Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Chairman. I'm more than happy to respond to the contribution that's just been made. I think the question if I interpret the question from the Hon Dr Nick Smith is how to reconcile this Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 185 with what he describes as or characterises as a coalition Government approach of wanting to have a more effective justice system. Perhaps the starting point is to say this: bombast and nonsense does not constitute an argument. Unfortunately for Dr Nick Smith he thinks that if he comes here and is bombastic enough and if he fudges enough that constitutes an argument. The real pity about Dr Smith is he doesn't just not listen to the Government members; he doesn't even listen to his own members.So the first point he actually made—I thought he was going to get on to a very important point which is about why this hadn't been in front of a select committee. Of course it has been a front of a select committee. His own colleague Ian McKelvie said that said that it had been the Primary Production Committee said that it had been debated and said that there were issues that officials had pointed out. And it was because of that and the work that Kieran McAnulty did with Ian McKelvie that we were able to come to a resolution. The upshot was that we were able to attach it to this bill with the agreement of colleagues.Then we come to the point about well is this somehow inconsistent with a policy. What this coalition Government stands for is an effective justice system a system that responds effectively and properly to criminal offending. And the reality is when it comes to livestock rustling and the impact on the rural community there is a huge gap. It is wrong that if you go into a yard in a metropolitan area in an industrial area climb over the fence get into the yard—just being there is going to get you a much more serious potential penalty than if you leapt into a paddock in the wide open with some sort of criminal intent. If you then nick something from that industrial yard in the metropolitan area you're going to get penalised much more heavily than if you leap into a paddock and nick a beast. And that was wrong—and that was wrong.That's why the Hon Nathan Guy's contribution was actually extraordinarily helpful to the committee and to those who were looking on because it explained that actually that criminal offending in the rural sector—there's almost an epidemic of it now. You see as Matt King has pointed out the reports from up north and the reports from down south. There is a horrific level of livestock rustling and of livestock theft and the law should send a signal that that's not acceptable and it will be responded to seriously and firmly by the law. None of that is inconsistent with an approach that says that when we deal with offenders we want to change their behaviour. Now I actually don't know what the underlying problem is with people who draw up huge B-trains to a farm and start nicking all the livestock. That is different to somebody who's grown up in a wretched life and who has been exposed to family violence in their early childhood and whose only learnt response to stress in their lives is to lash out at others. I don't know what the livestock rustler does or what drives their criminal offending but we know that they're a bunch of people whose criminal offending is a result of things they've learnt that we can teach them to unlearn. We've just got to give them the attention to do it.We know that there are people whose offending is driven by drug addiction and a whole bunch of other things and there are people who have been out of work for so long that they've lost any sense of hope or any sense of will to want to make a contribution. We can turn that stuff around. That's why we want a justice system that is effective in doing its job and none of this which is about sending a proper firm signal to those who would offend against and encroach upon the rights of those who live in our rural communities and who run and manage our farms and provide our food and our protein and what have you—those two propositions are not inconsistent. So I'm very pleased to be picking up and sharing with Ian McKelvie and Kieran McAnulty the sense of reward about bringing this change here. I know as those members and others have said it will make a big difference to rural communities and boy do they need it when it comes to livestock rustling today.