Tolley AnneHon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister for Children): Well if you listen to some of the speeches in the House you would think that the country is going to hell in a handbasket but the reality is there may well have been an increase this year but actually that comes after successive years of decreases in crime. So yes you have had a bit of a blip but the good news is that this country is the fourth-safest country in the world—the fourth safest—and that is not good enough for this Government. We want to make it the safest country in the world. We want to make it the safest country.So Budget 2017 which is what we are supposed to be addressing now invests $1.2 billion in new operating expenditure over the next 4 years. There is $785.6 million of capital expenditure for law and order—the half-billion dollar Safer Communities package for police. I tell you we are getting three new constables in Ōpōtiki and we cannot wait. We cannot wait.We are boosting the police staff by 10 percent. I have been a Minister of Police and I can tell that member Kris Faafoi who has just resumed his seat we did not underfund police. We did not underfund the police. We have supported the New Zealand Police. We should all be very proud of our police service. We have the best in the world I think and they do a great job.In Budget 2017 there is a payment of just under $50 million over the next 4 years in operating funding particularly focused on two areas. The first is burglary. When you look at the burglary statistics what we see is that we have a large number of people who become repeat victims of burglary and we have a small core of young people who are committing petty crime and small burglaries. So there is $32.9 million—just under $33 million—to provide some rehabilitation and reintegration services for those young burglars. It is aimed particularly at those who are under the age of 25. If we can get them while they are still young—before they as they often do in the justice system go on to better and bolder" things—and get them some good rehabilitation before the age of 25 we have got a good chance of halting that criminal activity and getting them back on the straight and narrow.So we are aiming at young people under the age of 25 whose cognitive development is still happening and who are most at risk of committing those long-term crimes. In addition to that part of that money is of course to provide assistance to their victims to make sure that they can stop themselves from being re-victimised. I am talking about things like window locks security lights bolt locks etc. etc. Just under $14 million of that fund is to provide professional youth mentoring which again is focused on that group under the age of 25. What we have seen have a really good response is cognitive behaviour therapy. So Budget 2017 invests a great deal more funding into providing that cognitive behaviour therapy for those young youth offenders.It pays to think carefully about our youth justice sector because the principle of it is to keep young people out of the court system. The worst thing we can do for young people is send them off to prison where they mix with quite hardened criminals who inhabit our prisons these days and they learn how to be better criminals. The whole youth justice system is predicated on keeping young people out of the system and helping them get back on the straight and narrow. Again the good news is that under this Government we have had a 45 percent reduction in the number of young offenders who have to go in front of the Youth Court—a 45 percent reduction. They are dealt with by family group conferences. They are dealt with by police diversion. There is community work—there is a whole range of things that we do with young people who have committed some of those petty crimes at the less serious end of offending. An important part of that of course is restorative justice—making sure that they understand what the consequences are."