McKee Nicole; Salesa JennyNICOLE McKEE (ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. Following on from my colleague Paul Smith's— Hon Paul Goldsmith: Goldsmith!NICOLE McKEE: Goldsmith's—[Interruption] Following on from his questions I too have similar questions when we're looking at the vote documents. The justice Estimates they don't present a coherent picture of what or how the Government is seriously looking at tackling the crime that we're seeing the increase in crime that we're seeing but also how we're going to tackle getting through the backlog of cases that are going through our court and justice system. We're hearing of some trials taking up to three years and we've also heard some talk around whether or not courts should be sitting on a Saturday to help relieve some of that.I wonder Minister—when we look at the sector within the Vote Justice system it's really quite hard to ascertain exactly what some of these Estimates budgets are going to be spent on. And it makes it hard to actually figure out what is going on with crime what is going on with our court process and trying to make sure that everybody gets access to justice fairly but our victims especially get access as well. So Madam Chair I just wonder whether or not the Minister can give us a bit of detail on what it is within the justice votes that tells us what is the coherent picture of how the Government's going to deal with the increased crime and what is the picture in regard to dealing with the backlog of court cases?Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Well I've got some more questions for the Minister to consider as well. One would be when she talks about her Government and again in the House today being very focused on the needs of the victims of crime—yeah she is aware I presume that her own officials in the ministry admitted during the previous Budget process that the victims assistance scheme and I quote The Ministry and Victim Support have managed the cost pressure by deliberately under-promoting the scheme to minimise access and uptake." I just want to read that again just so people get that sort of clear in their head: "The Ministry and Victim Support"—this is from officials. This is from officials writing through the Minister to the Minister of Finance saying: "The Ministry and Victim Support have managed the cost pressures by deliberately under-promoting the scheme"—and we're talking about the victim assistance scheme deliberately under-promoting the scheme—"to minimise access and uptake."That was the style; they talked a big game about how they're focused on the needs of victims for years. Kris Faafoi would stand up on his hind legs and he would talk about it and Andrew Little would before. And yet at the same time they were deliberately under-promoting the scheme to minimise access and uptake because they hadn't put enough money into it and they couldn't cover the need. And so the first question is: have you changed Minister? Are they still under-promoting the scheme or have they actually decided that perhaps they should let victims of crime know about it so that they can access the help that they need? And how can we have some assurance that that is going to actually lead to New Zealanders getting better access to the help that they need?Because another example I could give the Minister and another question that follows from it is the big announcement made with great fanfare about a fund of $20 million around strangulation. Now everybody knows—well not everybody knows but a lot of people know—that when people strangle somebody else particularly in a domestic violence situation it is a well-known precursor of even worse violent crime and a real signal of danger. So strangulation is a big red flag fluttering everywhere. And so this big fund was announced $20 million to help victims of or complainants of strangulation to get through the court system and to get the help they need and it was promised that it was going to be 800 people helped a year. But then it turned out that virtually nobody had—and I think they might be up to 50 or 60. I'd like the Minister to give us an update on how many people have actually been helped because it was like I say nowhere near what was promised. And then it turned out that actually that fund had been used to help more perpetrators of strangulation than defendants or complainants of strangulation. So I mean it is sort of beyond recognition. So on the one hand you've got a victims assistance scheme which deliberately under-promotes itself so as to not draw attention to itself because it is inadequate to the task and then secondly you've got a strangulation scheme announced with great fanfare and totally under delivering and actually giving more help to the perpetrators of strangulation than the defenders of strangulation.So on both those instances I'd like an update from the Minister as to what progress if any has been made on both of those important areas.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Before I call the next member can I just remind the member who's just taken his seat that it's not really respectful to call another member who is not in the Chamber as having hind legs. So reflect on that kind of language."