Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Thank you very much. I think everyone in this House and indeed the vast majority of New Zealanders realise that New Zealand has an unacceptable level of violence—all types of violence. Now this bill focuses on domestic violence or family violence but I think we're all concerned about the level of violence including domestic violence family violence and sexual violence and I think we all agree that it's beholden on all New Zealanders to support victims of these types of violence and to raise awareness on how abhorrent it is to us in society.This bill has been around for several years and some relevant legislation has been changed since it was drafted. Although we want to take every possible opportunity to improve outcomes when it comes to victims of family domestic and sexual violence we don't believe that this bill will make a significant difference.Action on domestic and family violence is an issue that's close to National's heart. During the time that we were in Government we introduced numerous new initiatives to combat domestic and family violence. But of course there's no silver bullet. And I have to agree with parliamentary under-secretary Jan Logie that this is an issue that everyone in our society needs to take responsibility for. There is no silver bullet so during our time in Government our initiatives were wide-ranging. They involved 16 different portfolios in an effort to redesign the way that the Government responds to family violence. We created a Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence proposed changes to civil and criminal laws and provided better guidance on the Domestic Violence Act and how we should apply it.We knew that we needed to intervene earlier and to be more effective in getting perpetrators to change their behaviours and break the intergenerational cycle. We focused on protection orders. We wanted to make them easier to get more tailored to individuals' conditions as victims and to direct perpetrators to change programmes and services. One of the successes was the introduction of the National Home Safety Service and that kept over 1000 victims of family violence safe every year in their own homes. We overhauled family violence laws. We improved access to information so that judges and police could work more closely on family violence cases and to try and improve information-sharing regulations.I was particularly impressed by the integrated safety response pilots. One of those was based in Christchurch and I followed it closely. And in meeting with both victims and the social services that supported them I found that it made a real difference to the lives of those victims. And the main reason was that it provided very timely—in fact there was daily triage action and intensive case management.We also involved the use of independent victim specialists to work with high-risk victims and to keep them safe. It was an extremely successful programme and I heard that from the people who accessed the pilot but also for the organisations that monitored the results including the independent committee on reducing family violence and the Family Violence Death Review Committee. Both were extremely supportive of the programme and I strongly encourage the new Government to continue this work. It's intensive it's expensive but it works.But going back to the bill: after reading 167 written submissions and hearing 35 oral submissions our members concluded that the bill is unworkable and may in reality be detrimental to the employment of victims of domestic violence. From my experience employers understand the value of the employees and they value and support them when they're in difficulties both at a personal level—and that's in terms of well-being and harmony in the workplace—but also in terms of good business practice: minimising the turnover of staff and supporting employees to be as effective as possible in their job and so that they can contribute to the team.In fact there are numerous examples of companies that go out of their way to support their employees in lots of ways particularly if they're victims of family violence. And on top of good sensible business practice there's legislative responsibilities that employers already have to support victims of domestic violence. For example under the Health and Safety at Work Act 2015—and I do think the original bill was drafted before National made major changes—that Act requires employers to provide a safe workplace and that includes protection at work against threats that could be posed to a victim of domestic violence. Employees can trespass threatening partners and they can block access by email or telephone. And I think this bill covers some of the problems that the Hon Tracey Martin has highlighted.Under the Employment Relations Act employers are required to consider requests for flexible working arrangements for victims of family or sexual violence and they do make these changes. And furthermore under the Holidays Act employers must provide sick leave for an employee who is physically or mentally affected by domestic or family violence and again they do this.During the select committee process we heard many examples of employers recognising the need to provide appropriate support to provide flexibility in working conditions and leave and we also saw no evidence that employers were being unreasonable in their approach to this important issue and nothing to justify a new range of complex regulatory requirements that are actually proposed by this bill. We heard that numerous employers were going out of their way beyond legislative responsibilities in the interests of looking after their employees and we absolutely commend that. So although we support the philosophy behind the bill—who wouldn't?—we can't support the bill as it is written. And I would like to give the House a heads up on Supplementary Order Paper 41 that my colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell will be introducing. It will make sure that it is explicit that domestic violence or family violence is a valid reason for a request for annual sick or paid leave—paid annual sick leave. It's an intelligent and sensible way to provide the 10 days of leave for domestic violence victims without burdening small businesses with extra costs and extra regulation.As I have said employers are keen to support their employees and this provides a solution for them to do just that without a blowout of extra costs. We do not agree that paid leave should be available for a support person. Domestic violence family violence whatever you call it is absolutely abhorrent. It is not something that the Government can combat alone. All New Zealanders need to support victims of violence and they need to make it very clear that violence in any form is not acceptable any place any time or to any people and particularly within our families in this country. Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker.