Sio Su'a William: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
Sio Su'a William: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
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SU’A WILLIAM SIO (Labour—Mangere) 
: 
 I rise to take a call on the Child and Family Protection Bill. I acknowledge my colleagues Dr Rajen Prasad and Jacinda Ardern who have spoken before me. Although they were not members of the Justice and Electoral Committee that considered the bill and the submissions to it they have had quite a lot to do with the Social Services Committee where we have had the opportunity to visit the surrounding organisations that deal with a lot of these issues in the Wellington region. I note that the National-led Government prides itself on its record in this area. It claims that this is another bill to protect the victims of domestic violence. I say with the greatest respect to the House that this bill will not solve domestic violence. This bill will not protect families and children; people need to do that. I think the bill is an important part of it but I do not think that as we have repeated time and time again it goes far enough to address the issue. 
There has been considerable debate around domestic violence up and down the country. I note that there always seems to be a tendency to blame one sector of society for this issue. I recall that the Minister for Social Development and Employment at one point in time appeared to point the finger at Maori. Others will point the finger at Pacific communities. I re-emphasise the point that I have made in numerous speeches in this House: domestic violence family violence and violence and abuse against children is not a Pacific or a Maori issue; it is an issue for this country. Until we are able to address it from that perspective and what will be good for New Zealand and good for the future of this country we are merely just tinkering around the edges which is one of the famous lines of this Government. 
I think it is very very important for us to accept that no one party will be able to address this issue. The parties need to look critically at the point that the bills in themselves do not solve this problem. I hope that in stressing that point the Minister and this Government will at least consider the amendments introduced by the Opposition. I hope they will also consider the work that Labour has done in this regard. I refer of course to Labour’s Domestic Violence Reform Bill which at the moment is languishing at the bottom of the Order Paper. That bill changes the definition of a child in the Domestic Violence Act. It raises the issue that we heard from submitters that children under the age of 18 in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child need to be considered. The submissions made on this bill need to be considered in those terms. That is a factor that was raised consistently by submitters and particularly by organisations that deal with our young people. 
The other important point is the provision that requires any judge who declines a without notice application for a protection order to provide written reasons for declining the application enabling the applicant to decide whether to proceed on notice. National’s bill does not include a similar provision. Labour’s proposal was to make provision for applicants to be able to attend information sessions which would provide advice and make effective use of protection orders and provide advice on any social assistance that may be available. The Government bill does not provide the court with the power to direct attendance at an addiction assessment and treatment programme. I give the example of a local organisation down the road from Parliament dealing with young people from the age of 11 12 13 14 or 15 some even prior to being born who were forced by the abuse from people who were supposedly their carer or guardian and who supposedly loved them to become addicted to some of the bad habits of those people. So there is a real need for a provision in the bill to give the power to direct attendance at an addiction assessment and treatment programme. If a person is addicted to whatever drug unless they are treated they remain addicted as I understand it for a very long time. That point needs to be addressed. We know from what we see in the papers in certain parts of the country that the drug trade is a trade that we have to be concerned about. There are people out there in the community selling drugs even to young kids—kids as young as 8 years old. Labour’s bill also contains better protections and provisions on applications for discharge of protection orders and allows the court to order reports if necessary. 
The point is that although this Government may claim that this bill is going to provide the silver bullet to the issue we have to say that we are supporting it on the basis that we recognise that this is a serious problem and it is a problem that we have to collectively try to address but we maintain that this bill does not go far enough. If this Government is serious about addressing the bill and is not playing politics or trying to window dress and lull people into thinking that by putting up all these bills things will be fixed—because they will not be fixed by simply putting up laws—then it would take seriously the submissions made by the Opposition and the amendments that members on our side are putting up. Mr Simon Power said that he intended to progress the remaining provisions of the Domestic Violence Reform Bill. We would like to know when that will happen. He has not yet set a date. He also said that he lacked resources to go further. One would think that if the issue of domestic violence the protection of children and their families is serious this Government would place the issue as a priority rather than give a huge tax cut to its friends and to the small group of elite it is pandering to. 
For Labour tackling the evil of family violence is a genuine priority. The Domestic Violence Reform Bill included on-the-spot protection orders which have since been implemented. The principle behind this Labour initiative was to make families safe as the first priority. Families should be the first priority. Children should be the first priority. They should be the first priority. If this Government were ever to get it into its thinking that families—young and old up and down the country and in their diverse nature as they are today—were the priority then I think we could be a better nation for it. But I do not believe it will. Many people now see this Government for what it really is. It is attempting to look as if it is genuinely concerned and on the one hand says something that might be positive; but on the other hand the actions just do not align. In this case when the Government says that this bill will address domestic violence and protect children and their families its actions actually say something very very different. It is giving away so much taxpayer funding to a small select group of society who are its friends. That is what I wanted to say in contribution to this debate.