Penk Chris; Salesa Jenny; Goldsmith Paul; Andersen GinnyCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you Madam Chair. It's traditional when the gallery starts filling up for valedictory remarks to sort of comment self-deprecatingly on how they might all be there to hear you the speaker on justice Estimates and I have to say that it's good to see the debate being so warmly welcomed. Actually I do want to acknowledge if I can and take the liberty to say that there's a couple of people from the Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate who are here no doubt in support of Marja Lubeck. So I acknowledge them coming from the Labour Party and supporting her and Marja herself who is about to give her valedictory. Just briefly in relation to justice matters I wonder if the Minister can address now or undertake to find out if it's the case that the scheme whereby duty lawyers have been incentivised to have their clients plead guilty early—that was something that has come up previously and I think most people have understood that that programme had been discontinued. Her predecessor the honourable Kiritapu Allan had indicated that she was unhappy with it and that it would be discontinued which I would say is a good thing but my understanding anecdotally recently is that actually that isn't the case and in other District Courts that would continue to take place. So I ask the Minister to take that on board and find out if that's indeed so. Finally in relation to the Criminal Process Improvement Programme or CPIP as it's known I wonder if the Minister can explain in her remaining time—short as it is—what positive changes have derived from that or for that matter the Te Ao Mārama programme which had been designed to improve our justice system. But it seems to many casual observers and actually to those who have followed it more closely as well that there hasn't been much tangible gain from those. If the Minister can say otherwise then I would be very interested to hear it in order to be convinced that it's a worthwhile programme to have continue. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): I call on the Hon Paul Goldsmith but just a heads-up that we will be going to valedictory speeches soon. Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I was just wondering if we'd had an answer from the Minister to my previous question around the strangulation fund of $20 million that had been announced with great fanfare to help 800 people a year—I think the number was—who are victims of strangulation or complainants to deal with it. We've found out that a very small number—maybe 50 or 60 a year—had been receiving the help and then secondly we found out that there had been more perpetrators receiving help from that fund than victims or complainants. Given the context of her speech I was wanting to get an update on that figure. Then secondly on the Victims Assistance Scheme which as I said had been deliberately under-promoted from the officials" because they didn't have the funds I wanted to know whether that was still the policy of her Government to deliberately under-promote that scheme or whether she had changed her mind on that and was actually promoting it in order to help victims of crime. Hon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. Just very quickly as I know that we're short on time in relation to the member's question around strangulation or the offence of "impedes breathing" that was a new offence that was introduced under this Government that has resulted in a large increase to the number of family violence offences being reported. So the question he raised was that there was funding made available to the defence in a court case that is made available to the defence if they request it for specialist evidence. That has not made any difference in terms of what the outcomes are and I do have the statistics there that show that the judge's having that information before them assists them in making a good decision. I wouldn't say that it potentially assists either way the defence or the prosecution. So there are approximately just over 1000 people charged with strangulation each year. Since 2019 there have been over 4000 charges and roughly 50 percent of those people who were charged in 2021-22 were convicted and so that was a slight increase on the year before. Of those people charged who were convicted about 37 percent faced imprisonment. So that statistic indicates that while the defence may have had the opportunity for specialist advice we're still seeing good numbers in terms of not only prosecutions but convictions and even a prison term being served for that offence. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jenny Salesa): Members the committee is suspended for valedictory comments. We will resume at 7.30 after dinner.House resumed."