Collins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s StatementText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCollins Judith: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement[Sitting date: 01 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9247. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon JUDITH COLLINS (Minister of Corrections):What a pleasure to be able to take a call on the Prime Minister’s statement. I must say I am so delighted to be back as the Minister of Police and the Minister of Corrections as well as obviously being the MP for Papakura. I have to say in the last couple of months when I have been coming back into the role it has been so good to go and visit the police and the Department of Corrections and also to have a look at some of the other work that is going on but also to be back helping to make decisions around where we go to from here because we have had some amazing achievements in the whole justice sector in the last 6 or 7 years.When I think about the fact that we are now at the lowest recorded crime rate since 1978 we have reduced the number of offences—“we” as in the whole of Government and all of the wonderful agencies working with us—by 100000 over the last 5 years. It is a tremendous achievement and I would just like to sing out basically a bit of praise for the policethe Department of Corrections and all the other agencies and NGOs as well as the Government agencies working together to bring that about. We have crime rates down. We have youth crime down. We have all of those areas down but one area thatI think we have all felt the need to get better progress in is family violence.If we look at family violence—and I know that this is a real topic in our entire justice sector. The reason is that family violence actually leads to more violence. One of the things that we have done today is to make some announcements—my colleague Anne Tolley and I—around gangs. In my particular announcements around the Gang Intelligence Centre which is based in the police but works across a whole raft of agencies from the Ministry of Social Development to the Department of Corrections to Immigration New Zealand to the Customs Service and to others as well—what the centre does is it really goes after and targets gangs.You might ask why we would do that—why I am saying that in the same breath as I am talking about family violence.Well actually there is a very good reason.Sixty percent of children who grow up in gang homes are the victims of family violence—so that is 60 percent—so much so and so violent that Child Youth and Family are involved. We are not talking about a smack on the hand; we are talking about children being abused and/or neglected so much so that Child Youth and Family is involved. That is a pretty staggering thing to say is it not?Igo to the prisons and talk to the prison directors—who used to be called prison managers but they are prison directors now and I did that just the other day—they say to me that they believe that 90 percent of all of the prisoners in our jails have themselves been victims of family violence as children. When I was first the Minister of Corrections and I went and visited the women’s prisons I found out a little bit about some of the prisoners there and I realised—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable Minister. The time has come for me to leave the Chair.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Tēnā koe e Te Whare tēnā koutou e te whānau o Te Pāremata. Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa.[Greetings to you the House and to the family of Parliament; thank you and acknowledgments to you all.]Members when we adjourned for the evening meal break the Hon Judith Collins was speaking. She has 6 minutes and 30 seconds remaining to speak.Pita Paraone: She was in her stride too.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: Yes that little break can actually stop the flow but let us get back into it. I was speaking I think from memory about visiting our two women’s prisons and realising after discussing some matters with some of the prison staff as well as the prisoners that actually what they had in general—and obviously there are always exceptions—were some of the most abused women in the country. They are abused because the vast majority of them are gang women and they live in a culture of abuse. Yes some of them have gone on to commit dreadful crimes against their own children and some of them have been involved in the methamphetamine trade—they are not there just because they were abused; they are actually there because they have committed very serious crimes—but there is a huge relationship between abuse of children and those children choosing at a later stage to go on to abuse others.That is not to say for a moment that all people who are abused children who are abused or victims are going to then become perpetrators but there is a very serious connection between abuse and that person going on to become an abuser. I think one of the issues that we have learnt is that the abuse of children the abuse of people can lead to trauma. If it is not recognised as a trauma and it is treated as “Well this is what happens in this family. This is what we do. I know let’s put them back with the grandparent who by the way used to abuse the parent.” we are going to continue to have kids being killed in their own homes.In my electorate in Papakura we are a very diverse electorate. There are a lot of gangs there are a lot of really great people and there is a lot of every mixture you could think of but what I also know too is that there are some kids who never get a chance. They never get a chance in life because their own families are so dysfunctional that dysfunctional is simply a word and is basically a platitude because the families are so bad that for their kids home for them is the least safe place that they could ever be. There is a reason that these kids are out on the street at 2 o’clock in the morning as 9-year-olds or whatever. Primarily it is because home is so unsafe. It is not because mum and dad are at work. It is not because something is happening there. It is because home is unsafe and that is what we are dealing with.So when Anne Tolley and I today were discussing and announcing some of the initiatives being put together and announced on the gang initiatives it is not about cracking down it is not about banning and it is not about whatever but it is actually about these kids. If we can try to stop these kids being abused if we can try to stop some of those behaviours we will actually make a difference when it comes to those kids growing up and becoming violent angry people—but mostly angry men—and going on to commit further acts of violence.I also heard tonight that someone said that methamphetamine is not a problem now. That is piffle. Last year in 2015 334.3 kilograms was seized by customs and police. That is three times more than the year before in 2014 when it 98.8 kilograms. We have got a big problem here and this trade is being fuelled by and fuels gang activity. In prisons they say it is more dangerous now for staff because gangs are now working together and they are working together against corrections staff.What I would say to this House is that we have done really well in the law and order area. As a Government we have done great work. Our agencies have worked together. We have worked together for some common goals for the people but I would also say we have got a long way yet to go and we have not solved the problem and we will not solve it until kids can be safe in their own homes and men and women can be safe in their own homes. That is a really sad thing to have to admit—that we have kids growing up in homes where there is no such thing as safety unless dad or mum’s partner is actually put in jail and that that is the best that we can do for some kids. That is just not good enough. We do have a big issue there and we are taking steps to address it.We have dealt with issues before that have been hard. When we first came into Government illegal street racing was a big issue. In 2009 we had six people die 49 people were injured and we had a total of 69 crashes involving illegal street racing. We brought in the laws around vehicle confiscation and crushing. In 2014 there were no deaths 23 injuries and 33 total crashes for that year. This problem has been hit on the head. Yes it still occurs but not anything like it did occur.I would love us to be able to say as a Parliament that we took some steps one day and we actually sorted out family violence in this country. It is a big ask. It is not easy. If it was easy it would have been done. It is a really hard job and I would like us all to work together on it. Thank you.