Street Maryan: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17367. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): I rise to speak to Part 2 of the Victims of Crime Reform Bill because this is the bit that tries to align the Victims’ Rights Act with the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act. So this is the part of the bill that tries to capture the answers to the problem that victims’ rights in the adult criminal jurisdiction are different from those applied in the youth justice jurisdiction. That is—or was—a problem and this part is the remedy. We support this part as we have supported Part 1 of the bill as well but there are a couple of things that I wanted to draw attention to in particular.First it has been noted and I do not wish to labour the point unduly but given that this was reported back 2 years ago those of us who have found ourselves as I have on the Justice and Electoral Committee for only a comparatively short time—since the end of last year—have not been privy to the submissions because the report was presented on 27 June 2012. That means that going back and trying to capture the sense of what were the top-of-mind concerns for the submitters has been quite difficult. But I am going to refer to the regulatory impact statement in some detail. In the regulatory impact statement on page 14 it said that the current situation is that “the Victims’ Rights Act gives little guidance as to how its various provisions apply to the processes in the Youth Courts to deal with offending by children and young persons.” And so there was this disjunction there was this gap between the treatment of victims in the adult criminal jurisdiction and the treatment of victims of crimes committed by youth offenders and children. So as a result of that disjunction there was some confusion about the application of the Victims’ Rights Act to the particular circumstances that apply in the youth justice jurisdiction.This bill is a good answer to that question. This is a reasonable remedy to that problem. It essentially means that victims should have the right to attend Youth Court hearings. It says that victims of children and young people—that is victims of crimes committed by children and young people—should also be able to provide a victim impact statement to the judge as is provided for in the criminal jurisdictions of the HighCourt and District Court. Amendments are made to clarify the application of the Victims’ Rights Act in the youth jurisdiction. This is particularly found in clause 39 in Part 2 where schedule 1 of the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act is amended. It is amended by inserting the relevant bits of the Victims’ Rights Act tailored for this circumstance. So for example it says that the definition of a “victim” also includes “a person who through or by means of an offence committed by a child or young person suffers any form of emotional harm;”. It goes on simply to align those provisions in the Victims’ Rights Act—which this bill also amends because it is an omnibus bill—with the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act.People have talked previously in this debate about the relevance and the purpose and the usefulness of children being able to demonstrate through pictures or drawings or some other mode of communication the impact of a crime upon themselves or of witnessing a crime. This does allow those voices to be heard in the children’s and young persons’ jurisdiction. That has got to be an improvement. We are aware that the bill itself amends four pieces of legislation: the Victims’ Rights Act; the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act; the Parole Act; and the Sentencing Act. By making sure we have some commonality between those four amended pieces of legislation we really are moving towards something that is consistent in its approach recognises the impact on victims recognises the rights of victims whatever their age—in this case whether they are the victims of offences committed by children or young people—and allows them the right to be heard and to have their voice heard in proceedings in the children’s and young persons’ jurisdiction. Thank you.The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 424 in the name of the Hon Judith Collins and the following amendments in her name to Part 2 be agreed to:in clause 33 replace “section 2A” with “section 2B”; andin new section 3A(f)(iii) inserted by clause 39 replace “section 2A” with “section 2B”.Amendments agreed to.Part 2 as amended agreed to.