Shanks Katrina: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShanks Katrina: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13086. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KATRINA SHANKS (National): It is my pleasure to take a call on the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill in its first reading in the House today. It is always great to see the House getting behind a bill as the House has today and to see a bill that has cross-party support—at least for its first reading. This bill is about victims and victims should always come first over offenders.I listened to what David Clendon said. I think he was measured but I did not agree with everything he said. I think that the balance has to go to victims over offenders and that victims’ rights safety and security must come first. I think that most of the debate today has been measured. I think there have been some really good strong points that should be debated and teased out in the Law and Order Committee. The points around when you can apply for an order I think are a really important issue. We do not want victims to have to relive the crime again 5 years later when the offender gets released. The point about the length of time of a conviction has been a really good point as well today. Also in terms of getting the balance right between victims and offenders as much as I think it should always be on the side of victims I think it is good to have that debate as well during the select committee process. That is what it is for—to tease out all the issues that people have concerns about in the debating chamber today.I cannot imagine for a moment what it is like to be a victim of a serious violent offence or a sexual crime. I have got no idea how a victim moves forward from that or what they go through when it happens to them or even what their family faces when something like that has happened or the time it takes to recover. I could not even imagine what it would be like to be that victim with the offender loitering around my front fence. I cannot imagine meeting that person in the supermarket. I just could not imagine what that would be like. So I think this bill is very very important.I think this new mechanism is very important. It allows victims to obtain a non-contact order and that puts another tool in the toolbox for victims to actually be able to move forward with their lives and to put some of this behind them. We have had debate today about how communities can be very small and what you do when you have got a victim and an offender in the same small community and they have to live together. How does that work? I hope that submitters who are in that scenario come to the select committee and tell us what types of tools we need to make this legislation even stronger.I think that this bill is just one of many that this Government has put forward to strengthen victims in New Zealand where they stand what they face and how we can help them. But I actually think our focus—and it is our focus as a Government—should be on the prevention of crime because with prevention of crime we have fewer offenders and we have fewer victims. That is where we are growing and it is where our outcomes are coming—with the reduction of crime in New Zealand. I think this is a fantastic bill and I cannot wait to hear the debate in the select committee. Thank you.