Hutchison Paul: Care of Children Bill — Instruction to Committee Procedure In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Care of Children Bill — Instruction to Committee Procedure In Committee 
[Volume:621;Page:16666] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am very pleased to be able to speak on the Care of Children Bill. I am deeply concerned that it is being debated under urgency. It is very important to put into perspective just how important this bill is to New Zealand. A few weeks ago I was in a debate with the Children’s Commissioner and she made the point that between 1989 and 2000 111 New Zealand children were killed in their homes by their parents or relatives and 1743 were admitted to hospital as a result of non-accidental injuries inflicted by others. Those tragic events occurred mostly within families. Madam Chair I urge that you give this debate its full time this evening and if necessary extend it over until tomorrow because there is a crisis in New Zealand and it is hugely important that we as a Parliament address it seriously and constructively. 
I remember very clearly being a registrar and house surgeon in south Auckland when the royal commission was deliberating. I saw young women who had been beaten by their families because they were pregnant being brought into Middlemore Hospital. I remember seeing women being sent off to Australia through the Sisters Overseas Service system and women who were seriously morbid because of backstreet abortions. What has happened in the intervening years has been serious for New Zealand because we now have abortion rates that are very high by international standards compared with say the rates of the Netherlands which are one-third of ours. I do not believe that we have seriously addressed proper reproductive health strategies in this country. In the Netherlands there has been an emphasis on proper resourcing on openness on lifelong education on accessibility to contraception and sterilisation and on a safe abortion service. I think it is hugely important for this Parliament to address the issues of having a proper and well-resourced sexual reproductive health strategy in this country. We are failing not only in terms of the children who are being abused and traumatised in their homes but at every level from conception onwards and that must be addressed. 
As a young registrar I saw those young women and I think it is important to also realise that letting the parents or the perpetrators of such beatings get away with that is absolutely unacceptable. I think that is one of the strengths of what Judith Collins has brought to this Committee in the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 293 in her name. It is hugely important that we do everything possible to ensure that parents are involved. I know that I have seen as the constituent MP for Port Waikato increasing numbers of mothers come to me and say that they have been left out of the circuit when it comes to contraception. The school councillors or the school have taken over and that worries me greatly. I am very pleased that Judith Collins has brought out the amendment to insert new clause 37B because we do not have good data on the situation. The numbers are very small; there is no doubt about that. I think it is a very sensible suggestion that we get the Abortion Supervisory Committee to collate data and do research in order to try to work out the most constructive ways to address this extremely important problem. It is vital to ensure that young women do not return to incestuous or violent homes. It is vital that the perpetrators of violence are indeed held to account. It is also absolutely vital to people such as myself that there be an optimal doctor-patient relationship.