McClay Todd: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
McClay Todd: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 13 September 2011. Volume:675;Page:21241. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Robertson. It gives me great pleasure to rise and speak on the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) a bill we had before the Social Services Committee for some time. We spent a great length studying this in detail and hearing from the public. I start by congratulating my colleague Te Ururoa Flavell on his speech and I recognise that he and the Maori Party support this legislation. I say to Opposition members that I hope they will too. I did hear that they were through the committee— 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: We’ve said that. 
TODD McCLAY 
: I ask the members whether that is all the way through. 
Dr Rajen Prasad 
: All the way through. 
TODD McCLAY 
: Well that is good. I thank them for that because I think it is important that our House works together wherever possible and whenever it can when it comes to issues of young people and children. I ask for—[ 
Interruption 
]—I have not lost anything yet—the Green Party to rethink its issues. In fact what its members have said is that they will not vote for the legislation because we need to address the wider issues. Well there are no issues wider than children who are abused and killed in this country. 
It is important that members of this House think about what is important to them the bigger issues and so on but fundamentally in New Zealand far too many children are abused far too many children are killed and far too many family members and others sit by and watch it happen and do not do enough about it. I recognised when we were at the select committee that in some cases the other people who would sit by these children while they were harmed were themselves victims also. But do members know what? That is not good enough for us in New Zealand. Every adult has to know that they not only have the ability to step in but also must step in and seek help and assistance when a young child is to be harmed. Children are some of the most vulnerable people we have in society. Too often adults around them in their own homes do nothing when they are being harmed by people they know. 
Every year there are very many cases of children being abused harmed and killed. In my electorate of Rotorua there was a very high-profile case of a beautiful young girl young Nia Glassie who was killed. There were many adults in that home whom the courts had dealt with but nobody stepped in and nobody did anything about that. We had another high-profile case of the Kahui twins who were murdered. There were many adults in that home and nobody knows what happened. There has been a high-profile court case but nobody stepped up to say they knew what happened they knew the person responsible or that this is what we should do. Nobody has even said they wished they had acted to stop that from happening. Personally I believe Chris Kahui killed those children but actually that is for others to consider now. What concerns me the most is that nobody stepped in and nobody has been held to account. 
In Ngaruawahia earlier this year a little baby of 6 months of age named Serena was killed in her own home. There were four five or six adults living there. They disappeared. Nobody knows what happened. Somebody from that community spoke up afterwards a next-door neighbour who did not want to be named in the media. Those around her abused her and threatened her because she thought it was important that somebody stood up for the life of that young baby. 
This bill will not fix all the ills. It will not stop people killing children in our country sadly. What it will do is send a message to family members and to other adults that when somebody is vulnerable a child or another adult they have a duty to protect them to step in to do something about it and to seek help when they think that that young person is in harm’s way. If they do not then the bill before us when it is the law will hold them to account. When we come to the Committee stage I want to canvass and speak about other parts of this legislation but at this stage I say that I am proud to have played a role in the way this legislation moved through the select committee. I commend it to the House.