Sepuloni Carmel: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Sepuloni Carmel: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
[Volume:672;Page:18537] 
CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour) 
: 
 The Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) deals with several issues. A particular focus of the bill has been to ensure that children are adequately protected from assault neglect and ill treatment. This bill implements the Law Commission’s recommendations in this area and it also addresses an emerging knife crime problem. It responds to issues of scope with the sexual grooming offence and the claim of right defence. Labour of course supports this bill and supports the measures that it takes to prevent and mitigate the harm and abuse of children. However—there often is a “however” when we say that we support a Government bill—we do have reservations about certain provisions and their ability to be effective in combating the actual problem. 
When we listened to the previous speaker from National we heard him talk about the concern that the Government has for children who are abused or children who are at risk of being abused. Members on this side of the House share those concerns. We are of course concerned about abused children and about the risk of abuse to children. However members on this side want to take an approach where possible that is about the fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance constantly at the bottom of the cliff. But we see that the focus of members opposite is overwhelmingly on the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. We support aspects of that approach given that there are times when that approach is necessary. But when that is the entire focus then we are concerned because we know we will see the need for more and more ambulances at the bottom of the cliff. That is what the Government is setting us up to have to respond to. 
When members opposite talk about the abuse of children I cannot help but reflect on some of the decisions that have been made recently by the Government. Some decisions do not protect the best interests of children and do not protect the best interests of those children’s mothers. I am talking of decisions like the cuts to domestic violence programmes that have been made by members on the other side. I am also talking about cuts to Te Rito programmes cuts to women’s refuges and cuts in accident compensation to counselling services for victims of sexual abuse. Those are all the kinds of services that this side of the House would expect of any Government that cares and purports to care for children who are abused or at risk of being abused. As I said before members on this side of the House support this bill as we do have concerns but we are disappointed in the Government because it seems to put measures into place or take legislation seriously only when it is already acting as the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. 
Along the lines of things that have been cut I should also mention the inability of the National Government to deal with legislation that would make a difference in respect of violence in respect of women and violence and in respect of children who are abused or who could be abused. The bill that I am thinking of is the Domestic Violence Reform Bill which was thoroughly consulted on with organisations in the sector yet it continues to languish at the bottom of the Order Paper. 
Hon Simon Power 
: Two-thirds of it has been done. 
CARMEL SEPULONI 
: It continues to languish at the bottom of the Order Paper and the Minister of Justice says that parts of it have been done. However it has been done in a piecemeal kind of way; that is the concern. It has been done in a piecemeal kind of way. Rather than taking the entire piece of legislation that was consulted on widely and agreed on widely within the sector and implementing it in its entirety it has been implemented by that Minister of Justice and the National Government in a piecemeal way. That is of concern to members on this side of the House because we expect that any responsible Government would take an issue like domestic violence seriously particularly when its members stand up in this House and purport to be advocates for children who are abused or at risk of being abused. 
One of the things about this bill that is of concern is the select committee that the Government has decided to refer the bill to. There is a distinctly legal nature to the bill yet we see that it is to go through the Social Services Committee. One has to wonder whether that is the appropriate select committee to consider this legislation. It is not the first time that we have seen this happen with this Government. We have seen it before. We saw it with the three-strikes legislation which should have gone through the Justice and Electoral Committee—and we had to wonder whether that was because the Minister of Justice did not agree with the three-strikes legislation—instead we saw the legislation go through the Law and Order Committee. It really was not appropriate that we had the Department of Corrections—or was it the police—overseeing a sentencing bill. Again we had to wonder whether that was purely because the Minister of Justice did not agree with that three-strikes legislation and wanted to wash his hands of it and hand it over to somebody else because it was all part of the pact that the Government had with the ACT Party. The enactment of the legislation had to happen but the Minister of Justice did have some sense and did not want to have it happen under his watch in terms of his select committee his portfolio area and his ministry. 
Going back to what I said at the beginning I tell the House that Labour is concerned about the level of abuse of our children in this country and the risk of abuse to our children in this country. I think that testament to the fact that Labour takes the abuse of children seriously are some of the measures that were implemented by the previous Labour Government. At that point in time we had cross-party support and that again is testament to the fact that across this House we share a genuine concern for our children and we do not want to let politics get in the way of that to any extent. 
But as I said it is important that we lay out all of the reservations that we have on this bill. We cannot pretend that we accept it in its entirety. We cannot pretend that the National Government purporting to be acting in the interests of children has always happened within the context of what it has done over the past 2½ years. We have to put into context some of the other decisions that have been made by the National Government over the past 2½ years and quite frankly some of those decisions are disappointing and have not been made in the best interests of children. 
There is a possibility with what this legislation proposes that false reporting may lead to an overloading of social service agencies according to several welfare groups and academics. That is a concern to us because we are already getting reports from those agencies that they are becoming increasingly overwhelmed by the workload they are facing. They are increasing overwhelmed because of the needs of the people who come to them and the challenges those people face and increasingly overwhelmed because of the poverty they are seeing and the stresses that families are under. Putting it into context it is about the climate that we have at the moment: the continued increase in the cost of living the severe underemployment in this country—if not underemployment then unemployment—and just the fact that families are really struggling at the moment. When families struggle then we see our social service agencies struggle. The agencies are concerned that this legislation and its provisions may lead to false reporting which may lead to an overloading of social service agencies. The Children’s Commissioner John Angus said that mandatory reporting of child abuse would swamp Child Youth and Family. New Zealand already has a high level of reporting on abuse incidents and needs to respond better to those cases rather than bring in mandatory reporting. 
I have laid out a number of concerns tonight with regard to this legislation. As I said earlier Labour will support the bill but we will watch this space. We are concerned though that the bill will not be going through the right select committee and we are concerned about what that might mean when the bill is being considered. We have concerns about other decisions made in relation to other legislation that are not supportive of women and children and that do not actually protect either women or children from the harm they may encounter with regard to violence and abuse. We support the bill but as I said we have some major reservations about what the Government is doing. Thank you.