SpeechVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'll join my colleagues this evening commending first the members the Hon Dr Deborah Russell and Marja Lubeck who have both ushered this bill through the House.I think there's a myth that there's a decision-making point when a person goes through a traumatic experience: that once they've got the information they need they then get the support they see their options and there's a decision-making point. If you've supported people through making a complaint in this area you'll know that's not how it plays out.I worked in YouthLaw Aotearoa for nine years and about 40 percent of our work was in the employment space. I sat next to young women between the ages of 16—sometimes younger—and 18 and provided them with information about their rights in this space. What always struck me—it's not something you forget—is the intensity of moving from information to a decision to do something about it.The first month is usually talking to your friends. For a lot of these young people that's how they'd spend the first month sometimes the first two months. The next month is maybe deciding whether you're going to tell anyone else like a parent or an older person you trust. Sometimes it takes several months.The next month maybe two maybe three is looking for information. First it's just whatever you can find online. Maybe if you're resourceful you then find some help like YouthLaw to find out what your rights are. And then only then starts the long journey of decision about whether you're actually comfortable making a complaint.That's not the end of the journey of course and there's a lot of trauma that young people experience after they make a decision to complain—if they do indeed do that. I've sat next to a young person who decided she wanted to move forward but couldn't bring herself to sit in the room as she went through a mediation. So her father also extremely traumatised by his young daughter being subject to sexual harassment sat in the room with us in her place while she was on the phone. These are long drawn-out situations with complex decision making where decisions change frequently.Having said that I do believe that we do need to draw a line. The idea of having a statute of limitations is not a new one; it's been around actually since ancient Greece where at that stage every law was subject to a five-year statute of limitations except for murder. As the law evolved in the 17th century we started to see it in British law as well. But in truth we're still working out exactly where to draw the lines on every single crime. Historically there's been a focus on the nature of the offence and the time period at which evidence may be reasonably lost.But there's been an assumption in the assessment of where the line should be drawn. The assumption is that the individual who might make the complaint has decided not to or they've been negligent in failing to turn their mind to whether they ought to be making a complaint. That is simply not the case in terms of any kind of inappropriate sexual touching. Colleagues have mentioned reasons tonight: shame fear guilt avoidance—these are all very live issues—uncertainty in how you'll be perceived. Again it's not a linear decision. I wasn't privileged to be on the Education and Workforce Committee as they considered this bill but I have read through the submissions and I understand the committee considered 43 hearing evidence from 10. So I would just like to reflect on one of the submitters in particular: the Human Rights Review Tribunal. So a lot of these young people I talked about who would come to YouthLaw—if they were outside the period of raising a personal grievance that wasn't their only option; they still did have the option of pursuing a mediation under the Human Rights Act. The Human Rights Review Tribunal spoke to this and said that they agreed with the idea of extending the provisions for personal grievance so it matched with the de facto provisions of accessing mediation provided for them by the Human Rights Commission.But they actually also pointed to two reasons why a person at any age may want to select the personal grievance option as opposed to going down the Human Rights Commission route. Firstly they said that it provided a space where you had particular expertise about how to progress those issues. They also pointed to the fact that there was significant delay in the Human Rights Review Tribunal process. I believe they pointed specifically to a case where there was over two years in terms of a decision that one of the complainants was waiting for.So when young people would come to me and they were within the personal grievance period and they'd ask me Which route should I go down?" I would often say to them "You should go down the route of raising a personal grievance." because while it takes some time to come to a decision that you want to raise the issue those young people don't want to be trapped in a space where they're consistently in trauma for years and years. So many of those young people within the period would absolutely opt to go for a personal grievance. Importantly—maybe as a tangential issue—the Human Rights Review Tribunal also raised the issue of consistency with the Limitation Act which interestingly does apply to courts but doesn't apply to them as a tribunal. It's not necessarily in the space of this bill but I raise it because it's occurring to me more and more—the more time I spend in the House—that there are many really live issues in our legal system that are raised tangentially that we really ought to pay attention to as we're progressing bills through the House. They shouldn't die on the cutting floor if you like. We need to make sure that we pay attention to the other very valid issues that are raised. So that was a really fascinating submission for me.I wanted to comment on one other submitter. So there was a submitter called the Ministry of Men's Affairs—who I understand are a community group; they aren't actually a ministry—and they did not support the bill. They considered that an extended time frame to raise a personal grievance for sexual harassment was not warranted in comparison with other personal grievances—for example as race or other forms of harassment which they said could be as difficult to deal with and raise with an employer. Now I actually think that that's a reasonable argument. In fact other submitters put the same argument to the floor. But again that's not an argument not to extend the period to a year; that's an argument to this House that perhaps instead of leaving this on the cutting floor we should consider "what next?" What next who else might not be complaining because they cannot make those complex decisions within the time frame as well?The same group also argued that a period longer than 90 days would risk people not being able to remember relevant events properly or that witnesses would no longer be available. This is not a new issue for tribunals and courts to deal with. This is a question of evidence that really does need to be put to the Employment Court. As the Human Rights Review Tribunal pointed out it's not untested that you would use evidence of someone who had waited that one year. It is currently happening at the Human Rights Review Tribunal.So in my last minute I would just go back to that issue of point of decision. I think too many times we reflect on decisions that complainants might be making in a very linear way. Again that is simply not the case; it does take longer to do. I do very much commend the changes that we're making here today but I would challenge the House to say "We need to be constantly asking 'What next?' " And we need to constantly be asking "Are the time frames are the limitations that we're setting on each of these significant laws accurate?"So once again I would thank the members who brought this significant bill to the House which will make an enormous difference to many people who otherwise wouldn't complain. I commend the select committee for their very diligent work on this bill and all those who took the time to submit on the issues in front of us but also the issues we should be considering and I commend this bill to the House."