Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Madam Chair thank you. We've had a bit of debate from various speakers around prison and what that represents and we've received a long-term report from officials around the changes in the make-up of New Zealand's prison population; 20 to 30 years ago there were far more people there on property crime—stealing things—and on drug crime. Now the prison population is very much more—almost exclusively—serious violent crime and sexual crimes with some very serious drug dealing in the mix. And so I struggle to understand the point of view of my colleague from the Māori Party Rawiri Waititi who sort of implied that people shouldn't be there given the very significant crimes that they have been convicted of before being there. And so I was just interested to know whether the Minister in terms of the overall spending and the focus of policy in justice—as I've iterated the current Government's philosophy is to reduce that prison population irrespective of what's going on by 30 percent. We had her predecessor as Minister of Justice saying Locking people up and throwing away the key is exactly what gangs want. They want New Zealanders to pay for their university of crime." That was a quote—a tweet—from our previous Minister of Justice Kiri Allan. And I just want to know whether the current Minister of Justice has the same philosophy or view that prisons are some sort of university of crime and therefore something to not support or to try and avoid at all costs.It's relevant I suppose because of the very widespread public anger—I think would be the right word—over a recent prominent case where somebody who had been convicted of a serious violent crime was on home detention and then went on to commit a horrendous crime in Auckland; a shooting. And many people ask "Well how is it that somebody convicted of a serious violent crime is left in the community and actually able to go and work?" And so my broader question is—and of course there are always going to be various instances and exceptions but is she broadly comfortable with the practice that has developed of people convicted of serious violent crimes not going to prison but being on home detention? And if she is well that's fine because that seems to be the approach because there is no significant change proposed by this Government. But I want to know whether she has given real consideration to restricting in some way the ability of judges to massively reduce sentences to the point of home detention for a whole host of reasons. And so that's one area that I'd like to get some better understanding from her. We would make the point that public safety should be the priority and where people have been convicted of serious violent crimes in most cases the most appropriate thing is to get them out of circulation for a period of time so that they cannot create new victims. That seems to be the issue and so I'd be interested to know what the current situation is: how many people are currently on home detention who have been convicted of serious violent offences? That would be a useful thing for us to know so that we can understand the scale of the problem. And ultimately does she think that is—not in an individual sense because no Minister should comment on individual cases but the Minister is responsible for the Sentencing Act and so I want to know whether she has a view whether the current arrangements where people can be convicted of serious violent offences and end up on home detention is something that she is satisfied with or whether she thinks some review of the Sentencing Act is required as the National Party is proposing because she has been quoted as saying "People are frustrated with the level of crime." and so the fundamental question is what's she proposing to do about it differently?"