Menéndez March Ricardo; Goldsmith PaulRICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH (Green): Thank you Mr Chair. Just briefly touching on actually a point the member Paul Goldsmith made regarding the warrant-to-arrest sanctions—and it is one of those that has interactions between Ministry of Social Development and Ministry of Justice—the Minister for Social Development and Employment has been on the record as not supporting that benefit sanction. The Welfare Expert Advisory Group recommended that it ended. I wanted to get the Minister's perspective on whether she thinks that it has been beneficial to deprive people of income for those who are receiving a benefit because they have a warrant to arrest. What outcomes from a justice perspective has she seen as a result of that and whether she believes the sanction actually criminalises people by depriving them of legal ways to provide kai for themselves and their children?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Mr Chair. Just responding to the Minister's suggestion that there was more people with less serious offences that were being thrown out of prison as it were in the big reduction of prison numbers—not serious offences. I just quote from the long-term study by the justice officials saying in terms of the big decrease in the prison population since this Government took over the decrease was larger for those serving long sentences than those serving short sentences". So there was those people serving long sentences.I suppose the question that I'd raise is that—the Minister has been talking about that prison hasn't worked effectively it's not a great place it doesn't work. The point that's raised by the victims of crimes is: of course. And the purposes in the Sentencing Act are not just to rehabilitate the offenders who have had a violent crime or created a violent crime or created terrible victims of crime; another purpose is to denounce the act—to denounce the act itself. So a lot of people are left staggered for example that a young man who was convicted of raping four women ended up with nine months home detention and playing home station.Now the Minister can't comment on a specific case but she is responsible for the overall sentencing framework that allows those kinds of results. People would rightly ask the question: does the home detention sentence effectively denounce the act so that all the other young men out there understand that this is something that society doesn't tolerate? And so when she's talking about whether prison works or not is she conscious of the role that it has in denouncing the act?Secondly in also keeping people safe in repealing the three-strikes legislation that this Government did there's one area that they did in the justice space—the one piece of legislation that they passed in the sentencing area was to say that "we think that our sentences are too long for our worst repeat offenders and therefore we need to shorten those sentences somehow". That was the conclusion that they draw. But the average number of offences by somebody on a third strike was around 70 offences.The point I would make is that with every one of those offences a new victim is created—or multiple victims are created quite often. So that cycle—going out into prison going out creating a new victim going back—is what we're trying to avoid. So the other purpose of the prison population is to keep the rest of the community safe from that small group of New Zealanders who perpetrate multiple acts of violence. So the question I have for the Minister is while she points to all manner of statistics that—Hon Member: Facts.Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: —may relate to violent crime—what did she say "Facts"? The fact is that the survey of crime has shown a 33 percent increase in violent crime.Now the Minister says "Oh there's been an overall reduction in crime." Well yes. If the police are only doing half the number of roadblocks they had for drunk-driving there are going to be fewer people convicted of driving drunk. That's not because there are fewer people driving drunk; it's because the police are doing fewer tests.That's how it works: if you change the rules so that you're not going to prosecute drug crimes yes there's going to be a fall in prosecution for drug crimes. It doesn't mean that anything has changed that the country is safer; it's just that the police have had a different approach. That's the point that the justice officials were making: there's been a change in approach. But every New Zealander who walks down the street and sees the plywood on all the windows from the ram raids—and they've seen the 140 percent increase in serious assaults—knows that there is a problem with safety. The question I have for the Minister is: why does she think that that is not something that ordinary New Zealanders should be concerned about?Now I've only got a little bit of time left but I did also want to ask the question around why is she still—is it still her policy for this Government to bring in legislation around the Make It 16 campaign for example as priority in terms of reducing the voting age either at general or local government? I'd be keen to get a clear answer on that. Then I've got a couple more."