Davis KelvinHon KELVIN DAVIS (Minister of Corrections): Thank you Madam Chair. I'd just like to express my thanks to the member who's just taken a call David Bennett for his concern for my well-being but let me just say that it's really unnecessary. He's saying that it's an impossible task for a Government to reduce a prison population; well let me say that there are jurisdictions all around the world who have successfully done that and the crime rate hasn't risen and communities have been kept safe. So our goal in corrections is to make sure that those people who should be in prison will be in prison. Here's the good news: the member spoke about the forecasts and the prison population rising—we know that the previous Government took those forecasts as a target; we treat them as a warning and we're doing something about it. He's already said Well what are you doing about it? Where's the plan?" Let me say now if he looks at the trend in the prison population since we became the Government—it was about 10400—it actually went up to 10800 and is now actually less than what it was when we became the Government. They keep saying that we're just going to ease up on bail laws sentencing laws and parole laws. Well actually none of that's happened but just through good practice and helping people the prison population has reduced.So what have we done to help people? Well one of the things that we've done is to assist people who are seeking bail. Here's a nice little story: there are people who are arrested and then they're asked to fill out applications for bail and if they don't have the application filled out the judge has no alternative but to remand them in prison. Simply by having Department of Corrections staff help people who are illiterate to fill out a bail form it actually gives a judge a choice on what to do with that prisoner. It's a simple little thing that has really started to work.In Budget 2018 we have $517.6 million extra for operational expenses. I'm not going to stand here and crow about it because that means actually that something's wrong if we just keep on investing in prisons. The member who just spoke also said "So what is the Government's plan?"—well everything that the Government is doing in every area really is working to reduce the prison population. If you look at our Families Package and those sorts of initiatives they're helping people get the best start in their lives so that they don't actually go on to commit crime and end up in prison in the first place.So we're looking to lift 384000 families out of poverty. If only 0.1 percent of 384000 we had an impact on making sure that 0.1 percent of their children didn't go into prison that's something like 400 children who over the next 15 years won't actually end up in prison. So we're talking about the long-term stuff in all of our Government's practices not just the short and sharp end of the stuff in corrections.We got $57.6 million in the Budget over four years to help with housing because we know that when an offender is released from prison and has nowhere to live nowhere to go then chances are that that person will reoffend. Not only are we helping them with accommodation but we're wrapping support around them so that they don't go on to reoffend in the future as well. It's all about looking after people not just while they're in prison but also while they're out of prison. One of the things I've asked corrections to do is start to reach further into a prisoner's sentence to start supporting them on their transition out of prison. At present they might get help a couple of days before they leave prison and they might get help for a couple of weeks afterwards. I'm saying we might have to reach further into their sentence and take longer to transition them and for some people we may need to take longer to transition them out and support them not to go on and reoffend. The previous Government the mistake they made is they just said "Do a course while you're in prison and when you go out be a nice person and don't reoffend." The thing is that we need to keep supporting people long before their sentence ends and later."