Borrows Chester: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
Borrows Chester: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:8806] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is great to be part of a debate where there seems to be some sort of unanimity across the House. As the previous speaker Lianne Dalziel indicated it is a little bit of an unusual thing to find that just minutes after we have been metaphorically at each others’ throats—probably not good terminology to use when addressing legislation that addresses violence—a Government that had it so wrong just 5 minutes ago now apparently has it so right. 
I think it is interesting to draw the conclusion that the Child and Family Protection Bill does not stick so rigidly to age thresholds. Previously huge assertions had been made that people are children until they are 13 and 364 days then they miraculously become young people. The fact is that domestic violence and dysfunctional families blur the lines between ages. 
We have to have a stocktake of where our country is in respect of domestic violence in particular but also violence in general. Police are called to about 80000 domestic violence incidents a year. We know that in a huge number of those cases children are present. Over time messages of violence can be inculcated in them and it can be an answer or an option for them when we know that it is not. 
We also know that with over 200 women and children killed in domestic violence over the last 12 years it is clear that New Zealand is facing an epidemic of domestic violence. Thankfully that has started to be addressed which is a good thing. We have found that because of the promotion of the idea of reporting and the building of confidence of people who were offended against in this way—and the ability of agencies to deal with it—those people went on to report domestic violence so we saw an escalation of family violence reporting. It was very disappointing to see a downwards trend in the number of applications for protection orders. It is very important to have legislation that reinforces the place of protection orders in domestic violence circumstances and does a little bit of manipulation as this legislation does to ensure that they are effective and they can be made effective. Therefore we can enhance the confidence those people have that if they go on to report an instance of domestic violence then it will be addressed and over time things will get better. 
In the relatively short experience I had as defence counsel I noticed that those men who are forced into obtaining counselling and go on and eventually do it no matter how unhappy they are about having to do that invariably gain an insight if they are prepared to turn up sober. To have the ability through this legislation to extend the ability of those men to attend or at least initially be forced to attend means we have some hope for it. 
It is good to see that we are recognising the severity of emotional violence and psychological abuse and broadening the application of that across the legislation and it is great to be part of a team in Government that is enhancing the legislation to deal with domestic violence. In the last short couple of years we have seen additions to the suite of legislation that deals with these things so well. I am pleased to see that the bill has support across the House. Thank you.