5. SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) Link to this
to the Minister of Justice
Why has the proportion of New Zealanders who have been the victims of crime increased to 39 percent in 2005, compared to 29.5 percent in 2000 and 31 percent in 1995?
Hon MARK BURTON (Minister of Justice) Link to this
If the member had bothered to read past the second paragraph of the executive summary of the New Zealand Crime and Safety Survey 2006, he would know that the best-practice changes made in the survey’s methodology make comparisons of the kind that he is attempting to make between this survey and the two earlier surveys factually incorrect and certainly misleading. When adjustments are made for the methodological changes, which the researchers themselves have done—for instance, around the incidence of violent crime—the report actually shows, as opposed to the assertion the member makes, no evidence of an increase in the level of violent crime since the last survey. That point was well made on Television New Zealand this morning by the principal researcher, Pat Mayhew OBE.
How can the Minister dispute the fact that four out of 10 people are victims of crime under Labour, compared with three out of 10 before that, when the police crime statistics issued on Monday also show that although violent crime was stable from 1996 to 1999, since then it has increased by 22 percent to almost a thousand violent crime offences a week?
Well, the member is asking the House to take his methodology, as opposed to that of the principal researcher, Pat Mayhew OBE, the director of the crime and justice research centre at Victoria University, a woman who is an internationally accepted expert in the field. She said on television this morning that those figures cannot be directly compared. The methodology of this research has been improved to the level of international best practice and, as she predicted, that has increased the quantum of reported crime. I would have thought that the member would welcome more factually accurate information. It is on the basis of that that we are able to fight crime and develop appropriate programmes.
Hon Phil GoffDoes the very page of the report from which Mr Power has drawn his figures state explicitly, in the footnote, that the increase he alleges “was due to methodological changes rather than an increase in the actual victimisation rate”; and would it not have been more honest for the member who asked that question to explicitly acknowledge that?
Given that the author of that report is an internationally respected and revered researcher—Pat Mayhew OBE—frankly, yes, I would agree with that. I am sure that commentators and certainly members of the House would prefer to rely on her methodology rather than on Mr Power’s.
Hon Peter DunneHow can the Minister give assurances to New Zealand families of their security and safety in their own communities, when sexual crime has risen by 9.7 percent and damage to property by 7.8 percent, and when other signs of antisocial behaviours, like violent crime and drug and alcohol abuse, have also risen markedly since 2005?
To take the example of violent and sexual crime that the member refers to, I tell the House that researchers have specifically run the methodologies in order to make fair comparison with previous research, and have concluded that in fact the numbers are relatively stable.
I think the knowledge of that fact is critically important, and I am seriously concerned that a member who purports to have any interest in such a matter would intentionally mislead this House—which that member appears to have done by not bothering to read the very page he quoted from.
Why was the latest crime and safety survey, which contained this bad news for the Government, released yesterday—hardly a slow news day—when last February the Minister announced that it would be released in December?
Later in the year I said that the report would be released in the first quarter of this year. If the member is suggesting that a report that was subject to a media conference and immediately put on a website was somehow secretly leaked out, then I shudder to think what his idea of a genuine leak would be.
Steve ChadwickA number of significant and long-term crime prevention and reduction initiatives have been put in place since the 2005 survey. Those include, in particular, significant support for Victim Support and community support initiatives, and a focus on the long-term support of community-based agencies. I can tell the member that the Government will certainly be making full use of the findings of this research and using them as the basis of further work on effective policy development.
Why did he announce an inter-agency task force on sexual violence last month, when the Safer Communities Action Plan to Reduce Community Violence and Sexual Violence of March 2004 recommended that a sexual violence inter-agency steering group be established by the end of the year 2004?
Because it was a positive initiative, and I am surprised that the member does not seem to support it.
Why has he as Minister of Justice previously failed to secure funding for the sexual violence task force, as revealed by a 2005 briefing from his officials—or was the Hon Lianne Dalziel right when she said last year that the Government might have taken its “eye off the ball” when it came to putting the action into the action plan, with all of that occurring while sexual offences, as we found out on Monday, have increased by 16 percent since 1999?
The member continues to play with serious issues. The statistics the member is talking about reflect an increase in the reporting of sexual offences. I would have thought that that member would support the increase in the throwing of light on to that dire crime. I simply ask the member whether he supports the initiative.