Tolley Anne: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeTolley Anne: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 05 June 2013. Volume:690;Page:10734. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNE TOLLEY (Minister of Police): Budget 2013 was a very good Budget—a very good Budget—for New Zealanders. It confirms that New Zealand is on the right track it forecasts economic growth for New Zealanders it forecasts more jobs for New Zealanders it forecasts rising wages for New Zealanders and it forecasts a return to surplus for the Government’s books by 2014-15. They are all the issues that matter to New Zealanders right across the country all the issues that this Government has been talking about for the last 4 years and I have to say all the things that the Labour-Green Opposition has consistently opposed at every opportunity. The Budget builds on the momentum created over the last 4 years as this Government has grappled with probably the deepest depression in the economy since the 1930s—the global financial crisis—and the dreadful earthquakes that have wreaked such havoc in our second-largest city the beautiful city of Christchurch.In order to rebuild this country’s economic performance this National-led Government has set four priorities: firstly to responsibly manage the books and it is clear from the Budget that we are doing an excellent job of that; secondly to build a more competitive and productive economy and again the Budget shows that we are doing exactly that; thirdly to rebuild Christchurch and with an $18 billion investment from this Government we are certainly working hard to rebuild that city; and fourthly to deliver Better Public Services and the Prime Minister has set 10 targets across a range of ministries in order to deliver those services to New Zealanders. It is that latter point that I want to focus on today.If we look at all three of the portfolios that I have responsibility for—police corrections and the Serious Fraud Office—they have certainly had an outstanding year. Corrections was named as the department of the year at the end of last week by theTrans-Tasman. Recorded crime is at its lowest rate in 24 years and reoffending rates have fallen by nearly 9 percent. Budget 2013 provides the platform to continue to see lower crime and further reductions in reoffending and that will enable the portfolios that I have responsibility for to achieve their Better Public Services targets. Budget 2013 makes $10 million available from the Justice Sector Fund over the next 2 years to establish new services to support prisoners on their release into the community and in the next couple of weeks we will be making announcements about the details of this. We have rolled out the expanded programmes within corrections both within our prisons and for community offenders of increased educational opportunities increased skills training and dramatically increased alcohol and drug rehabilitation available to offenders. There is the transference of three prisons into working prisons where prisoners will have a very structured 8-hour day of both working and training. We have revamped youth prisons so that again those young people have a very structured daythat revolves largely around education and gets them into the normal habits of ordinary young New Zealanders to help them when they go back out into the community.It has become clear to us as three-quarters of our prisoners do return to our communities that the next area that we have to focus on is what sort of support we give to those people when they have completed their sentences and are returning to their homes and their families and their communities. So those are simple things like connecting them with the social service agencies that they are going to need to support them through the next few months. As much as we might try to get them all some form of employment that is not always possible. So they do need to have some assistance. They need accommodation. Corrections tells me that several hundred prisoners could be released much earlier into the community if there was accommodation available to them but of course unfortunately many people do not want to have a newly released prisoner living in their street so accommodation becomes very difficult.We do want to provide employment. It is very clear that if we can get ex-offenders into employment as quickly as possible on their release then they have a much better chance of not returning to prison of not breaking the law. Of course for many of them they need ongoing assistance around just plain basic living skills—how to budget how to manage a bank account how to keep themselves and their families clean and well-fed and living normal lives. So we are certainly looking at how we can provide those services to prisoners as they are leaving prison in particular and whether that sort of programme needs to be extended to some of our more high-risk community offenders.It is interesting when you look at the results that corrections has seen over the last 4½ years that we are starting to see that drop in reoffending rates—nearly 9 percent. We have set a target of 25 percent by 2017. When you consider where corrections came from—when this Government took office the probation service had been run into the ground. Under the previous Labour Government it was seriously understaffed and seriously underfunded. This Government injected $255 million into the probation service alone to try to get it back into some shape so that it could deliver services to do the job that New Zealanders expect it to do. The result of that now 4½ years later under this Government is that the Department of Corrections has been named the department of the year.Even though the day after that came out we did experience a group of prisoners—29 prisoners—in Spring Hill Corrections Facility running rampant it was interesting to me and heartening to me to see that the response from the corrections officers was absolutely perfect. They followed their professional code to the letter. They showed that the extra effort and resources that we have put into safety training have paid off. They followed those procedures and protocols exceptionally well but more important when it became clear that fire—which is the worst possible danger in a prison where you have and we did have many prisoners who had locked themselves in their cells rather than participate—was involved those prison officers then risked their lives to go in and save the prisoners who had set fire to their own surroundings. They were very brave actions and fortunately for me as Minister I would say that we are very lucky that we had no serious injuries out of that for either our officers or any of our prisoners.Budget 2013 has set us up in police corrections and the Serious Fraud Office for another exceptional year as part of the justice sector that this Government is ensuring is effective and is delivering good public services to New Zealanders right across the country.