Goff Phil: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoff Phil: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 06 March 2014. Volume:696;Page:16452. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill): Labour supported this legislation the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill at the first reading. The reason we did that was that we are prepared to support any reasonable piece of legislation that actually promotes the rights of victims. I am very proud to stand here as a member of the Labour Party as Labour brought in the first Victims’ Rights Act back at the time of the fourth Labour Government which I extended as a Minister under the fifth Labour Government.We do have to remember that the justice system is not simply the State against the offender. The victim has a right to be at the centre of the justice system to be respected and to have their rights upheld. That has not traditionally been the case under our system of justice. This bill was brought into Parliament because there was a gap in the protection that was accorded to victims. We had the Domestic Violence Act of 1995 and that enabled the granting of protection orders for those who were the subject ofdomestic violence. But not all acts of violence of course are domestic. For those who are being actively harassed by the people who had offended against them there is the Harassment Act of 1997 and that also can provide restraining orders. But there was a clear gap in that system in cases where the offender was not related to or known to the victim and was not actively harassing them but was causing trauma to the victim.The actual case that led to this Mr Deputy Speaker will be of interest to you because it comes from Invercargill. It was the case of a woman who was the victim of rape. The offender was sentenced to 4 years’ imprisonment. He was then released and he went from prison and moved immediately next door to the victim whom he had raped. Anyone in this House or any member of the public can imagine the trauma of being the victim of rape and finding that after being released from prison the rapist is living immediately next door to you. That was unacceptable. It was not tolerable but there was no mechanism under law to deal with that situation and say that the victim has rights in that situation and that those rights are stronger than the rights of the offender even after the offender has been released.When I read about that case I agreed that there was a gap. And then I looked at the bill that Judith Collins had introduced and to my absolute amazement I found that her bill—full of rhetoric—had no substance that would have provided one iota of protection to the very victim who led to this bill being introduced. That is because the Minister put in a threshold level of 5 years. You had to be imprisoned for more than 5 years or convicted and sentenced to more than 5 years before the victim of your offending could get any protection under this bill. Imagine how your constituent Mr Deputy Speaker that victim felt when she saw the bill and realised that not only would this bill not help her but it would not help countless dozens of other women who had been through the same experience as she had. That was utterly unacceptable.When I read the regulatory impact statement I found that this piece of legislation introduced with great flourish would protect 10 cases a year—10 cases. We are talking about offending that is running into hundreds and hundreds of cases and it is not good enough. I said in the first reading of this bill that it is not acceptable in the form that it is in. It needs to be strengthened. That threshold has to come down.There was a very fortunate act of God. Well actually it was an act of Air New Zealand that helped me promote my case because just a month or two ago I found that I was sitting next to the Minister of Justice. She was thrilled to see me of course and we had a very good conversation where I raised this issue with her. I made the point to her quite strongly. I said that 5 years is stupid. Officials and members of Parliament on the Law and Order Committee are coming back and saying that it should maybe be 3 years. These are arbitrary figures. They are plucked out of nowhere. They have no rationale. I said that the figure should be 2 years. It should be 2 years because under the Parole Act 2002 which I put through 2 years was the definition of a serious criminal offence where people were entitled to go on to victim notification registers and so on. To be fair to the Minister she acknowledged the inadequacy of the bill and she agreed that that change should be made.So I am very happy to report back to the House today that the threshold level is 2 years and I believe that that is an appropriate level of protection. It will involve a whole lot more people and provide a lot more real protection to victims who genuinely need that protection when placed in the same situation as your constituent Mr Deputy Speaker.There are a couple of other changes that I wanted to see and that I am very pleased that we have had put into this bill at this stage. The second thing that I thought was inadequate in the bill as introduced was that you could apply for a non-contact order—Jacqui Dean: All your own work Phil.Hon PHIL GOFF: Well Jacqui Dean knows that because she knows who moved the amendments in the committee and how the discussion went. So I hope that she will get up and affirm the accuracy of everything I am telling the House today which she will do because there were seven different witnesses on that committee as members of Parliament.The second thing was—and again it was a concern for me with the bill as introduced—that you could not apply for a non-contact order against the offender until the offender was released. Well we heard at the select committee of cases where against even all of the rules of the Department of Corrections the offender in prison was putting pressure on the victim while he was still in prison. Of course there is no such thing as a non-contact order under this bill to cover that situation because you can apply for it only after the person has been released. Well first of all the Department of Corrections should have stopped that and stopped it dead in its tracks. It was totally inappropriate. But secondly this provides another protection because from the moment of sentencing the victim can now apply for a non-contact order.There is a second thing that makes sense about that. In a situation where the offender is released there can be a gap between the offender being out in the community and the victim having to make an application and a decision being made. So there is a gap there still where the offender can quite lawfully approach the victim—a victim of his serious offending. With the non-contact order now able to be applied for any time after sentencing we can remove the situation where a gap exists. Protection will occur from the moment the person steps out of prison as well of course as the additional protection while the individual is still in prison.So we got changes on the threshold that are good and I think that the whole of the committee actually welcomed that change. We got changes so that you could apply for the non-contact order at any time after sentencing.The third thing which I think was important was dealing with a situation where the offender used an associate to make contact with the victim. So the offender was using one of his mates as a surrogate for him to contact the victim and the effect on the victim was just the same. She was under pressure because the offender was using a third party to approach her and contact her quite inappropriately. So we now have in this legislation a situation where an associate of the offender can have a non-contact order made out against them. There are three prerequisites to that. First of all the offender needs to have engaged in the behaviour of actively encouraging the associate to do it the associate needs to have engaged in the behaviour of doing it and there needs to be a demonstration that that affects the well-being and the recovery of the victim. So that is the third change which is quite important.One other issue that I raised and I know that my colleague Andrew Little also raised this was the question of whether under the non-contact order this is putting all the pressure on the victim to take all the action to protect—usually—herself against the offender. Well I raised that in the committee and the officials were adamant that there would be a very straightforward and relatively cost-free way in which the victim can achieve a non-contact order. But I would very much like to hear from Government members—because Minister Woodhouse did not include this in his speech—that we have the assurance that a person will be able to get these non-contact orders without the need for legal assistance and that there will not be costs imposed on the victim. The victim for example should not have to pay a filing fee for a non-contact order. I am not sure whether we covered that in the select committee but I would like an assurance from the next National speaker or from the Minister that those sorts of costs will not be imposed.With that I say that I think we made considerable improvements to this bill. It is now a worthwhile piece of legislation and we will be supporting it through the remainder of its passage into law.