Chhour KarenGENERAL DEBATEHon KAREN CHHOUR (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): I move That the House take note of miscellaneous business. Since becoming the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence I have had the privilege of going around communities hearing and listening to what some people have had to say in this area. I think it's really important that we bring awareness to this very important week which is Rape Awareness Week because many people become victims of serious sexual violence or rape in this country and the more we talk about this issue the more we can actually deal with it and learn where the gaps are and how we can help people when they do become victim to these heinous crimes.The Ministry of Justice estimates that 23 percent—nearly a quarter of New Zealanders—will experience sexual assault in their lifetime with 26 percent of women and 11 percent of men experiencing this before the age of 15. We need to acknowledge this and we need to realise that we have a problem in this country and we need to be talking more openly about this and allowing people to heal. In order to do that we need to have open honest conversations. As a nation we need to stop making excuses and excusing this behaviour. It is really really never OK to harm somebody or hurt somebody in this country. So we must do better not only to encourage and support victims who want to seek justice but to ensure that justice is actually delivered.I'm proud to work alongside a Government who has made this one of their priorities: lowering the amount of victims of sexual assault and family harm in this country over the next few years. We want to see a reduction in the number of people impacted by serious offending including sexual assault to 20000 fewer by 2029. We also want to make sure that we are focusing on the victims: the people who are actually affected by these kinds of crimes—serious crimes that take years and years to sometimes get over if they even are able to get over this.This is why we are bringing in policies like three strikes in order to make sure that if you are victimising someone and you are a perpetrator of serious sexual violence or rape that you will be locked behind bars. But not only that we're making sure that rehabilitation is a focus in our corrections system so that if you are behind bars and you do commit these serious crimes you have the support to turn your life around so that when you come back out we're no longer revictimising people again. I'm really proud to work alongside this Government in these areas to make sure that we have less victims in our communities.I actually was humbled in the last few days speaking to some women who have been the victims of rape and hearing how that has harmed them and hurt them and how it has affected the way they look at the world how it has affected the way they parent how it's affected the way that they behave around their family and friends and how they are really struggling to heal. I was humbled to be a part of the conversations. What I would like to say is victims of these crimes don't necessarily want to be treated like victims. They don't want to be seen as what has happened to them. They want to be a person not to be seen as what a perpetrator has done to them.We need to stand up and thank every single community organisation and every person out there who is standing beside victims of rape or sexual violence to help them put their lives back together. We need to thank all those people who are there at moments where if maybe they weren't there we could have worse results for these victims. We need to make sure we are wrapping around and watching and looking in our community and if we see something say something.We as a society need to say enough is enough and we're not going to tolerate this any more. This is a problem that is not just a Government problem to solve; it's society's issue to solve. It's not OK to put your hands on somebody and to hurt somebody or to even have any form of sexual contact with somebody without their consent ever. When somebody says no it means no. And we need to take the shame away from victims. There's no shame when something happens to you. The only person who should be blamed for that is the person who harmed you.