10. Question No. 10—JusticeHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of JusticeQuestion No. 10—Justice10. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) to the Minister of Justice: Is he confident the Government's justice policies are effective in keeping New Zealanders safe from crime?Hon Grant Robertson: Glad you woke up.Hon KRIS FAAFOI (Minister of Justice): Noa'ia Mr Speaker—SPEAKER: Order! I've been awake the whole time. Thank you.Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Noa'ia Mr Speaker. Yes we are using all of the justice system to respond to crime through improvements to prevention investigations processing and rehabilitation. This was reflected at Sunday's announcement of a major package of law and order measures that further increases police numbers cracks down on gangs and extends successful rehabilitation programmes to break the cycle of offending and entering a life of crime. This builds on the progress of previous years where the total crime rate has remained relatively static between 2014 and 2021 as have burglaries and aggravated robberies. Youth crime has decreased by approximately 14 percent between the same period and people who commit violent crime are still being sent to prison.Hon Paul Goldsmith: In light of his comment on the weekend In recent years we have seen increases in gun crime gang activity and even more recently some forms of youth offending that puts both our communities and our police at risk." what responsibility does he take for this as a result after 4½ years of Labour's justice policies?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: I take great responsibility in announcing in the same way at the weekend the continued record investment in police continued support for our communities. We're trying to deal with organised crime through programmes like the Resilience to Organised Crime in Communities making sure that we resource and work with communities to deal with organised crime.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Will Sunday's Budget announcement lead to more action than the 2020 Budget announcement of $20 million to aid the prosecution of strangulation cases and to help victims which two years later has barely produced anything?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: What I will take responsibility in terms of this Budget is as the police Minister has already outlined we'll continue to resource the front line as opposed to the previous Government which saw police numbers drop by 300 between 2013 and 2014.Golriz Ghahraman (remote): Does he agree with former finance Minister Sir Bill English that justice policies which aim to lock up more people in prisons for longer are a "fiscal and moral failure"; if so what evidence-based justice policies is he implementing to tackle the causes of it ending in our communities?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: While thankfully I'm not responsible for Mr English's comments we do agree as Minister Davis mentioned on Sunday that prisons are an indication of fiscal and moral failure. The current Government has managed to reduce the prison population quite significantly over the last 4½ years which means we are doing much better fiscally than the previous Government and much better morally than the previous Government. We are working with the likes of the Green Party Ministers to address the issues such as family and sexual violence which we are proud to make sure that we are committed to during this Budget as well. And I'd like to again point out the work that we're doing through a number of agencies around resilience to organised crime in our communities; making sure again we resource communities aid agencies and give local leadership to make sure that we're dealing with organised crime.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Does he understand the frustration of retailers like dairy owner Mr Vatsa whose dairy suffered $20000 worth of damages in a ram raid and said "There should be stricter penalties for these kids. They should be held accountable for their actions. They know nothing will happen."?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: We obviously sympathise with the challenges that some of those businesses are going through at the moment and as a number of Ministers have said the justice agencies and Ministers are working on measures to be able to make sure that we can help protect those businesses. What I would say is that the sentencing measures available to police there—the maximum penalty of 10 years—but first to make sure that you sentence you actually have to find the people responsible and again we've invested in making sure we have more police on the beat to make sure we can investigate and make sure we bring people to justice.Hon Paul Goldsmith: Why is his Government contemplating spending money to subsidise bollards in front of shops rather than dealing with the real problem which is that repeat youth offenders face little or no consequences for their actions?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: The member isn't blind to the work that the Government is doing to make sure that we do reduce youth crime. It has been decreasing as I said over years and at the moment we are experiencing a spike in that kind of activity and we are responding to the needs of those people who are being affected by those crimes.Hon David Parker: Is the Minister aware of any reports that suggest that the last question is wrong and that most of these ram raids are not repeat offenders and it's the first time they've come in contact with the police?Hon KRIS FAAFOI: Yes. Obviously there has been some commentary in the media recently about the types of youth who are responsible for the crime. There are some issues which cause them to offend: the likes of economic conditions at home housing—all issues that the current Government is addressing."