Adams Amy: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionAdams Amy: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2977. Text is subject to correction.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):Thank you for the opportunity to take a call in this section of the Appropriation (2013/14 Confirmation and Validation) Bill debate looking at the broad issue of justice. In one sense that really does indicate where I want to start. Since I have been the Minister of Justice one thing that has become incredibly clear is that you cannot look at issues like justice through the lens of individual portfolios. What my colleagues and I have been very focused on is the need to ensure that when we think about justice and justice issues they do not stop just with justice police and corrections but really do extend right across the social services. The issues that you see in the justice sector of crime and victimisation and the terrible harm that they cause are really manifestations more often than not of much wider and deeper social issues that are addressed primarily through interventions in health education and welfare. Along with my colleagues we are working very much in a joined-up way to address those issues.What you have seen from this National-led Government is a considerable focus on having fewer victims in our system. When I am looking at policy issues and the spending on our appropriations the touchstone for me is always whether this will create fewer victims. Will this reduce the harm that is suffered in our society? What we know is that over recent years—and I take no personal credit for it; I have recently come into the portfolio—the success has not only been in bringing down the overall crime rate which as I mentioned this afternoon is at its lowest since 1978. There have been significant drops in the youth crime rate—a 38 percent drop since 2001—and drops in the violent offending rate and the reoffending rate. Those last two I would like to see more movement in but it is certainly very pleasing that those rates have dropped.One of the areas where I think we have to recognise that there is not enough movement by any stretch is family violence. The speaker who resumed her seat just before me Jacinda Ardern certainly addressed this in the last part of her comments. Family violence is an absolute scourge on our society. It is an appalling statistic and an appalling state and the prevalence of it is a national shame. When I speak on this topic I never fail to let the audience know that every 6 minutes we have a notification to the police of family violence. Those are just the issues that are being reported. We have taken a number of steps already as a Government and there are more to come to try to address this issue. But it is not simply an issue that you can fix by regulation or spending money in the right way. It really does require a quite different approach from society. We have to change the level of tolerance or acceptance or expectation that I think exists in society.Some of the things that I did want to highlight are the efforts that we have put into police safety orders so that safety orders can be put in place on the spot. We have increased the penalties already for the breach of protection orders but I do acknowledge there is more work to do in the space of protection orders. I think that is a system that we can look for better outcomes from and shortly I will be launching a document looking at the review of the Domestic Violence Act so that we can engage in that. We have put in place victim safety orders against violent offenders. We have tightened the sentencing parole and bail laws for those who offend against the most vulnerable in our system. Just recently of course we passed the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill to make sure that those who offend against the most vulnerable in our society children and those who seek to exploit them online receive much more significant punitive sentences than would otherwise have been the case. This House will soon continue its consideration of the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to again try to protect children and young people particularly but actually all of our communities from harmful digital communications.I come back to domestic violence specifically. There are two other initiatives in terms of the appropriations that I did want particularly to highlight because I think they are incredibly successful. The first of those is moving from the pilot programme for the National Home Safety Service to a nationwide programme. This has been one of the most successful pilots I have ever seen certainly in my time in politics but actually more widely than that. Before the pilot programme 85 percent of I will say women but it is victims—sometimes it is men—in this category reported having to move home to feel safe from their partner. After the pilot none of them had had to move. So before the pilot 85 percent had had to be moved out of their homes to be safe to none after the pilot. Before the pilot 73 percent of those with children had had their children hurt by the offender. After the pilot no children had been hurt. Before the pilot 40 percent of victims reported having suffered serious injuries from their offender and after the pilot again there were no reports of any serious injuries. We accept that pilots are not guarantees of future success but those early indications are tremendously encouraging and so we are very excited to roll that out nationwide.