Hughes Darren: Estimates Debate —  
Hughes Darren: Estimates Debate —  
[Volume:610;Page:7186] 
DARREN HUGHES (NZ Labour—Otaki) 
: 
 I rise in support of the votes before the Committee particularly Vote Justice as a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee that considered that vote. The committee reported back to the House in favour of the estimates that were presented as part of the Budget. The vote contains spending to the tune of $171.43 million. Before going on to talk about some details of the vote and how it will be appropriated this coming financial year I want to record on behalf of Labour members of the Justice and Electoral Committee our gratitude and appreciation for the justice portfolio leadership team of Phil Goff the Hon Lianne Dalziel Taito Phillip Field Rick Barker and Margaret Wilson. Those Ministers work across quite a diverse range of interests in pursuing Government policy and I believe they are making very good progress on these goals. 
Stephen Franks 
: Is the member blushing? It’s only in question time that he has to do that. 
DARREN HUGHES 
: Mr Franks has never been part of any Budget process where ideas are turned into policies that are implemented across the country; if he had been he would know the great feeling of joy and pride that members of Parliament can have in seeing things actually happen rather than just carping on the cross-benches in perpetual irrelevancy. I express my sympathy for him at the same time that I congratulate New Zealanders who are making a difference. 
The select committee has a number of pieces of work in front of it at the moment that refer to Vote Justice and I want to talk on particular areas where that vote is impacting on young New Zealanders. I will start by talking about Project Early which is a project that was piloted in the city of Christchurch over a period of time which has now been funded through this vote into the city of Auckland. I believe that it is a very good example of using the justice portfolio as a lead agency in coordinating with other Government agencies to work with young people and to ensure that we try to turn round any signs of criminal offending. Project Early does help young children targeting children between the ages of 4 and 8. We know that it is possible to identify people who may go on to offend through some of their behaviours at an early age and if we can intervene early spending money and putting support in place for them early we have a chance of changing their lives and making a real difference rather than ignoring that and then spending the money after they have committed criminal activity. 
That is something that Parliament and Government agencies have been very good at doing. We have been very good at paying for things at the wrong end when it is expensive and when we can look tough about it but what we are doing here is spending a smaller amount of money early. We do not know whether those 4 to 8-year-olds will go on to a life of criminal offending but we do know that if we do not try to help them we will not be able to make a difference for them. 
We also know that the formal evaluation of this project—and I will be interested to hear whether Opposition members support Project Early—has found that it has been very very successful in dealing with behavioural problems through intervening and being able to resolve some of the issues that those young children face. Eighty percent of the interventions that Project Early has made have been successful. I am sure we are going to hear from the ACT party and from other Opposition parties that this is a waste of time and another example of big Government spending on programmes that do not actually make a difference. Of course that flies in the face of the evaluation that has been done and it flies in the face of the young children whom we are helping through programmes like Project Early but I am sure that will not stop Opposition members from being negative about the kinds of things we are trying to do in the area of early intervention. The project will be going into Auckland and it will continue to have funding in Christchurch through this estimate. The committee very strongly supports that approach. 
Money from this Budget’s Vote Justice is also going to fund the victims’ rights legislation. I acknowledge the United Future party which made the Victims’ Rights Act a part of the confidence and supply agreement with the Government and has put a big emphasis on making sure that victims’ rights legislation was passed before Christmas last year. In this set of estimates the money goes in to make sure that we can make a difference in victims’ rights. For example in the 14 areas that Victim Support deals with through the country there will be $2 million to hire district managers who will be able to support the work of Victim Support. What is the work of Victim Support? Over 100000 crimes have had intervention by Victim Support and that has led to support for 135000 victims across communities in New Zealand. So not only do we have legislation where Parliament says that victims’ rights are important but through Vote Justice we have a recognition in a financial sense by the Crown that these things need to be funded and properly appropriated for. 
In my own area in both Horowhenua and Kapiti we have two very strong Victim Support organisations run by volunteers. Volunteers have always run them. In the 1980s it was set up under the previous Labour Government. Our Labour-Progressive Government with the support of United Future has been able to make sure that we then make sure that the Government is a partner with Victim Support in terms of making money available. 
I come to the family group conference part of Vote Justice where there is some money available. We see that the Government is making a very strong commitment to ensure that family group conferences are well resourced. The group conferences were an innovative part of the 1989 legislation but there has been a need to make sure that it is a vehicle that is actually useful. There are two ways of doing that. One of course is in follow-up once the family the police and the victims have come together for a conference making sure the decisions of those conferences are followed through. It is very important in terms of the legitimacy of the family group conference process but also being able to identify some of the wider issues that affect the people coming before the group conference is important. That is why in Vote Justice funding is available to have a regionally based professional management structure but more than that also to be able to work with young people to do health and education assessments for the high-risk young people who are offending. 
This reinforces the theme I spoke of earlier which was early intervention with young people and making sure that these needs are taken care of when people appear at family group conferences. If we intervene early in that way we can put in place support networks to ensure that the offending does not go on. Being proactive when we deal with criminal offending is very important. It is so easy in this House—and I have heard it so often in the one year that I have been a member here—to be very reactive in the criminal justice debate. Members of Parliament try to be the toughest and angriest about crime and very little goes into dealing with how we can prevent crime in the first place. There are some tangible examples in Vote Justice in that regard. 
Some of the other structural things that are happening will be the money and the vote for the merger of the Ministry of Justice and the Department for Courts on 1 October. That is part of the Review of the Centre that the Minister of State Services has been leading but the funding is in there to bring those two departments back together again. I am very pleased that restorative justice is continuing to be taken seriously within Vote Justice. There will be 16 programmes funded within the coming financial year. This is a very effective way of dealing with crime where we can try to change criminal offending. In my area in Levin and Foxton there are two very successful restorative justice programmes that have an extremely low level of reoffending. That is because families friends and victims are involved and because key agencies are involved. They are all focused on stopping reoffending rather than simply meting out punishment to look tough. 
The fact that there is low reoffending is reinforced by the fact that the restorative justice programmes are running effectively. It is very easy in political debate to make them look like soft options but when one talks to people who have been through a restorative justice programme and talks to some of the judges involved they often say that the punishment— 
Stephen Franks 
: Try the victims! 
DARREN HUGHES 
: The victims are involved in the process and have to agree for restorative justice to be an option. The ACT party spokesperson on justice does not even know what the trigger is for restorative justice. We spend time in this House talking about how we try to raise the level of debate about criminal offending and we have a member of Parliament in his second term who is meant to be responsible for this portfolio area who tries to say that he does not know what the trigger is for restorative justice. How on earth are we to try to raise the tone in this Parliament to make sure there are fewer victims when there are contributions like that by way of interjection? It is an absolute disgrace that the member would do that. 
The other area that is in the vote refers to the clean slate legislation currently before the Justice and Electoral Committee. If that is passed by this Parliament there will be funding within the vote to ensure that can happen. That will be a good move as well. In respect of burglary the ongoing commitment of this Government is to make sure that we target crime early because burglary is a stepping stone to further crime. We have seen those rates come right down through the intervention of the Government and through funding that at the front end. 
With regard to the youth offending teams that are running around the country there is no actual new funding but existing funding from within the vote is used to support them bringing together four agencies—health education the Children Young Persons and Their Families Service and the police. They are working very successfully in the community. Labour members visited the Nelson youth offending team. It is a very good vote. I support it.