Tolley Anne: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 22 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18279. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): It is a great privilege to stand and take a call in this Budget debate today. We in this National-led Government are very proud of our 2014-15 Budget. We are very proud of its family focus including $500 million of support for New Zealand families which has found favour with New Zealanders right across the country. In my own electorate of East Coast which has many families struggling to make ends meet and too many communities with very high socialdeprivation the free doctors visits for children up to the age of 13 have been welcomed. I would say that they have been extremely welcomed and I have had numerous phone calls into my office. Also as an area where many women are working one two or in some cases three seasonal jobs the expansion of the criteria for paid parental leave has also met a great need as we seek to support newborns and their mums in those early weeks and months.We in this National-led Government are extremely proud of our Prime Minister and our Minister of Finance who have steered this country through some of the toughest economic times ever seen since 1931. We have been very lucky to have the leadership that we have had from John Key and Bill English. We in this National-led Government are very proud that we are to be finally back in surplus ahead of most of the developed world without having to have made the savage cuts that we have seen our friends around the world have to make in countries like the US the UK and then just recently our closest neighbour Australia.How wise our leaders were to resist the calls from the Opposition—Labour and the Greens—to spray millions and millions of dollars around to artificially stimulate the economy to create jobs. They were largely make-work jobs that Opposition members were talking about. That was what they were begging us to do at the time. They are not saying that now of course. Now they are saying that they would have done the same as us that they would have been fiscally responsible etc. But actually in this House they opposed every single change that this Government made to try to restrain Government spending which had got out of control under the previous Labour Government. But look let us face it: the Opposition never lets the facts get in the way of a good story.This Budget delivers so much to our communities in ways that we know will make a tremendous difference like $22 million to budgeting services. What a great job our budgeting services around the country do. I know that in Gisborne andWhakatāne as a result of our welfare reforms their offices have been working with more and more families. They have welcomed the extra resources because that enables them to make huge changes and differences in the lives of some of New Zealand’s families.An amount of $33 million will go to help the most vulnerable in our community the children who are at the greatest risk of being bashed of being beaten and in some cases of being killed. I was delighted that the Minister for Social Development today announced those extra Children’s Teams. Two of them are coming into my electorate—one in Gisborne and one inWhakatāne. Both communities have a dreadful record of vulnerable children being hurt by those who should be taking care of them.We in this National-led Government are proud that Budget 2014 builds on the hugely successful results in recent years in reducing crime and reducing reoffending to make sure that we have fewer victims out in our communities and that more New Zealanders can feel safe in their homes in their communities and in their workplaces. I want to put it on record here today that the police and corrections will continue to target their resources to where they know they will make the most difference and they will work smarter. They will work smarter because that is what it is all about. It is very clear that the Opposition does not understand that. It thinks that if you throw more money at something it is going to get better results. We know that that is not the way it works. We know that we can deliver better public services by actually working smarter. Certainly in the justice sector we are seeing that on a daily basis—working together and working smarter. The Opposition does not understand that.Can I say here today that the police’s core operating budget is being maintained at $1.46 billion in 2014-15. I know that the Opposition has tried to make much of some expenditure from last year that has not been carried over into the 2014-15 year and has described it as cuts. Well that is just not true. Restructuring human resources andfinance implementing the Criminal Procedure Act a road policing underspend sending more people off to the Solomons—these are things that happen just once so why on earth would you carry over the funding for that into another year? I know that it is really difficult to read Budget figures when you are in Opposition and they are just looking for a quick headline but actually the facts are that the police’s baseline funding has been maintained. And we have seen over the last 4 years as the police budget has been maintained that they have worked hard to reduce recorded crime to a 30-year low. We have seen a reduction in crime of 20 percent and they have done that by working together and working smarter.We have heard the Labour Opposition criticising the police for that. Opposition members minimise the effort that the police have put into reducing those crime rates by saying that it is happening all around the world. Well I can tell you that it is not happening around the world to the extent that it is in New Zealand. We are world leaders. Our police are doing a fantastic job and they deserve the support of every member of this House to pat them on the back. People out and about tell me that foot patrols—having more police wandering around in the central business district keeping an eye on what is happening and out and about in vulnerable neighbourhoods—make them feel safe and actually stop crime from happening in the first place. This is about how we work smarter and support our police to deliver safe communities.Budget 2014 also supports the Prime Minister’s Better Public Services targets to reduce reoffending rates by 25 percent by 2017. Corrections are doing a fantastic job. They have increased drug and alcohol rehabilitation places both for prisoners and for those who are serving community sentences alongside providing much much greater access to education and skills training because we know that those are the things that will make a difference to the lives of those people as they finish their sentences and go back into our communities. Seven and a half thousand prisoners leave prison and go back into our communities. The Government invested $96 million over 4 years to increase that rehabilitation and we now have 9300 fewer victims of crime a year as a result of a 12.5 percent reduction in reoffending. That is making an enormous difference to the lives both of the offenders and of the people in their communities.We in the National-led Government are proud of our justice sector and we back it. We applaud its hard work and its dedication and we encourage the sector in its desire to work smarter and to deliver better results and safer communities. We know that cash is not king as our colleague Shane Jones talked about last night. Cash is not king. When it comes to public services it is the results that count. It is better results for New Zealanders and in the justice sector it is better results so that people can feel safe living in their communities. I am proud to be part of a National-led Government standing and delivering the 2014 Budget.