Newman Muriel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
Newman Muriel: Criminal Investigations (Bodily Samples) Amendment Bill — Second Reading Instruction to CommitteeCWH In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:612;Page:9464] 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (ACT) 
: 
 I have to say that the ACT party does not have a member on the Law and Order Committee so we have been very interested to hear what has been going on at the committee and some of the submissions that were presented. I take exception to what the Minister has just been saying. He has been trying to back up the fact that he says his Government is tough on crime when everybody knows that the Labour Government is soft on crime. If you look at what laws they have passed in this House— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The member cannot bring the Chair into the debate. She has said: “If you look” which is referring to me. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I am sorry. If anybody looks at the laws that have been passed in this House they will know that the most disgraceful legislation of all has been the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. We now have sentences that can be reduced down to one-third so if somebody gets 9 years he is out in 3. On top of that we have serious offenders who are on home detention. We have people sentenced to community work and they do not even turn up. That was the big revelation over the weekend. They are sentenced to 100 hours of community work and what happens? They do not turn up and the poor probation officers have a problem on their hands. But does this Government seem to care? No. It talks tough but it does nothing. 
I want to talk a little bit about DNA sampling because DNA technology is the most effective crime-fighting tool ever invented. We should be expanding DNA technology to the widest possible level. I want the Minister to take a call to answer a couple of very very important questions. With all this DNA stuff going on what is the Government going to do about the critical shortage of workers at Environmental Science and Research? We already know that there is a year-long waiting list for samples from burglary and so on to be analysed by that institute. That means that the case has to be put on hold for a year people are on bail for a year and the police cannot actually get on with finishing the job because of the backlog at Environmental Science and Research. When it comes to worse crime like methamphetamine-related crime the cops know they have to wait for 2 years before those labs will be investigated by Environmental Science and Research. 
I am sure the Minister will tell us that the Government has more scientists coming out from England and so on but I want him to tell us whether the Government is going to give the police specific ring-fenced funding for DNA testing. Under the points in this bill DNA testing will be much more comprehensive. The police at the moment have to find that from within their budgets and we are talking about a police force that is still understaffed under-resourced and over-stressed with a Government that is squeezing police funding every single year compared with what used to happen as a percentage of all Government spending. The Minister can shake his head but if he looks at the figures he will see that that is the case. The real numbers have gone up but the percentage of Government spending has gone down since Labour has been in power. 
I want to reflect on some of the advantages of DNA technology. The information I have comes from the Home Office in Britain where they have comprehensive funding for DNA technology and competitive work in the actual sampling of DNA testing so that the analysis is done not only by a Government agency but by the private sector which I think is the model that New Zealand needs to duplicate. 
The Home Office knows that if burglary does not have DNA samples associated with it only 15 percent of those cases are solved whereas with DNA 58 percent are solved. As far as non-burglary offences are concerned if there is no DNA only 10 percent of those cases are solved; but if there is DNA 54 percent of those crimes are solved. 
So it goes on. Regarding property theft we find that if there is no DNA only 6 percent of those crimes are solved and with DNA evidence 51 percent of those crimes are solved. The numbers are overwhelming. DNA solves crimes but we have to have a Government that has a commitment to solving crime and is prepared to resource the police properly so that those crimes can be solved in a timely fashion. In England the DNA samples take 2 weeks to come back; here it is 2 years.