O'Rourke Denis: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeO'Rourke Denis: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17382. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DENIS O’ROURKE (NZ First): A very good choice Mr Chairman. Regarding Part 2 of the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill I firstly want to comment on clause 7. As introduced this clause provided that a victim may apply to the District Court for a non-contact order in respect of a violent offender and that an application may be made at any time after the offender is released from prison. The requirement that an application must be made after the release of an offender from prison was of course too late. I said at the first reading that the victim should be able to apply for an order at any time after the conviction so that the court could make an order to have effect immediately as from the date of release. My concern then was that there was likely to be a significant delay between the victim learning of the offender’s release and the making of an order and its service upon the offender and that that would potentially be a period of high risk for the victim. That issue I am glad to see has been addressed by the Law and Order Committee and the amended clause is now acceptable to New Zealand First.Regarding clause 9 though I am disappointed that this has not been amended in the manner that I suggested at the first reading. In clause 9 subclause (1)(a) says that the court may make a non-contact order if it is satisfied that there are ongoing effects of the offending for the victim. But I question why the court would have to be satisfied that there are ongoing effects of the offending. What would the victim have to prove to satisfy that test? It would have been better I think for that paragraph to have been deleted altogether. Similarly subclause (1)(b) should also be deleted. It refers to the possibility of the contact between the offender and the victim being detrimental to any of the ongoing effects referred to in subclause (1)(a) which I have just mentioned. It should not be necessary for a victim to have to prove those things. Subclause (1)(c) and subclause (1)(d) are I believe sufficient by themselves. These provide that the order is reasonably necessary to avoid contact. I think that that is really what the issue is and that would be sufficient for the victim to have to establish.In my view this is the only notable defect in the bill. It is therefore as I have said a little bit disappointing that the amendments that I suggested were not made. Nobody whom I know of has come up with a good explanation about why ongoing effects will have to be proved or why they have to be shown to be detrimental. It is sufficient that the order is reasonably necessary. That is nice and wide and general and it is good enough for a victim to have to prove only that in whatever the circumstances may be. So I am a bit disappointed that those amendments have not been made but it does not detract from the value of the bill as a whole.Clause 11 sets out the effect of a non-contact order—now amended to temporary non-contact order—and it prohibits the offender against whom it is made from having any form of contact with the victim as we know. In addition the court may prohibit the offender from entering living in or working in a specified area. The concern I had was that subclause (1)(c) should be qualified by the addition of an exception as to the entry into an area that is incidental to or necessary for the purposes of the offender’semployment. Although we need to make an order effective we should also see that it does not unnecessarily cause problems for the offender in obtaining or maintaining their employment.Subclause (1)(c) I am glad to see has now been deleted and instead we now have new clause 11A entitled “Effect of final non-contact order” which is much more comprehensive and has more refined powers for the court to specify so that the effects of the order will be no more than needed to properly protect the victim. I am very glad to see that that has happened. Similarly new clause 11B is welcome. It deals with the need for a final order to be directed by the court to apply to specified other persons whom the offender may encourage to engage in the same kinds of behaviour as the offender’s. Again I am glad to see that included.Lastly concerning clause 15 I suggested at an earlier stage that the court should be required in this clause in considering whether a discharge of the order should be granted to consider some specified matters such as the record of the offender in complying with the order the behaviour of the victim also—which may of course also justify a discharge—and obviously the places where the victim and the offender live permanently amongst other things. I note that this clause has now been deleted and replaced with much more comprehensive provisions in the new clause 15 and that an additional clause clause 15A has been included to address the sorts of issues I had suggested be looked at.So again the amendments sought by New Zealand First have largely been included to our considerable satisfaction. For those reasons with the reservation I expressed earlier New Zealand First will be happy to continue to support the bill as amended.