Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Mr Chair. Can I just make my opening statements directed towards New Zealand First—and I see there's still one member in the Chamber—and again share our condolences or my condolences at the loss of Pita Paraone. Although I only knew him for a relatively short time in my first term in Parliament I consider him a friend. We would often attend the Parliamentary Prayer Breakfast together on a Wednesday morning. He only ever had a kind word of encouragement regardless of which party members were in. I just feel that actually he carried himself like one of our true statesmen and he is a huge loss for us without a doubt as a country and as a nation. So can I just pass on my condolences.Obviously Vote Justice for us this year—it would be fair to say it was a disappointment. It certainly hasn't seen the investment that it was promised. I was very disappointed that we had the Minister of Justice Andrew Little we had the Minister for Oranga Tamariki Tracey Martin and we had the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice Jan Logie all appear in front of the committee on their request because they felt that they would be able to provide the committee with clearer more concise answers around their joined-up approach and the approach that they were taking with our justice sector reforms. We were disappointed because we were promised that the police Minister would be there as well and we were told at the last minute that he could not attend.I just quite simply put one scenario to the two Ministers and the under-secretary. I won't go into the scenario here but it's a fairly common scenario that many Kiwis have had to deal with and experience in terms of crime-related matters. I stepped them right through it and I said Now with the two Ministers and the under-secretary and your talk of sweeping reforms and new ideas and a new approach can you just step the committee through the changes that you've made or the changes that you are considering so that we can have an idea in terms of the type of reforms that you're actually going to effect?" There was quite a bit of chatter and talk amongst the two Ministers and the under-secretary. In all fairness to the Minister of Justice he did come up with one example. He said "Yes the victim will be able to give her evidence on video and closed-circuit TV."—but that was our initiative. That was an initiative that the National Government brought in. That's not a new initiative.You could probably understand our genuine consternation or my consternation that 18 months into this new Government with an incoming Minister stating very clearly that this was going to be one of the biggest reformist Governments that we've seen in a generation when it comes to our criminal justice sector and between the three of them they couldn't put up one example—one clear example—of a change that had been made in a case that I'd put up as an example that covered the whole criminal justice system in terms of how we could get a feel for what was actually happening. To me that's a real worry.I think that there's a real problem. I think the Minister has got a real problem here. I think that he's genuine. I've known him since I came into Parliament. I think he's driven genuinely by wanting to make change and make our criminal justice system better—there's no doubt about that—but I think that every time he tries to do something or take a paper to Cabinet or actually get some momentum some energy going behind that he's stopped and he's stopped either by his partner on the left or he's stopped by his partner on his right. Therefore we're not seeing the reforms that we were promised.If I just quickly move through some of the other things that were very disappointing—very disappointing—in the justice appropriations and that was the fact that under National we established two very good courts. One was the drug and alcohol court. If you talk to the judges if you talk to the officers if you talk to anyone—if you talk to the offenders that have had to go through that system—they'll tell you that it's very effective and that it's working. Yes we set those up as pilots because we wanted to make sure that they were going to work that they were actually going to make a difference. If we were in Government I can assure you that we would be rolling those drug and alcohol courts out right around the country. We'd be making sure that Kiwis—Hon Andrew Little: But you didn't. They've been piloted for seven years—you didn't do it.Hon MARK MITCHELL: —had access. The Minister says that we didn't. Well I'm stating to him now that we would roll those out. If the Minister takes a call I have a question for him: why Minister didn't you roll out the drug and alcohol courts? It seems to be a very sensitive subject. It seems to be a very sensitive subject over there. So my question is quite simply this: someone stand up someone take a call and explain to us why you didn't roll this programme out. It's successful.Let's not just talk about the drug and alcohol courts; let's talk about the family and sexual violence courts. That's another model that's working very well so I'd be very interested to know why there's not more funding and why these aren't being rolled out.Let's move on. Unfortunately I don't have much time—I need a lot more. Let's move on to the advisory group. I have to say I do want to genuinely acknowledge the Hon Chester Borrows. He was a colleague and friend of mine—still is a friend of mine—that I worked with. But Chester and I we disagreed—we disagreed when this panel was formed. We disagreed because I didn't like the fact that the chairman of the committee came out and said "There's to be no emotion. Remove emotion from the debate and we don't want any tough-on-crime talk." So he was already signalling where the committee really was going to be taken where it was really going.It's probably fair to say that the committee is very aligned with the philosophy that actually this Government has adopted around no policies in terms of actually being able to reduce or fight crime with policies only focused on letting prisoners out of prison. That doesn't work. That doesn't make communities safer it doesn't deal with the real problem; all it does is it opens a door and allows someone out that is probably better off in prison because number one the community is safer and number two there actually can be some programmes delivered in terms of rehabilitation and the hope to reintegrate them back into the community.So in my view for this advisory group the complete wrong signals were sent and I felt very strongly that actually it would probably start to fall apart—it would probably start to split for that reason. And what happened? Sadly that's exactly what happened. You had—Hon Andrew Little: No it didn't.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well the Minister says no. From my understanding two members have resigned and left the group. If I'm wrong then stand and correct me. I also understand that there was a lot of tension that was created between the panel—between the group—and the secretariat.So number one it shouldn't have been outsourced. The Minister should have taken control of this and actually after nine years in Opposition you should have had some ideas. You should have had some ideas you should have known what you wanted to do and you should have known how to implement. I make this promise—I can tell you this: after three years in Opposition we've got a plan for next year. We know what we're going to be doing next year all right? Nine years of Opposition one discussion paper; two years in Opposition we've got four. That's the difference. That's why the country is slowly losing confidence in the Government because they actually don't know what they're doing.They didn't do the homework they've got no plan and it's showing in the justice reforms. There's nothing going on. There's nothing happening. Long-term effects of mental health and addiction programmes—again where's the funding? The only real piece of legislation that we saw brought to this House was to deal with victims of domestic violence which is important without a doubt. We all in this House acknowledge that. But they came to this House and all they did was they passed the responsibility on to employers and said to employers "You'll pay to support victims of domestic violence. Doesn't matter when it occurred or how it happened; you'll just have to fix it. Another 10 days' annual leave." and said to small business and medium sized business "You guys sort it out." When we said "I'll tell you what in fairness why doesn't the Government fund that? Why doesn't the Government pay for that programme instead of forcing the cost on to small and medium sized business?" the answer was no. We're not. They can pick up the cost.Methamphetamine—why did they not restore the $10 million programme around methamphetamine? The Minister says because it was due to stop. That doesn't stop you Minister—[Time expired]"