Yates Dianne: Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Yates Dianne: Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill be now read a second time 
. This is a rather strange process once again in that I will ask the House to vote against a bill that will become law anyway. Strangely because of the quirks of this House this is a time when a bill will be voted into law by being voted down. My Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill is a member’s bill. It was first mooted and came into the House 4 years ago in response to the increasing incidence of drug rape in New Zealand and the fact that there had been some rather interesting cases where drug rape had been involved. Drug rape like all rapes is a crime that is very hard to legislate against and it is very hard to prove. As the bill points out drugs leave a person’s system very quickly and victims themselves are often unsure of the exact events that led to the effect of drugs. 
What has happened here is that since tabling this member’s bill and since it went to the Law and Order Committee a Government bill the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) has been introduced into the House. That bill has superseded this bill. In fact I have to admit that the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) is a much better bill than mine in that it describes the consent process much more clearly. It lists nine defining aspects of consent under section 128A of the Crimes Act in clause 7 “Allowing sexual activity does not amount to consent in certain circumstances” and that is much better than my member’s bill. As everybody knows with a member’s bill one does not have the assistance and help of a huge number of lawyers and of the parliamentary staff who assist select committees. So I can say that the Government bill and the select committee process have hugely improved on my member’s bill. 
 I want to thank a number of people who were involved with the original bill and I particularly want to thank the New Zealand Drug Rape Trust and two people in that trust in particular Louise Carroll and Jenny Fenton who have worked tirelessly in the area of drug rape in order to bring it to the attention of the House and of the New Zealand Police. They have been involved in police training and they have very much been involved in the New Zealand Drug Rape Trust and with the Auckland-based people who have been supportive of it. I want to thank Detective Chief Inspector Sturman from the UK who did a very sizable thesis around the area of drug rape and who came to New Zealand to share his experiences and his studies with us. I want to thank Jan Jordan who is the criminology person at Victoria University and who has just recently published a very very large book on rape and rape in New Zealand. 
I want to thank Amelia Carter an intern from Victoria University in the year 2001 who worked in my office. She did a tremendous amount of work in this regard. When she came from the university I said that there were a number of things that she might like to work on. She said that she would like to work in the area of drug rape which I had become interested in. She said it was something that affected young people it was very relevant to her life and to young professionals the crime was becoming more prevalent and it was something that she thought she could make a big contribution on—and she did. I want to thank Doctors for Sexual Abuse Care the body that represents doctors who are concerned with sexual violence and Rape Crisis in New Zealand for the conferences and the awareness that it brought together around this issue. 
I want to thank the New Zealand Police and the Minister of Police because they have done a very very good job. In addition to apprehending people who have been perpetuating drug rape and following up on many calls and complaints in that regard the police have also done a very very good publicity campaign. I thank them for the leaflets the flyers and the television programmes that warn young people about the possibility of their drinks being spiked. The police have been extremely helpful on this issue. There are a number of young people who think that if they drink out of a bottle rather than a glass their drink will not be spiked. That is a little naive and I am glad that the television programmes have made that very clear. I want to thank a person who was a police officer when this started Angela Gallagher for her advice. She has now become a Crown prosecutor. I also thank former Hamilton and now Nelson lawyer Anne Todd who is a member of the National Council of Women. I thank them both for their advice and help not only with regard to the framing of the bill but also for the sharing of their opinions and of background studies that have gone on. 
This is one of those strange times when I am actually asking people to vote my bill down in order that the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) can then take over and become law. I also want to thank my Labour Party colleagues and members of the Labour Party who made the drug rape issue a matter of policy. It was a policy issue going into the last election and I thank them for seeing that the issue was current and modern. I apologise to the people who have been victims of drug rape for the time that the legislation has taken and for those who have been hurt in the process. I certainly hope that by making clear the process of consent the law may go some way towards preventing the perpetuation of this crime. But I do also think that prevention through the police and television warnings is much more important than what we can do in the law which is to apprehend people after they have committed the crime and to try to console the people who have become victims of this crime. This is a crime that as I have said very much affects young people—particularly young professional people. As I think I have said before in the House often people who are a little more mature and who have been in relationships and then come back on the dating scene are not perhaps as worldly wise as they need to be. So to those who have worked on the prevention of this crime I say a big thank you. Let us hope that whenever we can we can prevent it from happening. 
I thank Martin Gallagher my colleague who chaired the Law and Order Committee the people on the committee the advisers staff and everybody who has been involved with the consideration of this bill. Once again I ask the House to vote down this bill in order that the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) can supplant and surpass it.