Collins JudithHon JUDITH COLLINS (National—Papakura): Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. It's been interesting to listen to Ms Jan Logie's speech to the House; a very impassioned speech and I congratulate her on it. I'd also like to say—as I understand that she is a member of the executive—that I'm surprised that this hasn't been advanced as a Government bill paid for by the taxpayer through the Budget process when it comes to this entitlement to leave. I would have thought that a Government who wanted to support this bill would want to say that this is something that employers should not be meeting the cost of but rather the whole of New Zealand should because it would be in the best interests of all of New Zealand plus those who are clearly the victims of family violence.The National Party has a very proud record in Government when it comes to tackling the issue of family violence. In 2016 we introduced a $132 million package of reforms which overhauled the whole family violence law and the way in which the system prevents and responds to family violence. In the 2017 Budget we invested $37.2 million into targeted family violence services including the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot and the Gang Action Plan pilot. That ISR pilot has helped over 24000 people through the development of more than 8000 family safety plans. I don't believe that the current Government supports any of that.The 2017 investment fund for mental health saw $4 million to pilot a culturally responsive therapy service for children aged five to 12 years that have experienced or been exposed to family and/or sexual violence. Budget 2016 provided $46 million of operating funding over four years including $6.4 million of reprioritised funding to design and implement new sexual violence services and to develop and support existing services. We took an across-the-board approach to better protect victims of family violence. We brought in a new 24/7 national sexual violence helpline to provide nationally accessible information and to support people affected in any way by sexual harm. We established a ministerial group on family violence and sexual violence across 16 portfolios to oversee a work programme aiming to improve the current system and to deliver better results for all those affected by sexual violence. We improved our investment in crisis support services for victims of sexual violence. The Ministry of Social Development and ACC worked together to ensure better coverage across prevention crisis response and long-term care and recovery. We increased the penalty for breaching protection orders. We kept up to 1000 victims of family violence safe each year in their own homes by funding and promoting the National Home Safety Service. We provided judges access to information in family violence cases by improving information-sharing regulations. Alongside police and judiciary programmes have been running in Porirua Christchurch Wellington and Northland to give judges who are making bail decisions a family violence summary report on the defendant's family violence history and we brought in a new disclosure scheme the police Family Violence Information Disclosure Scheme which was created to make it easier for police to release a person's violent criminal past to a concerned partner or friend. We did these things in Government and we did not ask employers to pay for that. We asked the taxpayers to pay for it for the betterment of New Zealand. What this bill lacks is something which shows that it wants to put all of the costs of this on to small employers in particular. I am very pleased that some very large employers can in fact and do offer a 10-day working leave for people who are the victims of family violence. That is a good thing but most people in New Zealand are not employed in big business. Most people in New Zealand are employed by small businesses many of whom have one two or three staff members and it is simply not possible for many of these smaller businesses to take up this obligation when if it is important—which we all agree—it should be met out of the general funds of the consolidated account of the Government. The member whose bill this is Jan Logie is a Government member. We have heard today her espousing of what this Government wants to do. She is a member of the executive. If it is so important to her and her parties that she is today speaking for she needs to have it as a Government bill funded out of the Budget—that is the Budget of the New Zealand Government not the budget of mum and dad who happen to have a dairy. That is not fair to them. That might in fact mean that they might make some hiring decisions that they would not make otherwise.Hon Andrew Little: That's right—do nothing. Do nothing.Hon JUDITH COLLINS: So we voted for this—and it's interesting to hear very rude and irresponsible interjections from the current Minister of Justice Andrew Little a man who wants to let free half these family violence perpetrators because they happen at the moment to be held on remand after this party along with the Labour Party and New Zealand First voted to keep them in jail. He doesn't want to have that; he wants them out on the streets and instead of paying the cost of that he wants mum and dad dairy owners to pay the cost of that and that's not fair. Small-business owners should not be meeting that cost unless they feel able to do so. It is something which is important for the Government. Mr Little might think it's a fun thing to do to shout out all the way through another member's serious and considered contribution but he is the man who wants to let these perpetrators of family violence out on bail where they will be free to continue their recidivist violent offending against their spouses and their family generally. He is the Minister of Justice who wants to do that and we in the National Party will not support him in that as we will not support a further burden on small business when the Government books clearly show that they have enough money to help fund Ms Logie's idea and they don't want to do it. I think too if we come back to our own Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill which is currently in the House right at the moment—and it's been put on hold by this Government. They took it over from the Hon Amy Adams as the Minister of Justice and it has now languished there for this last year. Instead we have this bill which has been around for nine months. There is no funding attached to it—not a scrap of Government funding attached to it—and instead they are taking the cheap way out by asking mum and dad business owners to pay for it. That is not the responsibility of people in small business. It is great if big employers can help fund that but actually it is the responsibility of the Government before it is the responsibility of small-business owners. It is simply not fair to add this burden yet again to them. And there may well be many who are already bearing this burden but that is their choice. That is their choice as employers—it is their choice to be able to do that. A Government that wants to use a member's bill to take on and to put on to small employers the responsibilities of the Government—that is not fair to anybody and this Government should not think that that is a responsible way in which to act. There is no doubt about it: this will add costs and responsibilities to small-business owners the people who are already asked by us to collect wages to collect student loan payments and to collect all of the costs that we in Government expect them to collect. It's not fair to them. It's not fair to the victims. It is actually a cop-out by a Government that has the money and can't be bothered using it.