Ardern Jacinda: Annual Review Debate — In CommitteeText is subject to correctionArdern Jacinda: Annual Review Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 29 April 2015. Volume:704;Page:2977. Text is subject to correction.]JACINDA ARDERN (Labour):It is my pleasure to rise to speak to elements of the appropriations that relate to the justice sector. I want to start though by just making a general statement about the Government’s aspirations generally when it comes to the appropriations and its Budgets generally. We have heard repeatedly from this Government that its goal is to reach surplus in the upcoming Budget. We have heard it repeatedly. Only recently has the goal of reaching surplus been removed. I do not think it is fair though for the Government—having said that that was its priority having said that that was its promise—to now claim that it was an artificial target and to back away from it altogether. The public place their trust in the Governments they elect. Governments do not get to walk away from promises that they make in such loose terms simply because it is a target that they could not reach. They must take responsibility for when they fail as often as they take responsibility when they succeed.In that regard I want to speak to some of the massive failings that we have seen in the justice system. Clearly in the past few Budgets the appropriations for the police have been blatantly inadequate. I know that our police spokesperson will speak to this but you cannot run a well-functioning justice system with early intervention and prevention as a priority and at the same time cut $40 million from the police budget. We are seeing stations close. We are seeing police who are no longer able to employ the same level of support staff. We are seeing police no longer attending callouts. Mr Bakshi is listening to this because he knows that members from his community have been raising this with Labour frequently. I know they will have been raising it with him.Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: That’s not true.JACINDA ARDERN: It is not true—so the communities are safer are you saying Mr Bakshi?Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi: Yes they are. They are much safer.JACINDA ARDERN: Well I will send some of those individuals back to see you if you are making that claim. That could not be further from the truth. Crime reporting is dependent on people raising with the police when they have been the victim of a crime. If the police do not attend it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Minister said when I raised it in the select committee that it was a very 1990s view. It is not a 1990s view; it is a reality today. At the same time it is an indictment. This Government’s main target when it comes to justice is to reduce reoffending. What about reducing offending? What about reducing the incarceration rate in this country? Because as much as that Government claims that crime is coming down incarceration rates certainly are not. In fact the Government is in the middle of opening its mega private prison at Wiri. You can bet your bottom dollar that we are contracted to keep that place full. Who benefits from that? Nobody but a foreign company under the banner of Serco. That is an indictment on this country as is our access to justice issues generally. Big cases like for instance the Teina Pora case which the Minister of Justice claimed demonstrated that our justice system works are in fact the exact opposite. Real justice is timely justice and the delay in that case was not timely justice.What we should be considering as a Parliament is having an independent criminal case review commission and it is something that we as the Labour Party will continue to champion as we will continue to champion the issue that was raised in the select committee the last time we had the ability to review the Ministry of Justice and that was legal aid thresholds. It is a bureaucratic roundabout when 10000 people are granted legal aid write-offs because they cannot afford to repay their legal aid debt. That is an indication to the Minister that something must change and that is what we are pushing for.I want to finish with a final plea. Protection orders in this country should be free. They are not. A woman who is in a violent relationship who may have equity in a home that the perpetrator of that violence shares the equity in cannot access a free protection order. That is wrong. I call on the Minister in her address to this Committee to acknowledge that issue and to acknowledge that she is going to do something about it. If we can afford nothing else in this country we should be able to afford protection for victims of family and domestic violence.