Dean Jacqui: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 30 July 2015. Volume:707;Page:5550. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee): I am very proud to say that under this Government’s very tough and focused stand on law and order New Zealand’s recorded crime rate is almost without exception falling. It is at its lowest level since 1978. That is a record that this Government should be well proud of. But it is not just the Government of course that is delivering services in the justice sector. It is all of those—our police our Department of Corrections our Attorney-General—who run our courts system and all of those in the justice sector who are delivering on behalf of the people of New Zealand.One of the focuses for the National Government is getting the key justice sector agencies—that is the Ministry of Justice the police and the Department of Corrections—to further drive crime down. That is what they are doing because what we want to do is reduce the impact of crime on all New Zealanders and we are also focusing on the victims of crime. I know that my colleagues are keen to pick up that aspect of the justice sector.However several challenges do remain. When she came to our committee the Minister of Justice Amy Adams made a particular point of focusing on those issues. We know that the incidence and also the impact of crime is very unevenly spread. Research has found that 6 percent of adults experience 54 percent of all crime. That is not a figure to be proud of and that is a figure that this Government is focusing on.One area of concern is the overrepresentation of Māori in our criminal justice system both as offenders but also as victims of crime. Māori are imprisoned at a rate of six times the rate of non-Māori and there are other statistics that do not make for good reading. Whether or not they make for good reading is no reason not to focus on them and that is one of the focuses of the Minister and the Ministry of Justice.The other focus that I want to talk about in my contribution is family violence. The Minister acknowledged to the Justice and Electoral Committee that although crime is at a 63-year low the high incidence of family crime is unacceptable to her. It is unacceptable to us and so it should be. Reducing the incidence of family violence is the top priority for the Ministry of Justice. About half of all homicides in New Zealand are as a result of family violence. On average 14 women seven men and eight children are killed by a member of their family every year. These are shameful statistics. Around half of all violent offence charges before the courts relate to domestic violence and in 2013 there were 11700 prosecutions for domestic violence - related offences.So what are we doing about that? In July of last year the Government announced a new package of family violence reforms and I am going to go through those because they are significant and they are important. There is the review of the Domestic Violence Act to ensure that it keeps victims safe and also holds offenders to account. There is the trialling of mobile safety alarms for victims so that they can notify the police of an emergency and of their location. Just as a sidebar the police are now no longer necessarily sitting back at the station waiting for those alarms to go off. They are out in the community using new technologies out on the streets and being proactive in protecting victims of crime.This Government has established a Chief Victims Advisor and that adviser is to the Minister of Justice to advise on the needs and views of victims of crime including domestic violence victims. It is the views of the victims of crime that are so terribly important in putting victims at the centre of our justice system. We have heard through a number of bill considerations that it is the victims who need to have a voice. Whether it is through the victim impact statement or whether it is putting a voice to the impact on victims that is so necessary.