Alexander Marc: Budget Debate 
Alexander Marc: Budget Debate 
[Volume:608;Page:5869] 
MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
: 
 We have a $4 billion surplus: $11600000 is earmarked for the arts $45 million for sport and recreation and $28 million for a yacht race but what is going to crime and the causes of crime? We are disappointed that at-risk children in high-risk families have for the most part missed out in the Government’s Budget. Early childhood intervention is surely one of the key strategies in lowering the rates of crime and child abuse in this country and in breaking the cycle of crime later on. The Action for Children and Youth Aotearoa report produced in August 2002 concluded that New Zealand is failing to protect children from violence and falling below United Nations requirements for meeting their needs. Family violence costs this country an average of $1.2 billion per year. That figure is conservative and does not include the emotional costs to children and the family. In other words non-intervention quite simply costs us more—up to 19 times more by some calculations—than effective early intervention by non-governmental organisations like the Family Help Trust. The allocation of $600000 to better resource Project Early—a Christchurch intervention programme for children—and to seed it in parallel schemes in Auckland is to be applauded and welcomed. It is about time! 
But why is this Government putting $17 million in operating and $22 million in capital resources into looking at establishing a Supreme Court that neither the public nor the legal profession has asked for when it has only put $2 million into victim support organisations? Members should not get me wrong. That $2 million is absolutely essential to help restructure victim support so that its delivery of services reaches the same high standards right throughout the country and enables the establishment of a more efficient and seamless district structure comprising 14 districts so that all volunteers get the requisite training and supports and that the Victims Rights Act is clearly understood and deliverable. But more needs to be done. 
An additional 50 Auckland-based police for which the Budget sets aside funding is wholly inadequate when what is needed is about 1500 police nationwide—a figure that would be comparable to the successful New York initiative which saw the rates of murder violent crimes and burglaries plummet. Where is the allocation of funds to neighbourhood support schemes so that innocent New Zealanders are empowered to help protect themselves? Surely that is one of the key objectives in empowering communities to take charge of their streets and their lives. It would be a bridge between the police the judicial arm and the people of this country. 
I am gratified that $10 million has been tagged to fund two specialist police teams to deal with a scourge of methamphetamine laboratories organised crime and terrorism. Money to fund a specialist DNA collection team is to be equally applauded and $2.6 million additional funding over 4 years for the youth suicide prevention strategy targeting families in which suicide has occurred or been attempted is to be congratulated. I question whether it is enough but it is in the right direction. 
I cannot help but feel that overall the Budget has favoured what we do with offenders rather than what we do with victims of crime. Offenders are still the focal point. Without raising another red cent from the taxpayers of New Zealand and the bleeding pockets of hard-working New Zealanders we could raise between $270 and $300 million if our prison system was as fiscally efficient as the privately run Auckland remand prison. 
 With what we save we could look at better funding for victims restoration—including restitution as well—and more and better equipped police. Our police right now do not have radio systems that are encrypted—why not? We have to equip them if we expect them to do the right job. As far as law and order issues are concerned the Budget points its nose in the right direction but the feet are not quite moving fast enough. We could and we must do better.