O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Kia orana Madam Chairperson. I'll just start by acknowledging Mr Mitchell's comments—the Hon Mark Mitchell who did bring me into his speech and talked about my determination and I'm sure it will be the same as his and his colleague Matt King's and in fact my colleague Ginny Andersen's who while not a front-line police officer was a very important part of police—she worked in the policy area. The really important thing is the four of us along with everyone here want to achieve the same thing. We actually want the best. The best is less people in prison less victims and a safer New Zealand.Going on to the comments of the speaker from Waikato the Hon David Bennett—he spoke to the Minister in the chair at the time the Hon Kelvin Davis and said He will not achieve this." He left a vital word out which is the key to this debate. As Minister of Corrections he will not achieve it "alone" and that's the incredibly important part of where we're at now. I have come to this House from a 40-year career in and around the justice sector. What actually has happened—for the first time as I've seen the Ministers particularly the Minister of Police the Minister of Corrections and the Minister of Justice come through on the appropriations. For the first time I understand that we are not going to achieve this by the narrow approach taken which is basically a soft-on-crime claim which I have to admit we're hearing from the Opposition now and we've heard it from Oppositions for time immemorial. What that does is focuses down to a tiny part of the criminal justice system that simply means we are so focused so down—we'd have heard it today across the floor—it means we can't see the bigger picture and that prevents us from making sure we do what it is that is absolutely necessary.I look particularly—the previous Minister in the chair spoke about the need for cooperation between departments. There is nothing so basic as people not being able to leave correction facilities currently because they don't have housing. So what do you do? You cooperate between the housing. That is a very minor example of the sort of cooperation we are going to need because again we get focused down on the reed but what we need to do is step back and actually look at what the real problem with crime in New Zealand is now—why serious crime is increasing. It is because of the rise of gangs and organised crime. Prisons not used smartly not used in conjunction with sentencing not used in conjunction with policing and not used in conjunction with the Ministry of Justice and other departments just simply means that prisons become actually a part of aggravating the problem instead of helping it out. Let me just give you a little example. There's one group of offenders who are the lowest reoffenders right across the board when they come out of prison. They're very serious offenders: it's sex offenders. Now interestingly enough that is a group that funnily enough when they go into prison unlike most prisoners going in there are not forced to join a gang. No one wants to know them. What it actually means is while it's not a particularly comfortable stay there they aren't forced to join a gang for survival—in fact nobody wants them.It means that when they then go out in the system they're unlike much of the jailbait which goes into prison because they're doing the work for gang members are recruited are forced to get tattoos while they're in there and therefore when they come out it doesn't matter what other programmes they do in there it doesn't matter what Māori initiatives or what any other initiatives we have to help them the gang culture is stronger than any of those initiatives. So looking back at the very unlikely group of people who don't reoffend it is those sex offenders. So what we've got to do is—whatever we do it's got to be about controlling the gangs and we're only going to that by a multi-departmental approach. So while the Opposition—can I make a plea? You'll want to out-compassion us—you really want to be part of a joined-up sector here. Please do not allow this to be focused on sentencing because if you do it means—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Order!GREG O'CONNOR: —nothing will be done if eventually you do—sorry. If the Opposition does get back in they'll face the same issue. So the joined-up approach means looking at what the real issue is that is facing us today. It is gangs it is organised crime. If we only in this House talk about sentencing talk about that narrow focus we will fail."