2013—and, you know, get this: former National Government—to 2018, it spiked rapidly, placing huge pressure on the prison system. One of the goals of this Government was to reduce that prison population by 30 percent over the next 15 years. That’s a significant thing to do and it requires a lot of measures.

So the focus on wellbeing is genuine and necessary, given the fact that 91 percent of prisoners have a mental health or substance abuse issue. Investing heavily in ensuring that prisoners have got access to appropriate mental health and substance treatment programmes is about successful rehabilitation, which is about reducing the prison population. That is what success looks like.

So what are we doing? This is the High Impact Innovation Programme, which is aimed at finding ways to: reduce the prison population, remand triage, support for defendants to apply for electronic monitoring, more home detention, and parole-ready strategies—that’s the high impact innovation programme. Along with that: $128 million for mental health and addiction, to enable an extra 2,300 offenders with mild to moderate needs to receive mental health support.

Nearly 42 percent of the prison population is Māori, although they make up 15 percent of New Zealand’s population. So what we’re doing is focusing on improving the work with Māori; completing a new strategy with the aim of building stronger partnerships with iwi and strengthening its cultural capability. What does success look like? Lowering the population of Māori in prisons, and support for victims—I could go on and on. I absolutely commend this to the House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on part of the Estimates. Vote Police is where I want to go. The member who just resumed her seat, Clare Curran, talked about mental health and how important it is, and she talked about the justice sector. Well, here we go: what has this Government done? Well, the mental health nurses have been removed from the Counties Manukau watch-house, under their watch. The mental health worker ride-alongs with police appear to be going nowhere fast, under their watch. And New Zealand Police have just reported a sharp uptick in the number of incidents reported that involve mental health issues. So it appears that to this Government, wellbeing is a slogan and not a delivery.

But I want to mainly focus on Vote Police and the Budget appropriation for the firearms buy-back. The Government set aside, under Vote Police, $168 million, and then ACC chipped in another $40 million to make a total of $208 million. Just before I talk about how we quizzed the commissioner and the Minister in Estimates hearings, the breakdown of that is that $190 million of the full $208 million is on the buy-back, and the $18 million remaining is for running the buy-back operations.

I’ll just make a note, because there’s been some recent commentary in the media: police are doing an outstanding job of running the operation itself. I get feedback that officers in the buy-back events are very courteous and very professional. It is worthy of note that they are conducting themselves well. There are many people turning up who don’t necessarily want to be there, but they are being treated properly.

It is the buy-back scheme itself that is turning into a complete fiasco. It started prior to Estimates—but it certainly started at Estimates. We quizzed the Minister as to how they had arrived at the buy-back scheme they wish to fund to an extent of $190 million, and particularly what advice they had received around that; extremely disappointing, and this is the first opportunity to report this to the House. The Minister sought not to answer any questions about that detail at all. He sought to use the excuse that the KPMG report was a report between KPMG and the Police Commissioner, not the Minister; seeking to hide behind section 16 of the Policing Act that says that politicians in Government don’t get involved in operational police matters. Well, here’s the fact: the Estimates are Government appropriation—the Minister is responsible for those moneys, what they are to be spent on, and what they are supposed to achieve. He refused to give us the information that we deserved and we’re entitled to receive at the Estimates hearing.

By some good fortune—rather than good management—a few weeks ago, we finally received a copy of that report, and it wasn’t redacted. We finally got the answers that the Minister could have and should have given us at the Estimates hearing. They confirmed what we suspected: that the Government had prioritised pinching pennies over public safety. The experts to KPMG clearly stated that if the buy-back scheme was a retail price with no discounting, they would get greater compliance—admittedly, at a higher cost, but they’d get greater compliance. Of the three headline options that they talked about, the Government chose the one that they said would have the least compliance and the lowest cost. They chose to save a few pennies in the Budget, and they knew that would come at the expense of public safety, because they had been told. On 2 April 2019, the police advised the Government how many now prohibited firearms they estimated there to be in the country. And just because of events today in question time, in answer to a supplementary question on question No. 8, the recipients of that document include both the Minister of Police and the Minister of Justice.

In that document, it states that the police believe there could be 240,000 of these firearms in circulation in New Zealand. So far, there have been—just at the beginning of the week—a total of about 104 events, and an average of 117 firearms handed over at each event. Now, the math would say, if there’s not an enormous uptick, that’s fewer than 30,000 firearms that will be collected under the buy-back, that the Government has set aside $208 million for. Even if there is a great uptick—[Time expired]

It gives me great pleasure to stand here to talk on the justice Estimates, and, like the speaker before me Brett Hudson, I’ll focus on policing aspects. But what I will do is be just slightly more positive. The politicisation of policing is a shame. It’s done by both sides. You’re seeing it there—and, to be fair, Oppositions do it all the time. But when the rubber hits the road, there’s one test we all need to sit, and it’s a test we all sat on 15 March this year, and watched how effective our police are. I, personally, having policed in Christchurch, and, I have to say, knowing well the two officers who were involved in capturing the offender, and knowing the type of police officers they were, I think—and the identity of those officers may never be known publicly, but anyone that does know them will know they’re the sort of police officers that anyone would be very proud to police with, and I’m proud to say I did, as I policed with many of those other Christchurch police officers.

I was lucky enough, this year, to have a trip through the Christchurch justice centre. Look, I’ll give the Opposition credit; that was a fantastic idea after the earthquake, to put all those justice-related departments together, and it works well. So congratulations to whoever’s idea that was. As I walked around the station, I saw a lot of people I knew, a lot of people I’d worked with, and they’re good, experienced people. It gives me no surprise that they reacted so well, to the extent that, not only those two police officers but, actually, when the police and emergency service response to that tragedy was debriefed, not only in New Zealand, but internationally—we had all those experts from United States, and, unfortunately, they are expert at those mass shootings—they all saw how well New Zealand had reacted.

So rather than negativity, can we just take a moment and actually be very grateful at how well-served we are, not only by our police, but justice.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): We are getting to the Estimates, aren’t we?

That, then, now takes me on to the other part of what really faces us in the future, and every department—we’ve again heard about many of the different initiatives that’ve been brought in. Unfortunately, where we’ve arrived at, we now have a situation where our prisons are full. We’ve reduced it by a thousand, but it may well be that they increase, because, unfortunately, nothing is in isolation. The real issue we have in this country is gangs and methamphetamine. Unless we take a joint approach to that, if we stand and bicker in this House and get the sort of small-mindedness we’ve just seen, then nothing will be done. I will ask the Opposition to actually sit back and think: do they really want to score political points or do they want this country to be actually safer?

I would say that the only way it’s going to become safer is if we can actually sit back and join everything up. It’s not just a matter of, “We’re going to fix this bit and that bit”; we’ve actually got to join everything up. Unless we do something about methamphetamine—methamphetamine is cheaper, and more available than any time it has ever been, which means that everything we’ve done to date has failed. Our prisons: OK, we’re a thousand less than we were, but it’s still far too high—certainly, our imprisonment rates are far too high. Certainly, our Māori imprisonment rates are far too high.

So what we heard during the Estimates this year, from the various departments that came to us—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): At last.

Oh, I had to mention the word “Estimates”, did I, Madam Chairperson? I didn’t realise that was the word. I thought it was inherent in everything I was saying. However, I will mention the word “Estimates”. What we did hear is “joined up”. When we heard from corrections, we heard about the different strategies they’re employing, and we heard about one of them in Northland. Again, I sat through the family violence in Christchurch group, where all the different departments were sitting there, and they didn’t leave that meeting until they had a plan to deal with overnight incidents. That’s the type of thing we’re going to have to do, because, again, lying behind even those family violence incidents, lying behind so much of our crime stats—and I’ve had personal involvement in this recently—is methamphetamine, is drugs, and are gangs.

We have 6,500 gang members in this country. That’s the patched members. Forget about how many prospects there are, how many hang arounds, how many associates, or how many founding members. That means—

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Could you, sort of, introduce some money into this?

—their sphere of intimidation is huge, Madam Chairperson.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Budget?

Madam Chairperson—gang members, Estimates, crime; I don’t believe you could get closer to the subject than mentioning, actually, crime.

CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Yes, you could. I believe you could.

So in the eight seconds left to me, I will say: can we please depoliticise this? Can we please do something in drawing this up? Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It’s always a difficult task to follow that member Greg O’Connor. If I can commence the debate on Estimates—or rather, resume it—in relation to Vote Justice, Vote Courts, and various other related matters that we considered at the Justice Committee, as our chair, sort of, led us through a process, and various Ministers appeared before us, we, of course, performed the constitutionally important role of scrutinising the Budget and the Estimates that have been made in those various areas.

I’d like to focus on the courts area, which is of particular interest to me. But first just to touch on a couple of other aspects. One is remarkable, really, more for the absence of action and what was not said in the Budget and related documents, than for what was said in it, namely around hate speech. Now, I’m relieved that not much progress appears to have been made on that, and we’ve understood, from talking with various Ministers, that it’s something that the Government is looking into, no doubt at the urging of the Green Party. As I say, I would not encourage them, particularly, to progress matters in the way that some members of the Government might encourage them to do so. So perhaps we give some credit for the fact that that is slowed, or perhaps stalled. Whether by accident or design, that’s a good thing, but I note that there was not much evidence of work having been done on that that is likely to come to fruition any time soon.

As for another matter that has been raised previously as part of the justice programme, and more generally of the Government—the suggestion, indeed the promise, that courts should have their right to issue declarations of inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, that right to be affirmed, as the courts have claimed it for themselves in any case, and a process set up whereby Parliament would have to respond in some way to such a declaration. It’s with tongue in cheek that I suggest that courts might make a declaration of inconsistency between the rhetoric of the Government and the reality. Of course, they wouldn’t tread on the toes of this House in such a manner, but I’m sure they are tempted, as indeed most New Zealanders would be, considering the justice programme of the Government compared to the before and the after of the promises that were made, and certainly looking at the lack of fulfilment within the most recent Budget and the Estimates hearings thereafter.

Colleagues have touched on the idea of prison numbers reduction. Of course, that’s a good thing in itself, as far as it goes to the extent that that would reflect the need for prisoner numbers. So that’s something that we will carefully continue to monitor on this side of the House—the extent to which criminal offending and public safety needs to be protected, and so the relationship between prison numbers and that must, of course, be appropriate, whether that’s in an upwards or downwards direction.

I’d like to focus, as I say, on the courts portfolio and, more specifically, the alcohol and other drug treatment courts. It’s a matter of record that National supports the concept of the thing, and, in fact, it was in our term of Government that we established these courts, admittedly on a trial basis, and I’d like to give kudos to all those who are involved in their running in the present day, as well as those who were involved in setting them up in the first instance. We know, of course, that currently in Waitakere, near my own electorate, and in Auckland, these are running still on a pilot basis until June 2020. And that’s the extent of the funding that the Government has allocated. Now, it might well be that funding is provided beyond that point at some time, ideally before that time runs out, but we have not seen evidence of that in the Budget. So, with all the earnestness that I can muster, I appeal to the Minister and his Government to make a reality the ongoing operation, at the very least, of the courts that are currently operating, so that those will continue to do the good work that they are doing, beyond June 2020.

We’ve heard from our colleague and friend the Hon Tim Macindoe, with some local advocacy around the desire in Hamilton for an equivalent such court to be set up there. My knowledge of the preparation they’ve been doing in that area suggests to me that that would be a sensible idea. And, again, I would encourage the Minister and his Government to move as swiftly as possible to set up such a facility for the benefit of that community as well as those individuals and their families who would benefit most from it. In the meantime, again, just the need for some extra money; we’ve got a bit from column A, a bit from column B—that is, in justice and courts—to keep these courts running. We need a bit more, and we look forward to it.