Andersen GinnyHon GINNY ANDERSEN (Minister of Justice): Thank you very much Madam Chair. I'll be quick as we have limited minutes to respond to all those questions.So the first point from Mr Goldsmith who tries to draw a correlation between the decrease in the prison population and an increase in offending. So he's asked if we've had any advice from officials. The advice is that there is no correlation between the reduction in prison numbers and an increase in some areas of crime. I can speak to that briefly by saying that the key areas of the prison population under offence types that we've seen a reduction in prison numbers would be for burglary and would also be for drug offences—for those possession offences of drug offences. They are the two main areas.Interestingly as the prison population has reduced there is now a more significant proportion of the prison population that have been incarcerated as a result of violent offending. So the number of those in prison for violent offending has actually increased. So I'm happy to provide more information on that later on if he would like it.He's also asked in relation to the Sentencing Act and I'm not sure if it's his policy that I think he referred; he didn't clarify it—but there were requirements. I think one idea was that to specify for the safety of the victim and also for the safety of the community to be requirements for a judge to weigh up at sentencing. If the member would like to refer to the Sentencing Act those are already in legislation. So those are factors already that are a requirement for judges to take into consideration upon sentencing.In terms of the Section 27 cultural reports those have been around for well over a decade. I have seen an increase recently in terms of a cottage industry that has sprung up to create those reports. I've already indicated in this House during question time that I will take a look at that. It seems like it does seem to be increasing and I'm prepared to take a look at where that's tracking and whether that's a good use of funds.In terms of the other questions that that member raised he also specifically asked I think around youth offending. He asked around—I think it was ram raids was your question. So what we have seen is a sharp increase but that has been tracking down—and I think that tracking down for youth offending in ram raids has been tracking down as well. That is largely because those programmes that we brought into play at the end of last year which was a whole range of better pathways for youth offenders—that is working well. We are seeing that those young people who have been repeat offenders are getting the wraparound support that will take them to stop reoffending.In terms of questions—I'm running out of time so I'll go really fast. In terms of questions—and I've lost my piece of paper for Nicole McKee sorry—that you raised in relation to court backlogs was your question. I have the list here of what the Government is currently doing to address court backlogs which would be: increasing the number of judges in the Court of Appeal High Court and District Court through to 30 June 2025; the Government's provided $15 million over four years as part of Budget 2021 to establish new Family Court associates to speed up that process in the Family Court; also the Criminal Process Improvement Programme additional funding there for Police prosecutions to enable that; also in the Coroner's Court we're seeing the appointment of special assistants in that space to speed that up; the development of demand-driven rostering and scheduling approach to ensure optimal use of all judicial officers courtroom staff—to making sure that's running as effectively as possible. They are some of the measures we are taking to address that backlog.