Dowie SarahSARAH DOWIE (Chairperson of the Justice and Electoral Committee): I am absolutely delighted to take this call and lead off the debate for the Appropriation (2017/18 Estimates) Bill in the justice sector. I am so proud of this Government's record in respect of the justice portfolios. I am so pleased with our record in respect of investing in justice and law and order measures to bring about New Zealand being the fourth-safest country—The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member will resume her seat. I think the member might misunderstand her role now. She has a special extra call as chair of the select committee to report back on the activities of the select committee. It is not one that is a normal Government call; therefore she has to pretend that she is neutral—at least for the next 5 minutes.SARAH DOWIE: Ha ha! Well I will pretend. Thank you for that Mr Chair. But I was setting the scene—I am setting the scene to move on to further initiatives that Vote Justice and Vote Police and the other votes under this justice sector are going to invest in moving forward. We are proud of the record but we can do better and that is where I was going with that. We need to continue to invest so that we do not leave any New Zealander behind even those who have had a brush with the law.In praising and acknowledging the Ministers for their leadership in this area I need to talk about the research that they have done and their relentless need to look at the drivers of crime and therefore put in place initiatives to deal with them. So it is about supporting victims—making sure that we are supporting victims in a number of different ways—making sure that we are holding perpetrators to account and making sure as I said before that we are understanding the drivers of crime. When we look at the analytics behind it—and especially in Vote Justice and Vote Police—there are about three things that feature quite significantly in the lives of people who have had a brush with the law. Those are drug and alcohol addiction mental illness and exposure to family violence. That is certainly what features in the drivers for the initiatives that are occurring moving forward in the justice sector.So if we look at some of the statistics that were investigated in the Law and Order Committee and in the Justice and Electoral Committee when we were looking at offenders it was found that nine out of 10 prisoners actually experience mental illness in their lifetime. So we needed to do something about that because of course we need to invest in these people to make sure that they are well moving forward so that when they are reintegrated into the community they can make a difference and they can lead productive lives.I have visited Invercargill Prison and I am really impressed with the initiatives there that have been put in place which are reflective across the entire country. When offenders come into the prison they are assessed. In some cases it is the first medical assessment that they have actually ever received.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): I am now going to ask the member to stop. Unless she can give me an assurance that her visits to Invercargill Prison were part of the Minister's evidence or the questioning at the select committee then she is just so far off her responsibilities that we will not go on. Were they discussed at the select committee?SARAH DOWIE: Yes—yes they were. They were mentioned.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): They were. OK. Well if you had said that at the beginning it would have helped.SARAH DOWIE: MPs' visits were mentioned in the vote.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): No—your visit to Invercargill Prison and what they do there.SARAH DOWIE: Yes it was one of the visits.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Trevor Mallard): Very good. As long as it was mentioned at the committee that is fine. I will take the member's word.SARAH DOWIE: Thank you Mr Chair. What happens is that prisoners are assessed upon their entry. As part of that they are assessed for mental health. Twenty percent of those offenders are actually referred for treatment. We are looking at an investment of $11.6 million over 4 years to make sure that offenders—