Goff Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Goff Phil: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:618;Page:14349] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Minister of Justice) 
: 
 Having disagreed somewhat strongly in the last debate with Nandor Tanczos’s colleague I take the opportunity to acknowledge the rational stand that Nandor Tanczos has taken in the House on law and order. It is an election year next year when everything winds up and everybody wants to be the hanging judge and the toughest on law and order. I have been around in politics for about 24 or 25 years and I have heard at every election from parties in Opposition— 
Hon Bill English 
: It used to be you Phil. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I have heard mostly from Bill English’s party. He will remember that Jim Bolger was promising capital punishment and we remember that in 1990 there was all this talk about the National Government getting tougher. National is the classic “lion in Opposition lamb in Government”. Let us face it: it did nothing in Government. In 9 years National did not change the sentencing legislation or the parole legislation. 
 The one thing I disagree with Mr Tanczos about was his statement that I boast about our rising prison population. I do not boast about it; I regret it. I would rather it not be rising but the truth is that by the time people have developed the entrenched recidivism of many in our community by the time they have reached that stage there are very few ways that we can protect the community other than to take them out of circulation. We have the second-highest rate of imprisonment in the Western World but it is well behind that of the United States which is 700 per 100000. The United States has 2 million people in prison. One in three of its black population at some time will be in the justice system. That is not a model we want to emulate. We already take a tougher line on imprisonment than any other Western country we would like to compare ourselves with—the Australians the Canadians the English or the Scots. I do not welcome that and that is why we have put the emphasis that Nandor Tanczos mentioned; that is why we not only are being tough on those people whom we have to be tough on but are trying to deal with the causes of crime and trying to put fences at the top of the cliff. 
The best way of doing that is through early intervention at ages 0 to 5 when we have some chance of turning a kid’s life round. There are kids growing up in an unstable insecure environment marked by abuse and lacking in love and security. We know that those sorts of environments produce criminals. Criminals are less likely to be born than to be created and we have to do more in the early intervention area. This year we have foreshadowed that Budget 2005 will have a particular emphasis on early intervention. That is not to say we are not doing it now. What are we dealing with in Project Early? We are dealing with kiddies between the ages of 3 and 8 who are playing up in school and have behavioural problems that are obvious. We are intervening at that point and in 80 percent of the cases of those under the age of 7 we are able permanently to remedy the factors behind their behavioural problems. How much better to resolve the problem there than to have the human wastage and taxpayer’s expenditure caused by our letting that problem get worse and worse until we are forced to put people into jail! So we have to deal with the problem at both ends. We need to deal with the concept of restorative justice and I know that the member has provided good support for that. 
But we will hear because it is an election year that suddenly things are in crisis. Well it is some crisis! The crime rate in New Zealand according to police statistics—I never produce these statistics; these are police statistics—is 13.8 percent lower than it was at its peak in 1996. Am I satisfied? No of course I am not satisfied. There is more that we must and need to do—and we are doing that. 
Jill Pettis 
: They’ve gone very quiet. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: They have gone very quiet. We have put record expenditure into policing and we now spend more than a billion dollars on it. We have 400 more police officers and they are doing the job we expect them to do. We have a record number of sworn police. We have tougher sentences and I pay tribute again to Nandor Tanczos. The Green Party members supported the Sentencing Act and the Parole Act. That was not the “first best” solution but they acknowledged that those changes needed to be done so that somebody like William Bell who clearly poses a threat to the community and who cannot be given a second chance is locked away for life. It will be 30 years before he can be considered for parole. That is tragic for that individual but it is necessary for society. That person under the National Party Government in earlier times would have done 7 years in prison for murder. Now he is doing 30 and he will probably spend a lifetime in prison. 
Where we have needed to we have toughened the laws. We have toughened the DNA laws. Don Brash talks about DNA testing of everybody who is arrested. That is 110000 people a year at $200 a pop. So we would have DNA sampling of somebody who has been arrested for being drunk and disorderly? Well that will make the world a safer place! We have already dealt with that. The National Party was on the committee when we dealt with it. Mr Tanczos was on the committee. Anybody who commits a serious crime including burglary which has been redefined as a serious crime will be liable for DNA testing and everyone who is convicted and imprisoned will have DNA taken. We have done what we needed to do there. 
The public opinion polls on the parole issue actually showed that the public thought Don Brash had gone too far. Yes there are mistakes in the parole laws. We are constantly trying to improve them and make sure that the Parole Board gets it right. We have required the Parole Board to have as its paramount consideration the safety of the community and not to release anyone who poses an undue risk. That is set out in legislation as clearly as it can be set out. 
We are making the changes crime is going down and the laws have got tougher where they needed to be tougher and they will continue to be tougher. We will move on the matter of the proceeds of crime to get the proceeds off the gang bosses. By setting a civil rather than a criminal standard of proof we can get our hands on the money that motorbike gang bosses and presidents can actually keep at the moment because the laws are not adequate. Those changes are being made. I am proud of what we have achieved in this country. It is not perfect but we do a lot better than others. We have a far lower rate of serious crime in this country than the English the Canadians the Scots and the Australians have. We do better and we are already tougher in those areas. It would be a terrible shame if this National Party decided it would as it has already shown abandon any pretence of principle and go for the lowest common denominator—whether it be race or crime. Most of the population knows that it will not come to anything anyway because when National had 9 years to do something about this it did absolutely nothing.