The Goverment had been keeping aside funding for court programme Te Ao Mārama pending a review. It has now banked that money as savings.
The Goverment had been keeping aside funding for court programme Te Ao Mārama pending a review. It has now banked that money as savings.
Te Ao Mārama was launched in 2020 to improve District Court processes, while connecting offenders with local providers to tackle the drivers of offending.
It was funded in Budget 2022 and has since been implemented in eight courts, with five more next in line.
Last year the Government paused the funding for further rollout, pending a review. Budget 2025 has now banked that money as $32.1 million in savings - before the review has finished.
The Government is being accused of acting in bad faith for pulling $32.1 million in funding for the further rollout of a “transformational” justice programme before a review is completed.
It has prompted concern from the Criminal Bar Association over the future of Te Ao Mārama,a District Court programme it says is desperately needed, while Labour is questioning whether the Government is avoiding being cornered into future funding if the review comes back positive.
The Government says an expansion of the programme might still happen - if a future Budget bid is successful - and it will continue in the eight sites where it has already been implemented.
The potential benefit is huge: 200,000 matters come before the District Court every year, mostly for minor offending which, if unchecked, can lead to further offending of increasing seriousness.
Those on the ground in Gisborne and Northland say the kaupapa is having a “significant” impact, but it’s only been running for a few years and there’s a lack of hard evidence.
Last year the Government hit the brakes on funding the rollout pending a review. This effectively put $25.3m over four years on a shelf, which would be unshelved if the review found the programme effective.
Courts Minister Nicole McKee. Photo / Mark Mitchell
“The $25 million is still there, it’s in a tagged contingency,” Courts Minister Nicole McKee told the Justice Select Committee last year during the scrutiny week hearings.
“But when we expand it, we want to make sure that we can make some good improvements to it if needed.”
Budget 2025 has now unshelved the funding and banked it as savings: $32.1m, a combination of the $25.3m plus the $6.8m that would have been needed for the extra year in this Budget’s forecast period.
“Decisions on funding an expansion of the Te Ao Mārama programme beyond the eight existing sites will be made as part of future budget processes,” says Budget 2025’s summary of initiatives document.
McKee said in a statement: “The Ministry of Justice will have the ability to re-submit a Budget bid once the effectiveness of Te Ao Mārama is better understood from the evaluation.”
The review, due for completion next year, is expected to look at reoffending rates, the seriousness of reoffending, the “wellbeing” of court participants and their communities, and any reduced representation of Māori in the justice system
A spokesman for Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu, who launched the programme as a “transformational change”, said the judge was unable to comment.
Judge Heemi Taumaunu, Chief District Court Judge, launched Te Ao Marama in November 2020 as a new way of doing things. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Essential resource disappearing
Labour’s justice spokesman, Duncan Webb, said the Government might be acting pre-emptively to avoid a situation where, if the review came back positive, there would be an obligation to fund the rollout.
“If you’re genuinely reviewing something, and you’ve got a contingency for a further rollout, and you then pull the funding in a way that makes the additional rollout challenging if not impossible, that’s acting in bad faith,” he said.
“It appeared to be doing quite well in terms of improving the criminal justice system, across the board from victims to perpetrators to their whānau. Maybe they weren’t actually interested in what the review said.”
Criminal Bar Association president Annabel Cresswell suggested the Government was breaking a promise.
“It is concerning to see this essential resource disappear from the Budget before the review could be concluded, as was initially promised.
“We know first-hand the desperate need for the work of Te Ao Mārama, a programme that finally brings together different agencies, communities, and iwi, to support the work of our courts.”
Labour's Duncan Webb believes Te Ao Mārama adds to the justice system's fairness and legitimacy. Photo / Mark Mitchell
Cresswell noted funding in Budget 2025 for the bottom of the justice cliff: $400 million in new spending to cover the costs of a rising prison population.
“The small resource Te Ao Mārama required is far more effective at keeping communities safe, which in the long run costs far less than the billions Governments have poured into prisons,” she said.
If a decision was made to fund the rollout in future, the Law Society said it hoped it wouldn’t then lose out during the Budget bidding process.
“We’re disappointed to see the funding for extension of Te Ao Mārama will not be held in contingency this Budget, given the review is intended to be completed within this Budget year,“ a Law Society spokesperson said.
offenders who repeatedly return to prison because little is done to address what’s behind their offending;
parties to proceedings who leave court feeling alienated, disempowered and retraumatised.
These issues have been outlined in successive reports across four decades - most recently with Turuki! Turuki! at the end of 2019 - which have all called for urgent change.
But there’s a tension between those calls and the Government’s sales pitch as tough on crime; National rejected the findings of Turuki! Turuki!
The Government’s justice sector ministers have made it clear their version of accountability leans towards offenders doing time behind bars rather than in the community, but they recognise the independence of the judiciary.
At the Launch of Te Ao Marama in the Kaitaia District Court in 2022: Chief District Court Judge Heemi Taumaunu (left), Judge Greg Davis, Principal Youth Court Judge John Walker, Acting Principal Family Court Judge Stephen Coyle and then-Corrections Minister Kelvin Davis. Photo / Peter de Graaf
Te Ao Mārama is the judiciary’s response to those reports, and though it doesn’t need Government backing, money certainly helps.
All courtrooms can use plain language instead of legalese, or change the layout so they’re less intimidating.
But it’s the funding that hires specialist workers, placing them inside the courtroom to help offenders, victims, or their families navigate the process, and to connect lawyers and judges with local providers in the community.
“The community, even the lawyers know what supports are available, and they encourage their clients to engage in advance of the matter coming before a judge,” Kaikohe-based Judge Michelle Howard-Sager told the Herald last year. “It ends up being a joined-up collaborative approach.”
This touches on key elements: a judge willing to think differently about how justice is served, and the right community support to enable it.
Taumaunu has described this as mainstreaming what happens in specialist courts, which generally have lower reoffending rates, and tend to take less punitive approaches that focus on addressing why someone landed in court in the first place.
A court might order addiction treatment, for example, or a culturally-centred programme or restorative justice process.
Taumaunu has pushed back on comments that the programme is soft on crime, saying it’s smart on crime.
Derek Cheng is a senior journalist who started at the Herald in 2004. He has worked several stints in the press gallery team and is a former deputy political editor.
