Goldsmith PaulHon PAUL GOLDSMITH (National): Thank you Madam Speaker. The National Party will be supporting this bill the Ram Raid Offending and Related Measures Amendment Bill insofar as it gives the justice system in the broader sense more tools to deal with the real problem of ram raids. But we do make the point that here we are in the last week of Parliament and finally the Government has woken up to the issue.I want to start with the rhetoric shift. So we had a couple of questions today asking the Minister of Justice about her crackdown on crime" from this Government. It was only a year or so ago that the previous justice Minister would be getting stuck into us for "knee-jerk reactions to crimes" she would say—knee-jerk reactions to crime. Then she'd say "You don't want to be doing all this stuff because they'd just end up in prison—the university of crime—and that's just what the gangs want." So there was all the rhetoric about how any criticism of the Government being soft on crime was a "knee-jerk reaction." Now the Government Ministers are talking about a "crackdown on crime." It is interesting. Six years ago of course they were only interested in reducing the prison population come what may. So we've had that change over a period of time leading to this bill.Then we had a period where they denied the problem. So this is about ram raids. When we were raising the issue of ram raids about a year ago or 18 months ago when people were worried about the very serious crime of people stealing cars smashing them into businesses costing tens of thousands of dollars frightening the business owners the small mum and dad shopkeepers trying to make a living putting up their insurance costs making it so difficult to do their business—Mark Mitchell myself and Chris Luxon we've all been visiting those businesses. We've seen the tears in the eyes of these New Zealanders who are terrified and so frustrated that they're doing everything they can to build a business give customers what they want to grasp the Kiwi Dream and it's getting smashed in front of them and there are no consequences for the young children. That is the repeated message that we get time and time again: no consequences.Now when we put this to the Government about a year ago or 18 months ago they denied there's a problem: "No no no. Crime is coming down" the Minister would say. "Crime is coming down." Well of course if you only do half the number of drink-driving tests you're going to get fewer convictions of drink driving—that stands to reason. And that's what's happened. There's been a massive reduction in basic sort of testing for those sorts of things. And if you change your mind around drug enforcement policy and say you're not going to prosecute people for possession of drugs well there's going to be a massive drop in prosecution for drugs. That does not mean that crime has come down. But they would say "Oh crime is coming down. There's nothing to worry about here. These guys are just fearmongering." And now about a few months later they decided "Well actually maybe there is something going on in our streets." They heard the choppers overhead every night in Auckland and they realised "Yes there is maybe something that we need to deal with." So Chris Hipkins' police Minister started to talk tough about a year ago.The problem is they talked tough about a year ago and that was at the time when Chris Hipkins announced the "circuit breakers" that we were going to have. We were going to deal with this about a year ago and still we've got two ram raids a day on average. The problem is not solved; the problem is getting worse. So here we are one week before we close the Parliament and the Government is piling in all these bills at the last moment—a flood of bills in the last week. The last gasp of a dying Government in order to look like they are trying to do something on this issue.They would be much better to have picked up the National Party's suggestion way back in October last year around youth crime which is about creating a new category: the young serious offenders. That would have been a useful thing they could have done about a year ago in order to deal with serious repeat youth offenders. Because everybody agrees that for most young people that have an encounter with the justice system—it's that they do it they do something stupid they make a mistake they get involved with the system and a light touch is a good idea because you don't want to get them drawn into the maw of the justice system. A light touch a rehabilitation focus works. But that works for most; but it doesn't work for everybody. For that small group of very serious repeat offenders—people doing things like ram raids and aggravated robberies—we need something more. We need extra tools. And that's why we suggested the young serious offender category. That's why we suggested the youth military academies which was pooh-poohed on the other side of the House. What have they come up with—what have they come up with? Nothing really. They've just sort of—a lot of talk.Then finally—finally—in the last week of Parliament they come up with a suggestion around making it an aggravating factor if you take a video of a ram raid. Well we agree with that. That's something that the National Party announced a month or so earlier. And yes yep we agree with it—good; great. And they're going to allow 12- and 13-year-olds to be proceeded against for a ram raid offence in the Youth Court without being a previous offender—good we agree with that. So yes big tick we'll support this piece of legislation. If we're in Government it will form a part of the much wider and much more comprehensive process that we'll have to restore law and order in this country which is what we need in this country right here right now.When we're out on the doorsteps and when I'm out on the doorsteps of Epsom doorknocking there are two issues that people raise time and time again: they raise the cost of living and they raise law and order. Cost of living because everybody's struggling to make ends meet; law and order because they know what's going on in the community. They never believed when Kiri Allan and Chris Hipkins and Ginny Andersen and Poto Williams and Kelvin Davis and—who was other guy?—Stuart Nash—are there any others?—Kris Faafoi and Andrew Little the whole kaleidoscope of these people over the years tried to tell them that were talking nonsense when they said that they were worried about crime. They tried to downplay it. The Government said "No no no. Crime is falling. There's nothing to see here" even though the police were only doing half the number of checks—and there was all sorts of reasons behind that. People saw it on the streets. They felt it. They saw the ram raids. They saw the violent attacks. They saw the knife crime. They saw the shootings. They hear the helicopter overhead. They hear the roaring of the bikie gangs in the distance everywhere. They know that they feel less safe in their communities and they want a response.So after years of denial and years of focus solely on the target of reducing the prison population irrespective of what's going on in the community the Government's finally woken up. But I'm sorry it's too little too late. They should have got their act together a lot earlier and actually come up with a comprehensive bill. They should have listened to what the National Party was talking about and maybe we could have done something together some time ago. Having said all that this bill will go some way. On that basis we support it."