Davis Kelvin: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 03 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19227. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour):It is a pleasure for me to speak on the Parole (Extended Supervision Orders) Amendment Bill which touches on one of the priorities I set myself upon my return to Parliament; that is the elimination of sexual violence in New Zealand. I just have to take issue with my own colleague Carol Beaumont on a couple of things. She said that maybe we cannot fully eliminate sexual violence from New Zealand. I believe we must do everything in our power to ensure that we aim for the total elimination of sexual violence within New Zealand. It is not going to be an easy task but we need to have that as our focus and not deviate from it.I also want to just touch on the acknowledgments of the cross-party collaboration on this bill. It is good to see that on something as serious as sexual violence we can come together and put aside our party differences for the betterment of the most vulnerable in New Zealand.The extended supervision orders are used to manage a small number of child sex offenders who pose a high risk of causing serious harm after being released from prison at the end of their sentence. These orders can last for up to 10 years beyond which the Department of Corrections is not able to manage these offenders even if they continue to pose a high risk of serious harm to the public. The bill enables orders to be renewed as often as is needed and expands the scope of orders beyond high-risk child sex offenders to include high-risk sex offenders against adults as well as very high-risk violent offenders. It is really important to note that sexual violence and other types of violence often go hand in hand in particular in domestic situations.The regulatory impact statement says: “If a sex offender against adults or a violent offender does not meet the stringent criteria for a public protection order there are currently no other tools available to manage them at the end of a finite sentence. They would be unmanaged in the community as they have finished their sentence.” This bill addresses that. In other words there is another tool with which to manage the behaviour and manage the sexual offenders.I note that there is the concern that this bill may not be consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act in terms of the retrospective penalties and double jeopardy so the Law and Order Committee does have a duty to really consider this bill to take it seriously and to try to maintain that balance between upholding the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and also protecting the most vulnerable in our society; that is our children and also I include our women in that.I also have to make the point here that we often talk about sexual violence and domestic violence as being only man against woman. I just want to make the point because people have had me up about it in various hui that we must remember that men are also victims of sexual and domestic violence. We should not downplay that. But it is a fact that about 90 percent of offences are committed by men.The Labour Party believes that public safety should not be put at risk as a result of extended supervision orders’ expiry. We need long-term options for managing the risk of serious harm caused by high-risk groups. It is good to see this bill taking steps to achieve that.Labour is deeply concerned about the high incidence of family domestic and sexual violence in New Zealand. Since 2008 there has been a 36 percent increase in the number of recorded sexual violence offences. It is now at the highest level ever recorded. It is a pretty well-known fact that one in eight men in New Zealand over their lifetime will experience sexual violence one in six women will experience sexual violence and for Māori women it is one in three. At a recent hui I attended at Hoani Waititi Marae in west Auckland an organisation called Tū Wahine Trust presented research on sexual violence. It came out with this pretty astounding set of figures that said in west Auckland central Auckland and on the North Shore there are between 8000 to 10000 young men and 15000 to 18000 young women who have experienced sexual violence. That is just sexual violence. Between 23000 and 28000 young people under the age 24 have experienced sexual violence. That is not including domestic violence that is not including witnessing domestic violence that is not including Northland and Tai Tokerau or South Auckland or Waikato or the Bay of Plenty or the rest of New Zealand; this is just central and west Auckland and the North Shore.We talk about the number of people who are not achieving in school to the best of their potential. When we think about that number of between 23000 and 28000 young people who have experienced sexual violence in just those areas of Auckland alone those young people are in classes each day trying to learn trying to focus on what the teacher is saying but at the same time their heads are probably filled with what happened to them last night quite possibly in the apparent safety of their own homes by somebody whom they know love and trust. And here we are; we are wondering why we have so many of our young people who are not managing to achieve their potential in school.There was a recent report I read that says sexual violence drives women into poverty. It says that sexual violence inhibits their sense of agency. “Agency” is a term used to describe how people rise above their own circumstances and the situation and achieve regardless. You think about it: the number of women who are sexually abused or are victims of domestic violence—they have this reduced sense of agency. They cannot raise themselves above their circumstances. They do not achieve as well as they could. They do not get the qualifications that they maybe should so they do not earn as much as they should. This has an impact on the economy in that if we think about it most women are mothers who do the shopping for their families and they have less money. But also what this does is it drives their families into poverty. So we can talk about feeding the kids as much as we want and for as long as we want but maybe what we need to consider is that if we want to feed our kids we need to look after their mothers first. We need to protect their mothers and the women in society.This House and the men in this House—I think we owe it to our wives and to our girlfriends our partners our daughters our mothers our sisters our friends and to our colleagues around the House to really take seriously this issue of sexual violence and domestic violence. It is for the good of the whole country. This bill is a small step to protecting our women and our children our most vulnerable. I am proud that Labour not only supports it but its genesis was back when Labour was in Government and Phil Goff kicked things off. Kia ora.