Little AndrewBUDGET DEBATEDebate resumed from 19 June on the Appropriation (2019/20 Estimates) Bill.Hon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's with great pleasure that I rise to talk about a Budget that I think marks a turning point in the leadership and administration of government not just for New Zealand but actually for the world. When we have in our little country in our little neck of the woods a Government spending roughly $85 billion in an economy of our size they are important decisions and careful judgments have to be made; careful judgments about what money is spent on what activities and what money is invested in capital and infrastructure and those things that sustain our communities and our economy in the long term. So these are important decisions. For so long and for many many years and many many decades we have approached the Budget as if the numbers are the most important thing. There is no question that the Budget is an absolutely vital document and an absolutely vital exercise for the Government of the day. But what is it about really? What is economics and what are economic judgments really about? They are about the transactions that individual people take. That's what an economy is. It's a collection of transactions a collection of decisions that people get to make. So to have a Budget that is based on how people are their welfare and their wellbeing and sustaining people to make good decisions and to have great opportunities that marks an incredible turning point in what a Budget is and what a Budget looks like. I'm very proud to be part of a Government that has taken that transformational decision to say that we are going to treat the Budget as a Budget about people as an exercise about people and their wellbeing because in the end it is people who sit at the heart of an economy because the economy is just that community of people. I say that this marks a turning point not just for New Zealand but actually for the world as well. And I'm very proud to be serving in an administration led by Jacinda Ardern and with a Minister of Finance of the calibre of Grant Robertson who have persuaded the world that this is something worth looking at for them and for us to embark upon. The Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern has in her 20 months as Prime Minister established herself as a world leader for a lot of reasons and there is no question that wherever you go here and around the world she has marked herself out as a leader who speaks to a generation—a new generation with new expectations and those expectations are about looking after people. Here's the thing: doing the stuff that is about looking after people is no different and not antithetical to the decisions about a strong robust economy in the conventional sense that we are used to talking about: making sure we have a good Crown balance sheet making sure that business is supported and given the signals to make good decisions good investment decisions to take on staff and to pay them well. We know those economic decisions but they happen in a context and this Budget fleshes out what this is actually all about. I want to talk about some of the issues in the Budget that are dear to my heart. Can I talk about two of the areas of greatest investment in this Budget that are relevant to my responsibilities as Minister of Justice specifically in the criminal justice area and that is the investments we are making in mental health and addiction and the investments that we are making in domestic and sexual violence. On the issue of mental health and addiction we know that a large number of people who wind up in the criminal justice system whether they are young offenders who come to the notice of the police or whether they're adult offenders being sentenced for the umpteenth time off to prison—we know that a large chunk of those people are people who suffer mental health issues including addiction issues. Yet we have been very slow to realise that if we actually addressed some of those issues those underlying issues that are drivers of their offending we might actually change who they are and what they do.Credit to the previous Government: they allowed the judges and the District Court to trial new approaches at least for the judges when dealing with offenders who have at least addiction issues alcohol and other drug issues and they trialled the alcohol and other drug courts. But the wider issue of what happens at all ages and all stages of life and making sure that the services are there to support people to be there for people on their mental health and addiction issues this Budget represents a step change and a major step up in what we've done before. I congratulate my colleague the Minister of Health Dr David Clark for that. The other issue is of course domestic and sexual violence and as I so often do in this House because I'm so proud to work alongside her I congratulate the under-secretary Jan Logie on the leadership she provides in this area and the leadership that she has provided again in an innovative and really vanguard way for this Budget and this Government having put together the joint venture of all the Government agencies on dealing with domestic and sexual violence and put together a package a financial package in this Budget that is about making a serious change for domestic and sexual violence. Here is the figure that absolutely stunned me when I heard it for the first time and that is in our youth justice facilities—these are the facilities where our youngest offenders are detained those under the age of 18 are detained because of their offending which is serious enough for them to be detained; we only have about 150 places but they're pretty much full all the time—98 percent of our youth justice offenders are victims of domestic or sexual violence. That is how insidious that nasty aspect of this great country is. We have to get serious about it. We have to get serious about domestic and sexual violence and I am very proud to be part of a Government that has decided it is going to take it seriously. It's going to put the money in and make a real difference. I simply contrast these things with the messages that we've heard from members opposite in this debate about How dare we tax people more!" to the extent that we're raising excise levies on petrol and all the rest of it. Actually tax rates aren't changing but here's the truth: they got away with nine years of running things down—running down schools running down services that actually support people running down the health system—and then they have the temerity to come here and criticise a Government that wants a good and even tax base. So we raise the revenue and raise the means to make sure that these services are there so that everybody in New Zealand gets a fair chance. There are other things as well in this Budget that make me very proud so let's have a look at the fact that we're going to get 10 extra District Court judges. It's disappointing that we have to keep beefing up particularly the criminal jurisdiction in our District Court system but we do because there are backlogs and delays. That's gone on far too long and we've now got 10 extra judges to help to address that particular issue. Some no doubt will wind up in the Family Court because that's a problem too and we now have a set of recommendations that this Government can have a look at where we can start to make a serious difference in that jurisdiction. I'm very pleased to see that we've got eight extra coroners. They're part-time—they're three-quarter positions—but eight extra coroners to deal with the backlog in that jurisdiction. It is very important that in the way we deal with people who suffer sudden and unexplained deaths those people get their proper treatment and for those who die in unexplained circumstances or for whom there is difficulty identifying who they are the coroner is able to make sure that the best processes are employed to identify people before they are returned to their families and the police also have the best evidence to put before a coronial inquest to make sure that we get a good answer on why people have died. It's good to see more resources going into the Human Rights Review Tribunal—an extra five deputy chairpersons who will have the power to make decisions because of the law change that this House passed recently—and we can start to clear the backlog there. These might seem small things but actually if you're somebody who has gone to the Human Rights Commission or the Privacy Commissioner or any of those others you've laid a complaint and you're not satisfied with the outcome you have a right to take it on appeal or review to the Human Rights Review Tribunal. It's right that you should have that disposed of in a timely fashion and these extra resources will allow us to do that. Finally they're in the proceeds of crime fund as well which has been rejigged—I know that members in the question time we've just had seemed critical about what's happened with the methamphetamine programme. Actually it's all now in the rejigged proceeds of crime fund with four very clear priorities one of which is dealing with organised crime and the meth problem. But we're dealing with the whole problem not just looking at the users of it and going after them and blaming them. We're actually going after the suppliers the manufacturers the distributors and knowing that they tend to start life in gangs of organised crime we're going to go after them—that's what we're resourced for. This Government is about dealing with the root cause of problems. This Government is about dealing with people and their issues and the lives that they lead and giving more opportunity and giving a better chance for equal opportunity. That's what we're doing. That's why this Government is serious about making those investments in health and education and the things that sustain people and sustain our communities that in the end are good for business but ultimately are good for New Zealand long term."