Dyson Ruth: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dyson Ruth: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 July 2011. Volume:674;Page:20147. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills) 
: 
 First of all I say that it is a real pleasure to be supporting the Child and Family Protection Bill. I particularly commend to the current Government and to the incoming Government after the election that we end each week on a bill that has more bipartisan agreement or cross-party agreement rather than on ones that end as going up— 
Grant Robertson 
: Do you want us to sing together as well? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: No I am not promoting singing together; I am not in any of those parties. But I do think that it is a good note on which to end the week. I commend Chester Borrows the member who has just resumed his seat and thank him for his chairing of the consideration of this legislation. But at the same time as that genuine acknowledgment can I express my frustration with him for insisting on trotting out the party line. I think it is about time he moved on from that and recognised that some parts of this legislation are deficient that they are improved by the Supplementary Order Papers that are being promoted by two of my colleagues Lynne Pillay and Jacinda Ardern and that we should be above politics—probably in a lot of areas but none more so than in the area of this Parliament being united against family violence. 
I also express some frustration that a new bill was introduced and referred to a select committee and is now taking the time of Parliament when we actually have a better bill on the Order Paper and that is the Domestic Violence Reform Bill introduced in 2008 by my colleague the Hon Annette King when she was the Minister of Justice. That bill is broader than this legislation and it is stronger than this legislation. It is more robust and more credible internationally than this legislation but more important it would do more particularly to protect our children who are in homes where they might be subject to violence. How could anyone not want to do the most possible to protect children? But here we have the Government saying that Labour introduced that bill so National will do something different and it does not care if its legislation is weaker. I think that is a poor position and I challenge the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice to defend doing something less than is possible to defend weakening an existing piece of legislation that is before a select committee. I personally do not think that that is credible. 
I will talk a bit about the background to that 2008 legislation introduced by the Hon Annette King because it had a very unusual background which is one that I do not recall having discussed in this House before. I was Minister for Social Development and Employment at the time and I had convened a cross-all-parties group—one person from each party was invited to join that group—to look at how we could make families safer in New Zealand. It occurred to me as Minister for Social Development and Employment that this was an area where party politics was probably irrelevant and where every party would want to contribute. We had a very diverse group of representatives. We started off just for a couple of meetings having the now Hon Judith Collins—she did not stay for very many meetings just two on behalf of National and it was much to my sadness that National was not represented after that. We had the Hon Heather Roy from the ACT Party—everyone knows Heather Roy’s views; no one will die wondering what she thinks about—and sitting next to her was Sue Bradford from the Green Party. Can members imagine two women with more diverse views than the Hon Heather Roy and Sue Bradford? I cannot actually. They are pretty much poles apart but on this issue they both put every amount of effort attention and passion into contributing and found that they and all the rest of our group had much more in common than we had to divide us. I think that that was a very good thing. 
The Hon Tariana Turia was the representative from the Maori Party and when she was not able to attend the Hon Pita Sharples was its representative. Judy Turner from United Future was its representative and Barbara Stewart from New Zealand First. So every party in Parliament except National said that this issue was so important that it would give its time and effort to contributing to policy development. From that committee came the basis of the domestic violence legislation. The Hon Annette King gave our group a commitment to not progress through even a Cabinet committee let alone Cabinet itself any proposals until those proposals had been looked at by that multiparty group. We had justice officials coming in we had social development officials coming in and we had members of the community and voluntary sector who were involved in delivering many of our family violence prevention programmes. We had a whole range of experts giving us information and then we gave the Hon Annette King our views on what should be in that domestic violence legislation. The draft came to our multiparty group before it went to a Cabinet committee which is pretty rare but I think it is a very good model. But because of National’s petulance childish behaviour immaturity inability to see above its own party’s so-called superiority— 
Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman 
: Is this bipartisan time? 
Hon RUTH DYSON 
: —with the arrogance that the Hon Jonathan Coleman has turned into an art form that is the bill that developed by the multiparty group is now languishing on the bottom of the Order Paper. We have not put in all of the missing bits of that legislation as Supplementary Order Papers to this legislation but perhaps we could have just to reinforce the point. But I urge the Hon Nathan Guy to look at the two Supplementary Order Papers that we have put forward and to take them seriously. Their aim is to improve the bill—not to the standard of the domestic violence legislation that is on the Order Paper but at least to make some small improvements. 
The other areas that have been omitted but that are in the Domestic Violence Reform Bill include as Chester Borrows pointed out the age in the definition of “child”. We have had some pretty tragic situations where people who should have been classed as children have been classed as adults. I do not see any reason at all why we would want that sort of thing to occur to a young person. The difference between the response to a person who is not of adult mental capability and someone who is should be at the heart of a police and justice response but it cannot be while we have that age differentiation. 
Our bill the Domestic Violence Reform Bill also has a provision that requires any judge who declines a without notice application for a protection order to provide written reasons for declining that application. So the applicant would then be able to decide whether to proceed on notice. That is a really important part of understanding judicial decisions but it has been just omitted from this legislation. There is no logic at all for that provision to be omitted but it has been. 
Our bill also has provisions for applicants to be able to attend information sessions so they could get advice on making effective use of protection orders and on any social assistance that may be available—so practical help to people who are in the situation where they are being affected by domestic violence. 
The National Government’s bill does not have any provision for the court to deal with the power to direct attendance at addiction assessment and treatment programmes. Our bill gives the Family Court that power. Every member of the House understands the relationship between drugs and alcohol and dysfunctional family situations. We should be doing everything we can to engage people who are either drug or alcohol addicts with the right path into support. 
Our legislation empowers the Family Court to appoint a lawyer to represent the interests of a child in a broader range of circumstances than is currently the case. Our bill also offers better protection and provision around applications for discharge of protection orders and allows the court to order reports if necessary. Those are the improvements that could be made to this legislation if the National Government had the inclination to put aside party politics and say we should have the best legislation possible. I really urge Government members over the coming hours as we go through the Committee stage to consider those potential improvements. We should be able to do the best possible job that we can as a Parliament to make our children’s lives safe. 
Despite its failings this legislation does do a number of important things. I do not want to diminish in any way the respect that I have for the introduction of this legislation but I do have to make the comment that it could well have been better.