Logie Jan; Dyson RuthJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a real honour to stand on behalf of the Green Party and as the under-secretary to follow the Minister introducing this legislation Andrew Little and the Hon Paula Bennett speaking on behalf of National to offer our just incredibly wholehearted support for this piece of work. I too want to acknowledge all of the huge number of people that have contributed to this and remind the House of some of the history that has led to this piece of legislation. In some ways the origins of it come from the country's shock in response to the Louise Nicholas case in that I think it fundamentally shook many people's confidence in our justice system.At that time the Labour Government initiated a Task Force for Action on Sexual Violence in 2007 and that reported in 2009 and it was a comprehensive programme. Then the National Minister Simon Power said it was the best road map that the country had ever had to addressing sexual violence. It laid out a huge amount of work and then it was reinforced by this tome which sits on my desk work by Yvette Tinsley and Elisabeth McDonald on the academic research to shift us from this concept of real rape which really showed that our justice system was only seeming to get convictions in cases that were more likely to be stranger rapes where there was evidence of additional violence. That did not reflect the legal definition of sexual violence or the grounds and what we expect around the need to get consent. So there were a huge number of recommendations made for changes to our whole justice system.And so we come today to the first comprehensive piece of legislation to deliver on those concerns in 2019—now well over 10 years since that conversation started and those solutions were put down for us and when in this country we have such a profound problem with sexual violence and gender-based violence: 24 percent of women six percent of men and in the most recent research almost one in two trans people experience sexual violence in their lifetimes in this country. This is an underlying pain in our country that we need to do better to stop and that requires us being able to hold people causing harm to account and to move them to never causing harm again. It requires us to be able to hear the pain of survivors and for them to feel supported and being heard in that process. Our justice system has not to this point given us confidence in its ability to do that and so I welcome what I hope is unanimous support in this House for us taking another really significant step towards that reality.I will also note the data that was mentioned by the Hon Paula Bennett of 100 incidents of sexual violence that are reported to police only 31 going to trial and only 11 resulting in a conviction. That data comes out of the attrition survey that this Government commissioned because we are committed to making sure that the changes we make work and that we are holding ourselves by producing that data to account in the future on the impact of the changes that we make through legislation and other social reforms.Also in terms of this piece of legislation I think it's important to acknowledge that it sits within a programme of work that this Government is leading around working to end family violence and sexual violence. This Government has recognised that if we talk about wellbeing we have to talk about addressing and ending family violence and sexual violence because it is the cause of so much harm in this country. Our mental health crisis a lot of alcohol and drug abuse around the child protection heartbreak that we have around homelessness and poor economic outcomes—this is at the heart of so much of it. So there's so much to gain for all of us from doing this work.But this is one part of a whole lot of other work and it's specifically addressed at reducing the retraumatisation that's happening within our justice system and I would say it's also about adding more rigour to our justice system so that these cases can start to be tried on the facts and the evidence rather than myths and stereotypes or the ability of the defence to beat down and confuse a complainant to the point where they're not able to hold themselves through that process.So it makes a range of changes that were I thought very well articulated by the Minister. It's enabling the victim to have choice over the way they give evidence and to enable pre-recording of that evidence ahead of court so that we can get people giving that evidence sooner and not having to give it again. That is the hope and that will be the judge's role to ensure that those two things can happen. It will enable judges to provide direction to address rape myths or what's sometimes called counterintuitive evidence.I will note the National Party's concern in wanting to explore around say that use of alcohol. It doesn't prevent defence running a line around the memory or alcohol but what it does say is if the prosecution hasn't balanced that defence and if it's relied on myths then the judge will be required to provide just a statement of the facts around sexual violence in relation to alcohol. In overseas evidence where this is not unusual at all it doesn't undermine the right to a fair trial; it just helps us make sure that the trial is heard on the grounds of fact rather than on myths and misconceptions. It also extends the power and requires judges to intervene when there's inappropriate questioning. At the moment they may but we've heard that many judges haven't been doing that because they fear the risk of a mistrial. So we're giving them that confidence in being sure that the legislation backs them up and that we expect them to intervene and we will be requiring them to intervene when they see somebody on the stand with repeated repeated repeated questioning or inappropriate questioning. It also covers a person's sexual history with the defendant and that's really important as we grow our understanding as a country around what is consent that we make sure that our legislation backs up the understanding that consent is every time. Just because I'm married to somebody it doesn't mean they get access to my body without my consent. We have rape within marriage covered in our legislation and this is a reinforcement of that. It is making sure that our court system just doesn't give the message that actually if you've had a relationship with somebody they do get access because they don't. Consent is required every time. With this legislation I'm incredibly proud to be part of this Government which is shifting away from a tinkering to a transformation. [Bell rung]ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Ruth Dyson): Apologies to the member. I didn't give you your two-minute warning bell.