Chauvel Charles: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
Chauvel Charles: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:8806] 
CHARLES CHAUVEL (Labour) 
: 
 I agree with one thing that the previous speaker Chester Borrows just said: we do have a problem with domestic violence in this country. Anybody who looks at the statistics will be able to confirm that. In 2008 the police responded to over 82000 incidents involving some form of that sort of violence. Between 4 percent and 10 percent of New Zealand children reported experiencing physical abuse. Twenty-four percent of girls and 11 percent of boys reported such abuse. In 2007 6400 children were involved in applications for protection orders. Most of those children had witnessed violence and others had been subject to violence directly. 
At the same time there has been an increase in the international movement of children for adoption purposes. Current powers in the legislation to deal with this phenomenon are quite clearly inadequate. It is obvious that New Zealand needs laws that better allow the prosecution of offences relating to intercountry adoptions. Those are the reasons why Labour introduced the Domestic Violence Reform Bill in 2008. As has been pointed out the Child and Family Protection Bill re-enacts many of the provisions that appear in that bill so we have decided to support it. 
I will highlight three particular provisions that are the basic and essential reasons why we are supporting this legislation. The first is the set of provisions amending the Domestic Violence Act 1995. Clause 6 would amend section 16 of the Act to make clear that a protection order will apply for the benefit of a child of an applicant until the age of 17 unless the order is discharged earlier. That is really important. The bill also clarifies that a protection order that has not lapsed or been discharged continues for the benefit of any child of a deceased applicant until the age of 17 as well. The Domestic Violence Act at the moment is silent on those matters. The bill also inserts into the Domestic Violence Act a provision to put it beyond doubt that the Family Court can make interim orders relating to a child’s care or to vary existing orders even if there has not been an application filed. Finally as far as the Domestic Violence Act is concerned the bill makes it entirely clear that any lawyer appointed to act for a child under the Care of Children Act may as of right be present at a hearing of proceedings under the domestic violence legislation. 
The second set of provisions—clauses 17 to 28—amends the Care of Children Act. The bill will provide that where a protection order has been made against a party to an application for a parenting order the court may make an order allowing that party day-to-day care of or contact with the child only if the court is satisfied of the safety of the child. If there is any doubt as far as the court is concerned then the court can make an order for supervised contact between the child and the party. The bill also strengthens the protection for children from unlawful removal from New Zealand. 
The final set of amendments—clauses 29 to 35—amends the Adoption Act and I will turn to them now. As Lianne Dalziel said these amendments would ensure that New Zealand can ratify the United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children child prostitution and child pornography. The bill amends the Adoption Act to create a new offence of improperly inducing consent for the adoption of a child. This offence will be punishable by a maximum term of 7 years’ imprisonment. As has been pointed out under the law and under the treaties to which we are party that will make it an extraditable offence and that will allow us to ratify that optional protocol to the convention. 
I have said that Labour will support the bill but I think members will have gathered that we do not do so uncritically. The exchange between the Minister of Justice and my colleague earlier indicated that Labour’s Domestic Violence Reform Bill remains on the Order Paper. We on this side of the House are mystified as to why that legislation simply has not progressed. Labour carried out extensive consultation and research before introducing the bill. It would have been preferable if National had done the right thing had not played politics and re-branded the legislation as its own but had simply got on and speedily progressed our bill through Parliament. Instead like many aspects of National’s programme so far the introduced legislation just rehashes much of what was proposed by Labour and re-brands it as National’s own. But it does so imperfectly and I will point to five areas where this bill does not go far enough or fails to make important provisions. 
The first area relates to the fact that Labour’s Domestic Violence Reform Bill changed the definition of “child” in the Domestic Violence Act to someone under the age of 18 and that was in compliance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Currently the legislation defines “child” as anyone under 17 so if Parliament passes the current legislation it will be non-compliant with our international obligations. As Lianne Dalziel said this is especially ironic in light of the pains that the current bill takes to allow for ratification of the optional protocol to the convention on the point about creating an extraditable offence where trafficking or other serious crimes concerning children are committed. 
Secondly the bill does not provide the court with the power to direct attendance at an addiction treatment programme. Labour’s bill did that and if National was serious about dealing with the causes of crime then this bill would as well. 
Thirdly Labour’s bill introduced a provision requiring any judge who declines a without-notice application for a protection order to provide written reasons for declining the application. This was to make sure that a declined applicant could decide on an informed basis whether to proceed instead on notice. National’s bill does not include any such provision. Why weaken potential protection for a victim in this way unless the Government is simply paying lip-service to the interests of actual or potential victims of crime? 
Fourthly Labour’s bill made provision for applicants to be able to attend information sessions that would provide advice on making effective use of protection orders and advice on any social assistance that might be available. Again that provision would have been of great assistance to those potentially at risk. Why has it been omitted? Because National clearly does not really care about those who are actually or potentially at risk. 
Fifthly and finally Labour’s bill also contained much better provisions concerning applications for the discharge of protection orders and it allowed the court to order reports if necessary. It is simply inexplicable that any Government claiming to care about the vulnerable would not have re-enacted those provisions. 
Judith Collins issued a media release on 1 October 2009 and in that media release she claimed that National’s two new bills—the replacements for the Labour bill that I mentioned earlier—would “tackle the evil of family violence”. But in that press release she did not make any explanation of how that will happen or why these five omissions have occurred. And unfortunately we never heard from the Minister of Justice in his introductory speech tonight why these omissions have occurred nor have we yet heard from another Government speaker on these matters. So although Labour will be supporting this legislation’s referral to a select committee and hopes that it will be able to support the legislation through its other stages Labour members will be listening carefully as to why these important matters are missing from this bill.