Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you for the call Mr Chair. Well what an absolute hospital pass of a hand grenade that this Government got within the justice sector. We have got an outrageously high prisoner number—outrageously high prisoner number—and climbing and climbing. What we've heard from Mr Bishop just now is an example about perhaps why that's occurred. He talked about the cost of the extra 1800 police and what's been brought up at least this week is highlighting how the National Party always knows the cost of everything and the value of nothing—the cost of everything and the value of nothing. You know we heard Matt King last night when he was speaking on this sector as well and apparently the police force are all hunky-dory—they're all happy. He spent five minutes patting them on the back saying how hard working they are—because they are—but what he didn't recognise was how much harder they've had to work under the National Government just to get their heads above water. How can the police force be happy and hunky-dory when we've got stats like this? Riddle me this Mr King—riddle me this. From 2012 to 2017 there's been a net loss of 16 sworn police officers—a net loss. At the same time over that same period there's been an increase of 400000 in the New Zealand population. Negative—Matt King: Fake news. DARROCH BALL: Oh it's fake news—there was a member that said Fake news." I can table this document if he wants. That's just sworn police officers but that member knows being an ex-police officer that there's non-sworn police officers—the backroom people right? So if you add them all up the total police number including the sworn and non-sworn was 12109 in 2012. That went down by the time it got to 2017 by 269 in total. That's the level of underfunding which has been quite the topic this week and I'm guessing since the election really when this Government has looked at the books and looked at the infrastructure but especially over the last couple of weeks—the total underfunding of basic services in this country. Now one thing that John Key promised when he came in in 2008 was to ensure that the police numbers didn't go down below the ratio of 1:500 sworn police officers per number of people. That was 498 in 2012 and it's gone skyrocketing to 542—1:542—in 2017. That's the highest it's been—the highest it's been. But according to the National Party who've been taking speeches on this justice sector it's been hunky-dory. It's been fine! The justice system is fine! Oh and what did we hear as well? Crime's down apparently. Crime's down! The youth justice system is working quite well!If crime was down why have we got overflowing prisons? Think about it in a very logical sense. Why would we have to be spending an extra billion dollars on another prison if the crime was down? Matt King: It is. DARROCH BALL: See this is the fake news. They just don't get it. They just don't get it. They just can't understand the basic equation. How can it be down if the prison numbers are going up—skyrocketing? The other thing that Mr Bishop was talking about was Better Public Services targets. Well I'm pretty certain that he has forgotten that just recently when the National Party was in Government they got rid of a certain Better Public Services target because they didn't achieve it—because they didn't achieve it. The target I'm referring to is the target to reduce reoffending. Was that the one that we were talking about Minister? The target to reduce reoffending by 25 percent—the National Party when in Government didn't even achieve 5 percent. They didn't even achieve a 5 percent reoffending reduction. What did the National Party want to do? What did the National Party want to do? We just got lectured by that member Mr Bishop who said "Why would anyone want to get rid of targets? Why would anyone want to get rid of Better Public Services targets?" So National didn't readjust the target or explain why they couldn't and say "Let's put more resources in." They got rid of it. They just got rid of it. National also had a target to reduce violent offending. What happened with violent offending? It went skyrocketing. It went up. So what happened to those targets Mr Bishop? You got rid of them. The National Government in the last year has underfunded this sector."