Adams Amy: Third Readings — 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Adams Amy: Third Readings — 
[Sitting date: 04 October 2011. Volume:676;Page:21651. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
AMY ADAMS (National—Selwyn) 
: 
 I am very happy to take a brief call this afternoon on the legislation arising from the Criminal Procedure (Reform and Modernisation) Bill. It has been interesting to listen to the debate this afternoon in the House as it was interesting to come in at the tail end of the select committee process when I joined the Justice and Electoral Committee. 
Across the House this afternoon there has been a little bit of a battle about who is responsible for what. Everyone is now trying to claim ownership but I think the thing that matters to the people who use the justice system is that we are now taking steps to make it easier for people who find themselves in the justice system through no fault of their own. The Minister of Police made it quite clear this afternoon that her priority with legislation as it is for the Minister of Justice and for all of this Government is first and foremost to look after the victims of crime. 
I did not practise in the area of criminal law other than some brief forays but I can tell members that from my experience with clients who have had experience in that field one of the most horrific aspects of the justice system for the victims involved in it is the sheer delays and the fact that the crime lives in their head and owns their life for month after month after month. It is not enough that whatever wrong it is that they are dealing with was done to them but to have such delays consequently in their heads without being able to get closure for such a long period of time is quite simply unacceptable. 
As the Minister of Justice pointed out in his opening remarks it has been over 50 years now since a Government has sat down and had a ground-up review of how our criminal justice system works. It is long overdue and the answer has never been to keep throwing money at a broken system to build more courthouses and to try to pump the cases through faster. 
There needs to be a comprehensive look—and there now has been—at how the system works and where we can get that delay complexity and cost to all parties out of the system; at what parts of the procedure are fundamentally important to the proper carriage of justice; and at what parts can be rethought. That is what this legislation does. It is a comprehensive piece of work and it sits alongside our other key initiatives in the area looking at things like the drivers of crime. They are things that I think we can all be proud and have resulted in the reduction of crime across the country in the last year by more than 7 percent and in my own region of Canterbury a reduction of nearly 15 percent. That is a significant improvement which means that all New Zealanders can feel safer in their homes and safer in their communities. That is in large part due to the work of our police due to the fact that we have given them the tools that they need to get on with their work and due to the fact that this House has supported them and put in place a framework that makes it quite clear that we have no time for criminals and those who seek to destroy our lives but we will do whatever we can to support victims. 
Similarly the offender levy which was put in place by this Government has required criminals to pay to help victims in their process through the courts. That has been staggeringly successful. It was derided by the Opposition as being meaningless when it was put before this House. The reality is that it has far outstripped expectations. With the passage of this legislation we are taking another step in making our justice system fairer for the victims fairer for those who are involved through no fault of their own and fairer for the taxpayer. I am very happy to commend it to the House.