Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Tēnā koe e Te Mana Whakawā. Ahiahi pai ki a koutou. I'm very pleased to stand in the House today and support the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. The levels of domestic and sexual violence in our country are frankly an indictment on all of us. Every year over 500000 New Zealanders are directly affected by family and sexual violence including over 120000 children. And behind every one of these numbers is a human story: the story of someone just like us or indeed one of us. The dynamics and circumstances may vary but this blight affects people of every socio-economic class age ability and gender. A survey released by Women's Refuge yesterday showed a high prevalence of suicidality and self-harm amongst victims and this mirrors international findings. In the words of Dr Ange Jury the head of the Women's Refuge—she said If you … think about the experience of being abused by a partner someone who is supposed to love you and care for you the obvious potential for at least severe depression is really really clear." We cannot continue to accept such high levels of violence. We must ensure family violence becomes an absolute aberration rather than something that is commonplace as it is now.This legalisation is an important step: a mix of relatively simple updates and clarifications of the law and more transformative fundamental changes. I would like to acknowledge the Hon Amy Adams the previous Minister of Justice for her work developing this legislation and putting family violence back on the political table and getting to some pretty fundamental gnarly problems with this legislation. And as previous National members have been indicating a real sense of wanting to get to the detail and the importance of action I'd like to indicate that I look forward to working with them in the not-too-distant future on that programme of work.I was part of the Justice and Electoral Committee which considered this bill and I would like too to acknowledge the committee members and all those who made a submission. The Greens have always supported this legislation but at the time when this was reported back I did note my concern that the response was not proportionate necessarily to the size or the complexity of the problem. So I do want to thank Minister Little and this Government for seeing the value of this legislation and also recognising that we need to do more around this.This Government has created my position to integrate our response across Government to ensure that this remains a priority. This Government has increased funding and reset the relationship with our front-line services who are so essential in our response. They've initiated a review of the 2014 Family Court changes that prioritised money saving over the safety of victims and survivors and they've put money in the last Budget towards a central agent to properly coordinate Government action to ensure that we all know what our role is in responding effectively. So now is the time for us all to work together and play our part to break the cycle of violence.The Family Violence Death Review Committee noted in their fifth report that we have a family violence system in name only. Rather than a coordinated or integrated response we have to quote them "a fragmented assortment of services and initiatives - islands of practice - commonly underpinned by old ways of thinking about family violence". They noted that "Real help for victims of [intimate partner violence] within our current system is sporadic unpredictable and frequently not available. There are few strategies to address their partner's abusive behaviour."Now this piece of legislation provides for a more integrated family violence system a greater ability to identify and manage risks before they escalate and better identification of family violence within the justice system and it creates modern language to reflect our modern understanding. It creates a concrete definition of the family violence sector involving most of our key Government agencies and it enables by Order in Council the development of codes of practice right across that family violence sector to ensure that everyone's practice is informed by best evidence. That is truly potentially transformative. It gives us a framework to ensure best practice and consistency recognising the complex and cross-cutting nature of family violence. It is a Government priority to address—and ultimately I hope end—family and sexual violence. This bill shifts our response from the bottom of the cliff adding early intervention as a core role in the response to family violence into the principles of the legislation and acknowledges that we need to identify and manage risks wherever possible. Early intervention interrupts and disrupts what we know is a pattern of behaviour. So a key provision in this legislation is the ability to obtain a risk and needs assessment when a police safety order (PSO) is issued. A PSO can be the first point at which a potentially violent relationship is registered with police and it's a critical opportunity to assess the situation and determine what support is required for both the victim and the perpetrator.Thorough risk assessments are necessary to ensure the safety of victims and we haven't had them in place before. Needs assessments help us support victims and remove barriers in the way of perpetrators changing their behaviour. A PSO with this legislation will be able to be issued alongside an arrest which will strengthen our response in cases where there may not eventually be enough evidence to proceed to prosecution. There's no intention for PSOs to be used instead of charges where there is evidence of family violence but this ensures that no matter what happens there are pathways for supporting people to stop using violence rather than just leaving us with a blunt choice between prosecution and total inaction.This bill also creates new long-awaited family violence offences: non-fatal strangulation which is a serious act to gain power and control over a victim which is significantly indicated as a higher risk for suicide. It also creates assault on a person in a family relationship alongside male assaults female acknowledging other forms of family violence while continuing to recognise the gendered violence within and outside of family relationships.We've heard the particular challenges of women in ethnic communities and people with disabilities when it comes to engaging with services and feeling as if their needs are covered by the legislation. This bill strengthens our response for people with disabilities and people from migrant communities by the clarification that their needs are covered by this legislation when in practice they haven't been for far too long.This bill also clarifies that some behaviours that appear trivial in isolation can have a cumulative impact and we highlight the use of coercive and controlling behaviours in family violence to ensure that our courts really understand the dynamics of this violence. There is much much more that it does and I am looking forward in my role as Parliamentary under-secretary to overseeing the implementation of this to ensure that we get really strong consistent practise so that every victim is supported to safety and every person who uses violence is given the absolute opportunity to change their behaviour and to be held to account for their violence."