Chauvel Charles: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Chauvel Charles: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 July 2011. Volume:674;Page:20145. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I will just call attention to Supplementary Order Paper 178 and Supplementary Order Paper 179 in the names of respectively Lynne Pillay and Jacinda Ardern both of whom were members of the Justice and Electoral Committee while this bill was considered. I am very interested to hear from the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice about the Government’s attitude to both of the Supplementary Order Papers. I recall assisting Ms Pillay and Ms Ardern with the drafting of them at the time that they put them forward back in November 2010. I commend both of the Supplementary Order Papers to the Committee because I think they would make sensible and helpful changes to the legislation. It would be helpful I think given the spirit of cooperation that has surrounded this legislation to date if the Government were to support the Supplementary Order Papers as well. 
The first Supplementary Order Paper that I will deal is Supplementary Order Paper 179 which sits in the name of Jacinda Ardern. This Supplementary Order Paper would amend the bill to change the definition of a “child” in the Domestic Violence Act 1995 from “a person under the age of 17 years;” to “a person under the age of 18 years;”. That would bring the proposed legislation into consistency with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child to which New Zealand is a signatory as well as with the definitions currently in the Care of Children Act 2004 and the Children’s Commissioner Act 2003. 
I would have thought that that was a very logical thing to do. There is no particular common sense surrounding the choice of the age of 17 which is what the legislation as drafted plumped for. If the Minister thinks there is any particular compelling reason to defy our international obligations and to legislate inconsistently with two important existing pieces of child welfare legislation then I think the Committee of the whole House ought to hear what that justification is. If the Minister does not know because he has had to take the chair on behalf of a colleague then I note that he has the assistance of officials available to him. I think it would be very helpful as I have said as well as being consistent with the spirit in which this legislation has been advanced—it has been cooperated on by certainly the Labour Opposition—to hear why this inconsistency continues to be supported by the Government. 
The second Supplementary Order Paper I referred to and now wish to speak a little bit more about is Supplementary Order Paper 178 in the name of Lynne Pillay. Lynne Pillay chaired the Justice and Electoral Committee for 3 years in the previous Parliament and I think her views are entitled to some weight. She would not have put this Supplementary Order Paper forward unless she had given it a good deal of thought. Her Supplementary Order Paper is designed to try to provide some enhanced protection for the children of applicants under the Domestic Violence Act 1995. 
The Supplementary Order Paper would amend the Child and Family Protection Bill to provide that protection orders would continue to protect a child of an applicant’s family after they reach the age of 18 whether or not they reside with the applicant. I think it is important to note that in this context we are talking about young people who have been exposed to a considerable degree of acrimony and violence and who may still be exposed to that in the future. 
The Supplementary Order Paper is very consistent with the general aims of this legislation because it would continue to extend some protection to young people until they decide for themselves that a protection order is no longer required. After all maintaining an existing order is surely more efficient. We hear from this Government on many occasions that it wants greater efficiency in the field of justice and law and order. Well it is much more efficient quite plainly to extend an existing order rather than to require young people to go to the expense and the trouble—with paperwork judicial time and lawyer time involved—of having to apply for a new order simply because they reach an arbitrary age that has been arrived at in the text of a bill. 
I hope the Minister will feel able to take a call on these two issues. Obviously we are not asking that he do that instantly if he wants to take some time to take some advice from his officials but we have put these Supplementary Order Papers forward in good faith further to what I think it is fair to say is the weight of evidence that the Justice and Electoral Committee heard from submitters. These measures are designed to try to improve the overall efficacy of the bill and to ensure that we legislate as a Parliament consistent with both our international obligations and other existing legislation in force in this field. If we are to depart from those practices then we should know why. There should be a proper justification advanced for that. 
On the second question without proper justification we ought not to miss an opportunity to continue to provide the sort of protection that this legislation is designed to provide. If we are going to be efficient about the way we do it we should extend orders in their in-force state until such time as the people who are protected by them actually tell the court that they no longer need that protection. If we are to do things differently from what either of the Supplementary Order Papers proposes then I think there ought to be a case made because I do not want the Opposition to have to rethink its support for the substantive legislation.