Pugh MaureenMAUREEN PUGH (National): It is my pleasure to stand to speak to the Appropriation (2015/16 Confirmation and Validation) Bill here today. I am pleased to be taking this call as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee and to contribute to this debate on behalf of the justice sector.This Government has set itself four priorities and one of those is to deliver Better Public Services—so building a safer New Zealand is of course an important part of that plan. As we have heard today New Zealand is currently ranked fourth in the world for safety. We are not taking our foot off the pedal; we actually want New Zealand to be No. 1 in the world. So we are approaching that with a great deal of enthusiasm and as a result we have been very active in the Justice and Electoral Committee working on many pieces of legislation.One of those is the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot which is under way now. It is working with 24000 people and building safety plans around them in an integrated way that brings together many organisations agencies and NGOs because we understand that it is only when these agencies work together that we actually do a better job with these families in keeping them safer. The agencies that are working together in this pilot are the New Zealand Police Child Youth and Family the Department of Corrections the Ministry of Health Māori services and a specialist family violence NGO.Another piece of work that the committee has been working on over the past year has been the historical homosexual convictions scheme. This has been a very difficult one emotionally for the committee to tackle. It also was difficult listening to the submissions of people involved in those historical convictions. The Government is going to be working on an expungement of those historical convictions so that these people can actually move on. It is hoped that this will be introduced in 2018 when the essential laws have been passed.Another major piece of work that has been undertaken in the past year has been the modernisation of 108-year-old legislation through the judicature modernisation legislation. A major part of that legislation has been the changes to the court systems bringing them into the 21st century by using technology. A major part of that has been the audiovisual links that are now being rolled out. There are already 20 courthouses that have those links installed and are using that technology. Of course this allows the participants in the court proceedings to appear via audiovisual link rather than in person and for prisoners on remand it means that they are also not required to be transported to the courts—it does not take up valuable resources in staff and vehicles. So this is a better faster cheaper easier and of course safer system. For example it is estimated that the Hastings District Court now has the potential to hold more than 800 of these court appearances by audiovisual link—so those savings are clearly obvious.One of the other issues that the Government has been working on very hard since the earthquakes in Canterbury has been the Christchurch Justice and Emergency Services Precinct—a $300 million project. It brings together all of the justice and emergency services into one precinct. There are 19 courts encompassing the High Court the District Court the Family Court the Youth Court the Māori Land Court the Environment Court and of course other specialist jurisdictions. Beside these are the emergency services: fire police and the Order of St John as well as civil defence and emergency management agencies. This is expected to be fully operational within the next few months. Indeed I was talking to a potential staff member there yesterday who said the precinct is absolutely superb—it is groundbreaking in terms of the template that it will set for other facilities across the country.This Government has been busy with the Safer Communities package it has introduced an offenders levy and it is also committed to much more policing: 880 more front-line police. So justice and community safety is hugely important to this Government and we are continuing to invest.Reports noted.