SpeechJONO NAYLOR (National): There is no doubt that domestic violence is an absolute scourge on our society. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that we need to do absolutely everything we can to firstly eliminate it to ensure that we do not have victims of domestic violence in New Zealand but also that we as a society do everything that we can in the meantime to support victims of domestic violence.I think it is all too easy at times for those of us who have been fortunate enough to grow up in households where we have not experienced that and maybe have just been untouched by it and certainly we have things to be thankful for in that. But despite the fact that it is so prevalent in New Zealand there are a whole lot of people in New Zealand who really do not understand the full ramifications for victims of domestic violence. Yes there are the physical scars there are the emotional scars but then often there are a whole lot of other practical things that have to be dealt with.For example if you need to shift house because you are the one who has to move out you do not just do that in your spare time after work necessarily. Those things take time. If you need to visit your children's school to explain to the principal or to their teachers about what is going on to be able to help them manage their way through it you do not just do that in your spare time after work. If you need to even change schools or go to appointments or otherwise there are the really wide ramifications of a whole lot of practical things that victims of domestic violence have to endure on top of the abuse itself. So it is important that we have within our employment structure the opportunity for those people to be able to have the flexibility to do some of those things.In an ideal world we would not be here this evening having this discussion because in an ideal world there would not be any domestic violence; also in an ideal world even if there was domestic violence all employers would be understanding enough to be flexible enough to ensure that this would happen anyway and there are as has been said this evening already many good employers out there who are already doing that. But sadly we do not live in an ideal world and so we do need to ensure that there are some systems and some mechanisms in place to ensure that our victims of domestic violence in New Zealand are getting every amount of support that they can get.I have to say when I initially saw and heard of this legislation I could see how for a large employer this would be relatively easy to implement. I thought actually when I first heard the idea of 10 extra days off per year of how that might be difficult for a small employer. And so there will be some things I am sure as this goes through the select committee stage that may need a little bit of nuancing for us to be able to figure out how we can ensure that those people are supported while at the same time ensuring that the employers and particularly smaller employers who are struggling are not unnecessarily affected by that. I think ultimately we will be in a position where through what we do in this House we send a very clear message to employers so that actually an employee perhaps never has to invoke this clause because they will be able to have the kind of relationship with their employer where they can actually go and talk to them about what is going on and their employer will respond; but there obviously needs to be a backup for them if they have an uncooperative employer.I also just want to acknowledge the delegation of people whom I had come through my office door in Palmerston North a couple of weeks ago the local representatives from the National Council of Women of New Zealand. They came to me and said: Jono we'd really really like you to support this bill at least to the first reading stage to ensure that this very very important conversation gets on the table in Parliament and is debated so we can work through all those different sort of nuances"—as I referred to before—"to ensure that we get the very best legislation we can." I am really happy to support this at least at this stage to ensure that we have that very positive discussion because as I said when I opened this speech it is clearly incredibly important that we not only eliminate domestic violence from our communities but do everything we can to support the victims of it and I commend this bill to the House."