Adams Amy: Address in ReplyText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeAdams Amy: Address in Reply[Sitting date: 21 October 2014. Volume:701;Page:49. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon AMY ADAMS (Minister of Justice):Can I begin my first contribution in this the 51st Parliament by just once more adding my congratulations to the speakers who have gone before me; to you Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch on your own reappointment as well as to our presiding officers—obviously to Speaker David Carter to Deputy Speaker Chester Borrows and of course your new presiding officer colleague the Hon Trevor Mallard. We welcome the group of you leading us in this Parliament and I have no doubt that you will do that to your usual high professional standard Mr Assistant Speaker. I look forward to working with you.Can I also just take a moment to congratulate the mover and the seconder of the motion we are now debating Chris Bishop and Barbara Kuriger who gave us their maiden speeches this afternoon and I think set a very high tone and standard for those who will follow. Can I pass my congratulations to all the members of National and all parties who have been elected to this Parliament for the first time. Being sworn in as a member of Parliament for the first time is a tremendous moment. It is a significant accomplishment that most New Zealanders will never get to experience. What the Prime Minister said this afternoon at the function is absolutely right. Getting here of course is a tremendous accomplishment but New Zealand will judge you and look to you in terms of what you do in your time here. I know that you will all be dedicated in that mission.Just by way of introductory comments I also want to acknowledge the incredible achievement of New Zealand being elected in the first-round ballot to the United Nations Security Council. It is something that we should all be incredibly proud of because it is the international community recognising and reflecting the very high regard in which this country is held. That is a product of everyone in this House everyone in New Zealand and many people who have come before us and I think it does deserve to be recognised just once more.For me it is a great privilege to be back as it always is. I do not think any member of Parliament ever goes into an election—or should ever go into an election—with an assumption that they will be back. We put ourselves before the voters. We ask them for their support. Actually it is probably the only time in 3 years that we really get a performance review from our employers. I like to think that I have about 65000 employers in Selwyn and I am sure each of them has a view. Once every 3 years they get to turn up and express their view on how I have gone in supporting them. I am incredibly grateful to the people of Selwyn for once again being willing to support me to be here as their representative. I will certainly renew my pledge that I made on my first day to work very hard in their interests and in the interests of all New Zealand.This afternoon as the leaders kicked off the substantive part of this debate I could not help but reflect on Annette King the “Acting Acting Deputy Deputy Leader of Labour” saying: “Oh well this is just our 2002.” Well there is one significant difference of course that I just want to reflect on. National certainly went through a period of rebuilding in 2002 but that was 3 years after we had been removed from office. The next election 6 years out we were not only well on the way to coming back in but we ran a very very close-run thing in the 2005 election. Here we are now 6 years after Labour was removed from office and not only are the members still rebuilding but it is getting worse. The dysfunction the disharmony the disjointedness and the disconnection I think are stronger than they have ever been. There is certainly a much longer road ahead than I think they themselves are yet acknowledging.In the meantime the National-led Government is very clear that we are here as the Prime Minister said on election night to run a Government for all New Zealand. I know that my colleagues both in Cabinet and across our caucus are focused on exactly that: how we can work to improve the lives of all New Zealanders now and into the future. We have a team so ably led by the Prime Minister. We have 59 other members of our caucus who are dedicated to that very thing.I have to say that when we come back into the House and we take up our new positions there is always a sense of both regret in terms of what you have not got done and looking forward to getting done what you will get done in your new portfolios. For me it marks the ends of my time as the Minister for the Environment. I can tell you that I look back on the 3 years that I served as the Minister for the Environment with an immense sense of pride. There are still some jobs unfinished and that is always the case but I can look back and know that we have done more as a National-led Government to really improve environmental management in this country than I think any other party in this House. There is a lot of rhetoric in that space but it is the National-led Government that for the first time put in place national standards for freshwater management that set up and gave effect to the recommendations of the Land and Water Forum and that had the courage to tackle setting up independent arms-length environmental reporting after the disgrace of the Labour Government in 2007 simply removing chapters that it did not like. It is National that put in place the exclusive economic zone legislation to protect our oceans and to make sure that drilling permits offshore were not simply the rubber stamp that they had been. This is a Government that has delivered for the environment and I have no doubt whatsoever that under Minister Nick Smith he will not only continue that work but take it even further.In that vein one of the challenges of course that we still have to complete is our work to reform the Resource Management Act. This is an Act that has been tinkered with almost every 18 months during its 23-year history. It is not working for New Zealanders. Almost every New Zealander you speak to acknowledges that it needs to be fixed. The difference is that the National-led Government has the courage to say that if we want different results from the system we have to be prepared to look quite differently at how the Act works. We are going to do that. We are not going to continue to see New Zealanders pushed out of the housing market and face higher costs in their food fewer job opportunities and worse transport infrastructure outcomes across all of our planning decisions because as a Government we do not have the courage and the drive to stand up and make the reforms that need to be made. I am very much looking forward to supporting my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith in achieving that.As I say goodbye to the environment portfolio I am delighted to take on the role of the Minister of Justice. I want to reflect and acknowledge the very thoughtful deeply held and clearly passionately held comments of the previous speaker Kelvin Davis who spoke very eloquently about the issues of family violence. I can tell the House that that is an issue that as the Minister of Justice I certainly want to focus on. I am not naive to think that these are easy problems to solve but I do not think they will best be solved by a very partisan divided antagonistic approach within this House. The problems have to be solved through working together. None of us have all the answers and I certainly want to extend a hand to Mr Davis and his colleagues to work with us on tackling what is an incredibly difficult issue and one of the most important issues I think facing us in the justice system today.I think we can reflect though on the justice system and the work that is going on in it again with an incredibly good heart. We have as you have heard this afternoon the lowest crime rates in 35 years. We set ourselves a target of having crime reduce by 20 percent from 2011 levels. It is already down 16 percent. We wanted to see violent crime down 20 percent. We are on track. It is already down 11 percent. In terms of youth crime we set ourselves a target of a 25 percent reduction. We have already surpassed that. We have seen a 30 percent reduction already and the reoffending rate that we want to drop by a quarter has already reduced by 12 percent. So there is lots to be proud of in the work that has happened but we still do have much more to achieve.A big part of that I believe is continuing to have all-of-Government agencies and those in the NGO sector working consistently across justice. The Ministry of Justice on its own cannot solve the problems but we can work very closely with our colleagues in social development in police in corrections in education and in health because as we have heard these issues are not only desperately interwoven in their causes but the effects of them and their ramifications are felt throughout society and throughout generations. They are very difficult challenges but we are not going to shy away from at least trying to work better on them. We have to do better. We have to make a difference for those New Zealanders who suffer serious sexual and domestic violence. I believe we can do better.Let me just finish with a word briefly on the communications and broadcasting portfolios. I am so excited to be now in a position where we will be taking ultra-fast broadband out to at least 80 percent of New Zealand. We will be extending the rural broadband programme by another $100 million and providing a $50 million fund to address mobile phone black spot coverage across New Zealand. Connectivity is not the only thing that matters in information and communications technology but without it nothing else works. It underpins the exciting economic future for New Zealand using the digital economy and digital transformation. We had a poor communications infrastructure in 2008. We are turning that round. New Zealanders are clever innovative people. They show us that day in and day out. This National-led Government will ensure that we are supporting them every step of the way.Can I close by once more congratulating all of my colleagues on being back in the 51st Parliament and restating my commitment to work as we can across the House and with all New Zealand for a better New Zealand. Thank you.