Turei Metiria: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Turei Metiria: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21237. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
METIRIA TUREI (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. The Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) has two purposes. The first is to remove the claim of right defence which is what the “Waihopai Three” used successfully in their case. I know that my colleague Keith Locke has talked at some length about claim of right and why it needs to be retained and he will do so again—certainly during the Committee stage. I think it was quite remiss of the Minister of Justice not to make it plain in his second reading speech earlier today that this bill deals with two quite different issues not just one. Any removal of the defence of claim of right is an attack on the civil rights of citizens in this country. That needs to be exposed and the Green Party is absolutely opposed to the removal of the civil rights of citizens in this country. National might think that that is a great idea but we believe that citizens are entitled to much more dignity and respect than that. 
The bill also increases criminal liability for adults who abuse children with a whole different range of provisions in this bill some of which the Green Party agrees with such as the provisions about the offence of sexual grooming for example. But we have always had a real concern about extending criminal liability to those outside of the household who have not been directly involved in child abuse and neglect—that is the new section 195A substituted in clause 7—and we echo many of the submissions made to the Social Services Committee which also suggested there was a real issue here around the lack of certainty about who was captured by the definitions in this bill the lack of certainty in the new laws the uncertainty as to the degree of negligence—the standard of proof of negligence or act either omission or commission—that was required in order to be subject to criminal liability and the difficulty in providing protection for vulnerable family members who may well be aware of things that are going on but who are not in any position to report that. As well there were other submissions from those involved in the health profession who were very concerned about the criminal liability that might be ascribed to them under the provisions of this bill. That was echoed by the Association of Social Workers by the Children’s Commissioner and by a number of submitters who understand and agree with the intent but who do not feel that the law is sufficiently clear at this stage. I am not convinced yet that the select committee has made the changes that need to be made in order to make sure it is sufficiently clear so that those who should not have legal liability ascribed to them are protected from it. 
In addition the Children’s Commissioner at the time identified that mandatory reporting which is what essentially this provision does has been identified elsewhere globally particularly in Ireland as not being proven to be effective in reducing child abuse or necessarily increasing the degree of reporting. So there is a real issue here around evidence; if there is to be law change particularly criminal law change it has to be evidence-based. There has to be some proof that it will do what the intent of the bill wants to do. But there is none so this legislation undertakes a major change in criminal law without the evidence that it will actually work. Evidence-based law particularly when it comes to crimes is absolutely critical. 
But that is not the only thing I want to talk about because I do want to touch on some of the things that have been said earlier by other MPs this evening. Although the desire to punish child abusers—people who beat and kill children—wife beaters and people who beat and kill their partners is palpable and real and the law provides for that punishment it is not the only part of the story. There were many submissions on this legislation that included lots of stories the more horrific stories that had got into the media in particular of maltreatment and child death—horrifying stories to justify support for this legislation. But again they are not the only stories. It is very easy to focus on the worst cases and to focus on the clear personal responsibilities of those who have acted cruelly against vulnerable children. But because that is only part of the story unless we address the other part we will not deal with the child abuse that occurs in this country or deal with the drivers of abuse and that is what I want to address tonight. As hard as it might be for the community to hear this there is more to it and we have to respond to these issues of child abuse neglect and maltreatment not only as individuals in taking personal responsibility and holding people personally to account but also as a community and as an economy. 
There was an earlier discussion around the Child Poverty Action Group’s report  
Left Further Behind 
. This is the report that the Minister for Social Development and Employment has rubbished because she is irresponsible in refusing to acknowledge the evidence that is put before her about these issues. This significant report goes into great detail particularly around the link between poverty and violence. The authors are very clear in saying that on the evidence there is a link between poverty and violence against children. It is very hard to unpick the exact nature of the causality there though. So it is not as if poor people are bad people; it is that poverty is a driver of the conditions that tend to lead to violence and neglect. Child abuse is defined in that report as “anything which individuals institutions or processes do or fail to do which directly or indirectly harms children or damages their prospects for a safe and healthy” future. It is not just individual cruelty here; we are talking about institutional neglect and disregard. We can clearly put poverty poor housing poor education and poor health into the pool of drivers that come from institutional decisions. Decisions are made by institutions like this one—like Parliament—as to who gets what resources which is often what Parliament is making decisions about. So we have the Child Poverty Action Group’s report that shows that link and we have the Every Child Counts report  
He Ara Hou 
 which focuses particularly on Maori and Pacific children and which also identifies the link that poverty is behind many of the drivers of violence and maltreatment. 
I think it is also worthwhile noting though that what we are talking about here is that if that poverty is the driver behind maltreatment and neglect for many families and for many children we are talking about the majority of children in those cases who are at risk whereas the legislation and the provisions for criminal law legislation in this bill deal with only a tiny fraction of the children who are at risk and even then it does not deal with it at all because it only deals with the perpetrators after the fact. So if we want to stop child abuse and neglect we must deal with the drivers that put the majority of children at risk. which we can stop because we can alleviate poverty we can eliminate poverty for our families. 
One of the biggest causes of mortality that has a social gradient which has been shown by the  
Children’s Social Health Monitor: 2011 Update  
released just a few weeks ago is sudden unexplained death in infancy or cot death. Cot death is one of the biggest contributors to mortality to death of children in this country which is driven by social issues around poverty. So if we want to protect the majority of children from death and injury we must deal with poverty. It is the only solution. Incomes have to go up for beneficiaries and for low-income working families. They must go up. Politicians do not want to deal with benefits but benefits must increase. Housing provision must increase. The costs of housing have to be brought down because housing is a major driver of poverty in this country. The quality has to be improved because the drivers relating to the majority of kids with social gradient issues around going to hospital are things like bronchitis and asthma which are often driven by living in cold damp homes. We have to fix the housing crisis in this country. We have to make sure that early childhood education is universally provided so that we can ensure not only that our kids get access to the best-quality education but also that we include all our families in our communities. The drivers of violence include poverty. Poverty is the cause. Poverty is what we must eliminate.