Davis Kelvin: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDavis Kelvin: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18834. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]KELVIN DAVIS (Labour):It is a split call. Thank you very much. Coming in as one of the final speakers on the third reading of the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill means that I have actually come in quite late to this debate and quite late to the whole kaupapa but I have to say that this is a bill that I truly and sincerely support. I have already said in the House since I have come back to Parliament that addressing sexual violence is one of my main priorities in my time in Parliament. This bill is one of the ways I believe we can really support the victims not just of sexual violence but domestic violence and any sort of violence for that matter. I have seen the example of the poor woman in Invercargill whose rapist was released from prison and came to live next door to her. There was nothing that she or the police could do to move that person on and I just find that totally outrageous. I remember when it came up in the news and I am glad to see that this legislation is actually making a change so that any victims of violence be they men women or children do not have to wake up in the morning look over the fence or out their kitchen window and see the very person who attacked them or abused them right there living in their face and in fact revictimising them every day of their life. So I truly do support this bill.I see that the victim has to go to the District Court to get these non-contact orders applied. One of the things that has come out of the Glenn report is the difficulty people have of being believed and being listened to. I feel really sorry for these people who have to go to a court to talk to a judge fearful that they may not be believed that there really is an issue that the judge needs to take account of so as to issue that non-contact order for them. I would like to think that as a society we could find ways to support those victims to go through that process of approaching the judge at the District Court. Another one of the issues I have heard spoken about when I have talked to victims of domestic and sexual violence is that they do not know where to go or whom to ask to help them through the processes of the system. So that little part concerns me. In fact it is not even a little part; it is actually quite a major for victims to have to stand up and defend or progress their own causes. They often need that somebody there to be a friend to be a support and to guide them along that way.It is said that less than 10 percent of sexual violence and domestic violence actually gets reported. Because of that there are so many more people who really need support to cope with what has happened to them as well as these people who are having the offenders turn up next door to them. We really need to make sure that the system supports people and helps people to report the abuse or the violence that has happened to them so that they do not go through life unsupported and not listened to. We really need to change the system so that people feel they can go and report the various crimes that have been committed against them.I am glad that what was originally in the bill—that a sentence had to be for 5 years before this order applied to the offender—has been reduced to 2 years. The crimes were too serious at the 5-year end of the scale and in fact for anybody who has had any sort of violence against them sexual or physical it does not really matter how violent it is. Even lower levels of offending against them are traumatic and so it is good that we are now looking at the 2-year sentence so that people who have been sentenced for 2 years have these non-contact orders against them.