Prasad Rajen: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Prasad Rajen: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 14 July 2011. Volume:674;Page:20153. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RAJEN PRASAD (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on the Committee stage of the Child and Family Protection Bill to add to the voices that have already expressed Labour’s support for this bill because of the area it addresses and also to point out a number of other points. 
When we take all of the clauses we are debating today as a whole we have to ask ourselves whether they represent the Government’s next step in addressing domestic violence. We all know the nature of domestic violence. There is not a person in this Chamber who does not believe that we should be doing a whole lot more than we have done. Every bill on domestic violence that has come into this House has been supported by members on this side of the Chamber. I remember saying to the Minister of Justice directly that this was an area where we would cooperate with him. He assured us that there would be cooperation. He also said that these issues would be comprehensively addressed. 
One also assumes that there was some urgency on this matter. But the clauses in Part 2 taken together certainly do not constitute addressing domestic violence in a comprehensive way. Let us look at the time frame. The first step was in 2009 and the next step was taken 2 years later. Does that signal the urgency with which the Government sees this particular area? Of course it does not. The Government must wear as a criticism the fact that it has not managed the House or the issue—probably both—and that it needed to bring such an important issue to the House far more quickly particularly when the work had been done at the select committee. I wonder how many children how many cases have passed since this bill was introduced in which the victims may not have benefited from the clauses. So this bill certainly does not constitute a comprehensive approach. 
I will address a number of factors. Section 1B which is inserted into the Domestic Violence Act by clause 6(2) talks effectively about the definition of “children”. We heard my colleagues talk about the two Labour Supplementary Order Papers Supplementary Order Papers 178 and 179. What lies at the heart of those Supplementary Order Papers is the nature of childhood and the definition of “children”. I have not heard one argument that is actually sustainable as to why Jacinda Ardern’s Supplementary Order Paper cannot be accepted. I thought that Mr Borrows at one point actually argued against himself. He argued that because some children leave home at 16 years the Government decided to have the age at 17 years. Well there is no logic in that because as we know the definition of “child” under UN conventions extends to 18 years. Here was an opportunity to fix that. There was certainly an opportunity in other bills—not this bill; it was not before the Social Services Committee—for the Government to signal that the age of 18 ought to be adopted. Here is another bill where it has not been and there is an attempt here to fix that through our Supplementary Order Papers. 
Jacinda Ardern’s amendment also internalises the fact that children reach maturation at different rates. If somebody reaches maturation at 14 15 or 16 years that is well and good but for others 18 years is at least the mandated age internationally. We must remember also that these children have been victims of violence and therefore God only knows to what extent that maturation has been retarded. So at the least we thought we might have had a better response from the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice and that the amendment might be looked at from an absolutely scientific point of view. There is nothing ideological about that; I am saying that there is an opportunity to address a particular problem. And of course the Minister has not taken that opportunity but members on this side of Chamber are committed to addressing that.