Walters VanushiVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Kia ora Mr Speaker and thank you for an opportunity to take a call. I also want to begin by acknowledging the member Louise Upston not only for raising an important issue but for also allowing victims to be heard at the select committee and giving them a voice there but also for her thoughtfulness for her care and for her patience as we asked questions during the committee stage. That was very much appreciated. I referred in a number of my statements at the committee stage to the Chief Victims Advisor's report in 2019 which is called Te Tangi o te Manawanui. It was recommendations for reform in the victims' rights space and that made a significant impact on me partially because it quoted victims themselves. One of those quotes talked about justice for victims being Basically a safety net for people who have been wronged. And whether or not that net has holes in it you don't know until you've got on the journey." As a member of the Justice Committee a large part of our process was about listening to people and to families who had been on that journey and had experienced some really horrific instances of crime and offending. The challenge for us I think as a committee was really putting victims first and keeping them front of mind—which they absolutely were—but also balancing the rights at play with the principles of our criminal justice system which are equally important to maintaining a fair justice system. So I would thank again the member but also those who came in to submit. I think it was incredibly courageous for a lot of them to provide those submissions to us but as the member herself also referenced I think there was a lot of integrity in the way that they approached submitting to the select committee. There was a lot of respect for the mental health system and a recognition of its inherent value and this was from people who have suffered a whole lot in terms of instances that have happened to them. As my colleague Ginny Andersen said this bill won't be able to undo the harm that those individuals have suffered but I do believe that the bill in the form that it's been amended to and that it's been reported back from select committee goes some way to acknowledging the rights of victims while also remaining true to the principles of our justice system. It is a bill that does aim to ensure that victims in this space are given equivalent treatment. We've traversed through the committee stage the number of different changes that are included within this bill including notification to a victim when an offender is released including victim impact statements and also of course the verdict which I think has been really for me that real pivot point in terms of finding the right balance between all of the rights at play here. A number of us spoke about the fact that this hasn't been an easy process. It has been about balancing interests and rights but I do think that these are timely changes and changes that also mirror those made in other like jurisdictions to strike an appropriate balance. I also do want to acknowledge some of the submitters. I do recall vividly the submission of Victim Support whose submissions referenced Glen Collins a much-loved man. He was a 45-year-old father of two who was stabbed to death without any warning and there were many many horrific stories that we heard over the course of that select committee. I also wanted to reflect very briefly again on the changes to the verdict. Our chairperson Ginny Andersen stepped us through a number of those changes and there were actually three iterations of change to what the current law is. I'd again point to the member's bill when it first came into select committee and the verdict in that bill referenced "acts or omissions" and also included a reference to "the defendant". The select committee then shifted to "proven but insane" and where we landed—the "act proven but not criminally responsible on account of insanity"—is actually in my view very akin to the member's initial proposal. That says two things to me. Firstly it shows the integrity and the balance that the member brought to the initial version of the bill which was intended to bring a balanced approach but it also shows the rigour with which the committee approached its task. I think it's also useful to consider the pace of change. I asked a question during committee stage about comparability with like-jurisdictions. There have been a number of other changes in Australia and in Canada in this regard. In New South Wales they conducted a review into the experience of victims and the system and as a result of the review there were a number of changes that were made including that the victim had the right to make a statement in court and also that the court may consider the statement in deciding the conditions that were going to be imposed. This really does in New South Wales give that victim comparable treatment. In Canada for circumstances akin to these the law has removed the words "not guilty" from the insanity verdict replacing them with "not criminally responsible". So you can see a very similar trend in like-jurisdictions so we are not out of step with what's happening internationally.In considering some of the changes that we did we didn't just look to statements from victims—although their submissions weighed heavily on us—we also considered the views of academics and practitioners in the area including the mental health law expert Dr Warren Brookbanks and forensic psychiatrist Dr Jeremy Skipworth both of whom have argued the benefits of allowing victims to make submissions concerning patients' leave and release as well. So these are views that are shared by academics and specialists alike. But the tensions were very real. We touched on a number of them during committee stage including the broad overlap between the justice space and the health space and again I think we touched on that in a policy sense but we also saw it as a space where operationally there was a lot of overlap. I think the clear message for us was to recognise that the law doesn't exist in those discrete boxes but that we need to actively consider the mental health space and the health and wellbeing space as we're making changes to our justice legal framework.The other big tension that I spoke about at committee stage was the issue of privacy and disclosure and I did pay particular heed to the submission of the Privacy Commissioner as well as the Human Rights Commission in this regard. I said again at committee stage that in my view there were some very valid questions raised about the balance and whether we were getting the balance right. We were balancing those submissions against what we heard from victims themselves who talked about a need to be informed. They talked about the anxiety of walking the streets and just not knowing whether someone would present or note. I do note that at committee stage the member responded very well to this question as well citing the fact that for many mental health patients it's not in their best interests either to be in a situation where victims aren't made aware of their temporary release.Finally I would just like to say again that I commend the member for raising this issue. I think we've worked extremely collegially cross-party to achieve a balance that will work both for victims' rights as well as for the rights that we uphold in our justice system. I commend this bill to the House."