Cosgrove Clayton: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Sitting date: 22 June 2010. Volume:664;Page:12060. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour—Waimakariri) 
: 
 The Labour Opposition will be supporting the extension set out in the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims (Expiry and Application Dates) Amendment Bill. It is a technical amendment. Why are we supporting it? Quite clearly we are supporting it because we in 2005 put in place the Prisoners’ and Victims’ Claims Act whilst in Government. This is Labour Government legislation that the current Government is seeking to extend for 2 years from 1 July until 30 June 2012. So on the basis of an extension of the legislation that the previous Labour Government passed of course we would support this legislation. 
This bill is designed to assist victims. The aim of course is to extend those restrictions in awarding compensation to prisoners for a further 2 years as I have said so that the victims’ claims process also applies to compensation awarded in or to be paid pursuant to an out-of-court final settlement in respect of a prisoner’s claim made on or after 1 July 2010 but before 1 July 2012. So in essence this amending legislation bridges a gap. Labour agrees with this. We wrote this legislation—that is the primary Act—and we agree with its extension but I would make a couple of points in passing. 
This Government has made many lofty claims in respect of assisting victims. I suspect that we putting aside our political prejudices all support that ethos of supporting victims who have been subject to either heinous crime at the horrific tragic end of the scale or even so-called minor crime smaller incidences at the other end of the scale. But I make this point. If this Government was serious about assisting victims this legislation would be followed by legislation that does away with what is happening with accident compensation whereby sexual abuse victims are no longer able to get the support they need thanks to the changes made to our accident compensation system by this National Government. This issue is germane to this legislation because we are talking about victims of crime. That member over there might have a bit of a peck as she is wont to do but this is the truth and I challenge this Government. If this Government is serious about assisting victims I ask every member of the Government about the men and women who have been subjected to horrific crime through sexual abuse and other sexual crime and who formerly under the previous Government could get the assistance they needed. There is no dispute in my view about the crimes committed against those people. They will live with the horrific nature of those crimes for the rest of their lives. They need counselling perhaps psychological assistance perhaps medical assistance and other support. 
We know that under the previous Government those victims of sexual abuse and sexual crime were getting the assistance they need. Under this Government many of them most of them are not getting that. I challenge the ACT Party because we know of the affiliation between the ACT Party and the Sensible Sentencing Trust through Mr Garrett. He was intimately involved with the Sensible Sentencing Trust. I challenge the ACT Party. I ask Mr Boscawen to get up in this debate and challenge the Government that he and his colleagues prop up every day. If that party is serious about assisting and supporting all victims of crime I ask Mr Boscawen through you Mr Assistant Speaker Barker whether he will get up and challenge this Government and demand that it change its policy so that victims of heinous sexual crime can get the assistance they need through accident compensation. 
Hon Dr Wayne Mapp 
: Leave it to you. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: What? Oh the shell of the defence Minister has been burst. 
So I challenge the ACT Party member to get up and challenge his own side in the debate. I challenge the Sensible Sentencing Trust which has not at any time—and I could be wrong; I stand to be corrected—put out a statement decrying this Government for the changes to accident compensation policy and for the lack of support that victims of sexual abuse and sexual crime receive thanks to this Government. Most of them are not receiving that help and I challenge Mr McVicar who has very strong views on the rights of victims many of which I agree with to perhaps put out a statement and decry this Government for the withdrawal of services to victims of sexual abuse. When we talk about victims at the top of the scale in terms of the offending they suffered—whether it be the tragic circumstances of murder rape or sexual abuse—I do not think we do think of sexual abuse victims as second class to any others. 
Although Labour supports this legislation there is a wider issue. In the crime of sexual abuse those crimes have been dealt with and there is a guilty party. A jury has rendered a verdict and somebody is in the clink or paying the price for abusing and violating a member of the community. So there is no dispute that the crime happened. Then the question is what we as a Parliament a people and a community do about it. How responsible do we feel for aiding and assisting those victims of sexual crime? I know that a speech was made by Chester Borrows I think—if I am wrong I apologise—in which he asked whether it was appropriate that victims of sexual crime get help from the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC). I will say what is appropriate. What is appropriate is that they get help—full stop. The bickering over the pot it comes out of has to stop. If the Government feels that ACC is not the appropriate place to assist victims of heinous sexual abuse then I ask those members and I ask Mr Borrows where the replacement funding comes from. Where does the funding for those victims come from? Is it from the Ministry of Health or another Government department or agency? Let us stop the bickering about whether the money should come from the ACC pot or another pot and whether sexual abuse is deemed to be an accident under the definitional rules of ACC. If it is the Government’s judgment that ACC is not the appropriate place to help the victims of tragic and heinous sexual crime then I challenge those members to tell us what they are doing about it what they are replacing it with and where the money is to help these people. 
The Minister for ACC has been derelict in his duty. He has been deficient in his job. He has not as a member of our Parliament and as a member of our community stepped forward and made a case in Cabinet. If he does not want these compensatory benefits to come out of Vote ACC then he has a duty as does every member of Cabinet and the National caucus who bleats on those organisations and support parties such as ACT and those organisations outside this place like the Sensible Sentencing Trust and others that purport to stand by victims—and I take them at their word and I respect them for those views—to hold this Government and Cabinet to account and to demand that the resource is provided from some vote from some agency from some department to assist those men and women who live with the crime of sexual abuse for the rest of their lives. I am told that many of them are not with us in our community any more. They have passed on by their own hand through suicide because they could not get the assistance they need. The acid test in this debate the acid test of this Parliament’s and this Government’s commitment to assisting victims is not in this bill. 
We support this bill we wrote the Act we came up with the idea and this Government—and fair enough—is extending it. I commend it for that. But the acid test as to whether we are truly in support of victims and are committed to that is what we do to assist the most vulnerable. I would argue that children young men and women and old men and women who are victims of sexual abuse and sexual crime who under the last Government received the assistance they need but who were denied that assistance under this Government for petty bureaucratic reasons or cost cutting are some of the most vulnerable of our citizenry. Although we have had days weeks months and now years of this issue not being addressed by members opposite the acid test for this Government is what it does and what it proposes to do to assist those victims and whether its support parties stand up tonight if they truly believe in victims’ rights and hold the Government to account along with others outside this place like the Sensible Sentencing Trust which in my view have been somewhat quiet on this issue. We support this bill. We wrote this bill. We support the extension to it but I am serious when I invite members opposite to tell the victims of sexual crime how they will assist them as a Government. 
Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER 
: I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member but his time has expired. New Zealand Maori are 17; Wales are 13.