Victim Support to get $10.8m extra in Budget

Victim Support will receive an extra $10.8 million for the next four years in this week's Budget, Justice Minister Mark Burton announced yesterday.

The funding, which will finance an ongoing restructuring of the organisation and meet increasing demand for its services, was greeted as a welcome relief by Victim Support.

"This restructure is essential in order that Victim Support can meet the increased national demand for its services to victims," chairwoman Margaret Eames said.

Mr Burton said the funding emphasised Labour's continuing commitment to supporting victims of crime, noting the party was the only one to have passed victims rights legislation.

"Although Victim Support will always have a core volunteer work force, the record numbers of people in employment and the growing need for specialist support means that additional funding will put Victim Support in a stronger position to support the victims of crime in the future."

As Mr Burton was announcing the additional funding, National leader Don Brash was pouring scorn on the Government's justice track record, telling the party's Lower North Island Regional Conference that Labour's policies were not working and New Zealand was not a safer or better place to live. "The most basic responsibility of Government - every Government - is to keep the public safe. Law-abiding people have a right to expect that they will be kept safe from those who prey on them, their families, and the wider community, but at present the public do not, and cannot, have that expectation," he said.

National wanted a justice system which better supported victims, a prison-building programme which ran to budget, and an adequately resourced police force, Dr Brash said.