Radhakrishnan PriyancaPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Mr Chair. It's an absolute honour to stand and take a call to contribute to this debate on the justice sector on what we've heard and what we've discovered through our annual reviews and that process. I must however address firstly some of the points or lack of points made by the member Maggie Barry who just resumed her seat. She said What crisis?" Tell that to the hundreds of people who are suffering in rotten mouldy hospitals and in prisons that keep being built that only serve to return hardened criminals to our streets and to those who are living in cars and garages because the previous Government has left a legacy of under-resourcing and chronic dysfunction. Tell that to the people who are suffering instead of chatting at the back of the Chamber and trivialising this issue by flinging insults around and name-calling which frankly should be beneath any member in this House. To carry on with the theme really of this whole debate and previous debates as well—which is actually really sad—is the fact that we can't ignore that there has been an increase in demand in the justice sector an increase in the complexity of the issues that are faced across the sector and chronic under-resourcing coupled with a complete lack of planning which has led to the issues that the Minister of Justice so eloquently laid out in his speech. This Government is focusing on fixing the issue not on feel-good measures that actually won't achieve anything as we've seen over the last nine years. So what exactly is happening? We've heard and we've seen the stats. Whichever way you look at it it's not good. We've seen that the total crime rate continues to increase. It has increased over the last two years. The main drivers of the increasing crime rate are burglaries and violent crime we're told. The Maungakiekie electorate where I'm based sees the capital of burglaries in Mount Wellington. Violent crime which is driven largely by homicide and sexual assault continues to rise. This is the legacy that the previous speaker talked about and is so proud about—is lauding? I see nothing to be proud about. The Indian community which I do a lot of work with is often at the forefront of crime because many are small-business owners who run dairies—many who live in abject fear from day to day wondering if that's the day that the people who assaulted them will come back to finish the job. Is that the legacy that the previous Government is proud about? Some of the measures that they put in place previously—which actually weren't too bad when it comes to measures like fog cannons and security measures which I admit were actually pretty good measures but what was the take-up rate? It was something like three dairies at the end of last year that actually took it up. They couldn't afford it. Fifty percent they had to pay—that's up to $2000 for dairy owners. That was too expensive. What has this Government done? We've come in there and actually made it affordable so that people who are working in high-risk dairies can actually afford to feel safe in their workplace. Isn't that what we're all working towards? Feeling safe wherever we are whether it's in the home whether it's on the streets whether it's at work—that's a right. That's a right that we all should be able to access. But thanks to the previous Government's lack of—I don't know what it is actually. It's definitely a lack of spending but it's also a lack of thinking about what really works. So it's about flinging money at prisons. Our prisons are at capacity. We've seen that through the annual reviews. But what was the previous Government's response? Lock them up. "We'll lock more people up. We'll lock them up for longer." because yes that's worked so well hasn't it for us in the last nine years? Instead look at what the evidence tells us. What does the evidence tell us? There's a much higher rate of people not offending or a deterrent effect of people not reoffending if they're actually caught. But what did the previous Government do? They didn't put in enough police numbers so people aren't being caught. In Auckland in the last year conviction rates or arrest rates—people actually being caught for the burglaries that they were committing—was woeful. It was under 10 percent. From memory off the top of my head it was something like 6 percent. Look at the prison population that we have. Māori are disproportionately represented—50 percent of the prison population and 65 percent of youth in prisons. Look at the mental health statistics. Police were being called out for 35000 mental health incidents in the last year alone—utterly shambles."