Ngaro Alfred: Estimates Debate — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNgaro Alfred: Estimates Debate — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5600. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ALFRED NGARO (National): It is an honour to speak in the estimates debate about law and order. I follow Jan Logie and the comments that she has made in regard to domestic violence. I know that in the last term we too were involved with the inquiry into the funding of sexual violence social support services. And also just recently there was a hīkoi that Kelvin Davis led and was part of. Again it addressed the issues around men against sexual violence. The whole issue is somethingthat I thinkis of concern across parties and across Government. Prior to entering Parliament I was also on the task force for family violence under the previous Government so this is an issue that has been there for such a long time. It has been a critical issue. It is an issue that has raised both awareness and also along with that a number of systemic areas of concern that we have to deal with and I believe that that has been part of this Government’s focus as well.Violent crime has been rising—we know that. The criminal justice system has needed accountability and focus on victims and that has been the key driver for this Government in the direction of the justice sector. It has been our belief that our having a tough stance on law and order means that New Zealand’s recorded crime rate is falling and is at its lowest level since 1978. Although we can applaud the fact that we now have one of the lowest crime rates in 30 years we know that family violence domestic violence and even sexual violence are still areas of concern and we do not shy away from that. In fact as the previous speaker did I want to applaud again the comments of the Minister of Justice the Hon Amy Adams who has taken a lead in a direction and area for us to be able to champion that. And actually the way that she has been able to do that is that National’s focus is on getting the key justice sector agencies to work together—that is justice police and yes even corrections—in this regard. That is really important.One of the areas that I think has not been addressed or touched on either in the debates so far in regard to law and order is some of the focus and priority areas especially those that impact on both our Māori community and vulnerable children. Several challenges remain and we know that the incidence and impact of crime is unevenly spread. In fact research shows that 6 percent of adults experience 54 percent of the crime. But an area of concern for this Government is the over-representation of Māori in the criminal justice system both as offenders and even as victims of crime. Māori are in prison at six times the rate of non-Māori and it is estimated that 22 percent of Māori males born before 1975 had a corrections-managed sentence before their 20th birthday and that 44 percent had such a sentence by the age of 35. This is an area of concern for this Government. It is an area that we want to address as well because the rate of offending for Māori youth has fallen by 53 percent from 2008 to 2014. However there is still much work to be done and we know that these are critical areas for us.One of the areas of focus for this Government is in putting victims first. We have introduced the $50 offender levy which has generated more than $16.6 million since its introduction. This has gone towards funding 15 new grants and services to provide key victim support services that were not previously available. The ministry funds victim support and it provides nationwide 24/7 crisis response and ongoing support services so that more than 34000 victims were supported in 2013 and in 2014. The Victims Centre manages funding for victims of serious crime through the $50 offender levy. In 2013 and in 2014 the centre funded $5.9 million of grants and services that was provided to almost 5500 victims of serious crime and tailored to their specific needs. During the court process the ministry had 84 in-court victims’ advisers. It contacted about 35000 victims a year and there have been 24000 using the service since 2013-14 as well. There has also been an increase in funding for restorative justice programmes which are available to courts as an option for pre-sentencing and to provide an alternative way of responding to crime and addressing harm to victims. The increase in the penalty for breaching protection orders to 2 to 3 years’ imprisonment has also made a difference.National passed the Victims of Crime Reform Bill in order to improve the rights and services for all victims and we passed the Harmful Digital Communications Bill to protect victims from cyber-bullying as well. What we are also doing is strengthening sentencing parole and bail. We have passed the Bail Amendment Bill in order to tighten up on bail and to introduce electronically monitored bail.