Collins Judith: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
Collins Judith: Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill — Third Reading Imprest Supply Debate 
[Volume:656;Page:5918] 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Police) 
: 
 Following on from the speaker who has just resumed her seat can I say that a caring nation is also a responsible nation. Caring families are also responsible families. That is why it is with such pleasure that I rise to speak on behalf of the Government in relation to the Appropriation (2009/10 Estimates) Bill. 
This is a caring Government that has produced a responsible Budget. Nothing could say that more than the fact that this Government has delivered on its election promises. It has in the worst economic times we have seen in three generations been able not only to deliver on those promises but also to increase spending in the areas where it was most needed and at the same time have our credit rating saved despite all the doom and gloom talk from the Opposition. 
I will touch on just a couple of the things that I am most pleased about in this Budget and they are in relation to corrections. This Government took over a Department of Corrections that had been seriously underfunded in particular in relation to the probation service. This is an area that has come under increasing stress over the last some years and the reason is that there are more and more community-programme sentences for the service to look after. We had an increasing offender population to deal with in community services but unfortunately not sufficient funding. There was a small increase in the number of probation officers but actually so much more was needed. 
One of the things I found out when I came into Government was that the previous Minister the Hon Phil Goff had received an application from the Department of Corrections in September last year outlining just how critical the parole system and probation service were and how there was a need for urgent funding. That request for help did not even get a reply. That was the service that we got to take over. We were left with the Auditor-General’s report into the status of the parole system. It was a damning report. But in a very short period of time we have been able to work closely with the chief executive and the senior staff at the Department of Corrections and with a great deal of support from around the justice sector we have been able to turn round the Community Probation and Psychological Services system that was in dire need. All of that required funding. 
We are injecting a further $255.9 million into the probation service. I would like to thank my colleagues for the support they have given me in helping to turn this service round. Budget operating funding of $133.8 million over 4 years will enable Community Probation and Psychological Services to recruit an extra 134 probation officers 26 front-line managers and 20 psychologists which will ensure that it can effectively manage almost 100000 sentences and orders a year. These are good people who are doing their very best many of whom are very well trained people who have come into the Community Probation and Psychological Services to do good work and it is important that they get support. 
Another $71.2 million operating funding has been approved over 4 years to recruit an extra 112 probation officers three front-line managers and three psychologists to improve the quality of parole and home-detention management. We cannot continue down the path of simply locking people up in jail for year after year consistently increasing sentences and sending out into the world people who are damaged by their time locked up in prison and who are certainly not made better people. It is appalling that we have gone down this track. We had years of it under the previous administration and it has to be brought to a close. We need to deal with the fact that we have 8500 prisoners today locked up in our jails. 
Our population in New Zealand is about 4 million. The population of Queensland Australia—not a state known for its soft-on-crime attitudes—is about 4 million. We have 8500 sentenced prisoners; Queensland has 4500 prisoners. I think that says it all really. We are locking people up and letting them come out of the prison service worse people than when they went in not better. It is appalling for members of the previous Government ever to try to take any credit in the area of law and order because they should not. Most of our prisoners have drug and alcohol problems. Many of them are addicts. Yet only 500 places were made available in our prison service for drug and alcohol treatment programmes. In the first 3 years of the John Key - led National Government we are doubling the number of treatment places. 
That is 1000 places but it is still not enough. I note that the Green speakers have often said to me that we should have more. Well we should but we have to start somewhere. Not only that but previously they have been available only to people near the end of their sentences and to people who have been sentenced to long sentences not in fact to the people most likely to benefit—in other words those who will be there for 2 years or less. The Department of Corrections has been working very hard on getting a programme available for people who are sentenced to a shorter term of imprisonment. I believe that that is great work from the Department of Corrections. I would like to thank its staff for all their support and the work they are doing because they are particularly dedicated towards this area. 
We also obviously have to increase the number of prison beds because we will run out of them by February next year. As well I found out to my horror that the previous Minister the Hon Phil Goff was advised of new projections in the prison population back in 2007 and that the Government of the day refused to accept the new projections because clearly they did not suit its rhetoric. We have therefore been left with a number of problems: an increasing prison population people sentenced to very long sentences very few drug and alcohol treatment programmes and the situation of the prisoners we are sending back out into the community. We are having to fund $385.3 million over the next 4 years to make sure we have enough prison beds. This is a problem that we have inherited but the Department of Corrections is working very well in this area. 
I now turn to the role of the New Zealand Police. I am one of those people who believe that the police have a huge job in the role of not only catching criminals but also preventing crime. One of the great things that members will have seen from the Prime Minister’s announcements today on youth justice is the role of the New Zealand Police in running programmes to help young offenders and to get them back on to the straight and narrow. So many of the young offenders whom the police deal with come from homes where really nobody is responsible and those young people are in fact victims of the homes and the families they come from. The police are the right people to be involved in the mix to help bring those people around so they do not end up going down the inevitable pathway that they had before of going through the system and into our adult prisons—essentially going through the revolving door of a prison system that lets them come back time and time again. 
But apart from that the police also need the tools to be able to catch the criminals. That is where the roll-out of digital radios is so important. Digital radios are already having an effect in the Wellington area and I am very hopeful— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s right; very good. And it started in the Hutt! 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: I am very pleased that the previous Government did some work on that; it is working well—and it is good to hear from Mr Mallard. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: It started in the Hutt! 
Hon JUDITH COLLINS 
: And we are funding it. We are also rolling out Tasers for the police. The police increasingly have to deal with methamphetamine-fuelled crime and violent criminals—people who on a previous day might have had the armed offenders squad called out and could have been shot. The introduction of Tasers early next year will give the police another tool to deal with offenders in a way that is safe secure and in the vast majority of cases not life-threatening. That is a major breakthrough for the police. 
I commend this legislation to the House. It is a pleasure to be part of the John Key - led Government and to work so well with our support parties in Government: the Maori Party the ACT Party and United Future.