Huo Raymond; Tolley AnneRAYMOND HUO (Chairperson of the Justice Committee): Thank you Madam Chair. The Justice Committee conducted Estimates hearings for Vote Justice Vote Courts Vote Police Vote Serious Fraud Office Vote Attorney-General Vote Parliamentary Counsel and finally Vote Corrections. The total annual and permanent appropriations for Vote Justice in 2018-19 are $478.989 million and the appropriations for Vote Corrections are $1.966 billion. This compares with the final budgeted expenditure of $1.803 billion in 2017-18 and is 10 percent more than the estimated actual expenditure of $1.794 billion. Reforming the criminal justice system is one of the highlights of Vote Justice. Minister Andrew Little told us that the rate of criminal reoffending has remained largely constant and prison numbers are rising rapidly and more violent offences are being committed. We heard that harsher sentencing has not reduced the rate of criminal reoffending over the last 10 to 15 years as intended. Moreover reoffending among youth and offending involving violent crime has increased. This has been seen as a failure in the system because the aim of the system is to have fewer victims. We asked how the Government intends to reduce the rate of criminal reoffending given that in 2012 the then National Government announced the target of reducing the rate of reoffending by 25 percent by June 2016. However in the year of 2016 the reoffending rate decreased by less than 4 percent and therefore the National Government at that time dropped the target. The Minister said that serious criminal offences justify a custodial sentence but when someone's offending is related to mental health issues or addiction the focus should be on fixing those issues. We also heard from Minister Kelvin Davis that 90 percent of prisoners have mental health issues at some point in their lifetimes. Forty-six percent of prisoners have had some kind of mental health issue in past years and that's one of the reasons why the Government has chosen to dedicate resources to 100 mental health units at Waikeria. We heard from Minister Little about his plans to reduce Māori reoffending and to have additional funding for criminal rehabilitation. The Government's priority is to start with the criminal justice summit which will develop reform proposals. We heard from Minister Stuart Nash that Budget 2018 has left police very well placed to deliver the high quality of service that the general public rightly expects from them. The Government's priority is to ensure police are adequately funded to help keep the communities safe. The safer ethnic communities forum held in May 2018 connected ethnic communities with several Ministers and their agencies together with the Commissioner of Police and his colleagues to work on a long-term plan to improve safety in the ethnic communities. The feedback from the ethnic communities was very positive. We also heard from the commissioner that the forum helped to break down perception barriers about the police and to open lines of communication. For Vote Attorney-General and Vote Parliamentary Counsel we heard from Minister David Parker about the appointment of judgeships the judiciary resourcing model and access to secondary legislation project. Thank you Madam Chair. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I call Mark Mitchell—the Hon Mark Mitchell I beg your pardon.