Davidson MaramaHon MARAMA DAVIDSON (Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence): I rise as the Minister for the Prevention of Family Violence and Sexual Violence to support this bill and to awhi my colleague Jan Logie who just spoke on behalf of the Green Party. I want to thank the Hon Kris Faafoi for bringing this bill back into the House ensuring that victims survivors and whānau can see that the protections this bill offers are indeed a priority of this Government.Going back to what this bill is about it is to reduce the trauma that sexual violence complainants experience when they attend court and give evidence. That is the whole premise of what this piece of legislation is attempting to do. And I want to thank again Jan Logie for her incredible leadership in this mahi bringing the bill to this the depth and the strength that it is today.Our communities our victim/survivors and advocates the many many organisations who continue to work with us as a Government to strengthen such protections must be thanked by everyone in this House and I acknowledge that our colleagues across the House are absolutely doing that. These protections are a responsibility for us as lawmakers and law changers. I am so relieved to see this finally here at the third leg the final leg of the sexual violence legislation.As others have said we have significant under-reporting of sexual violence. We know that putting your hand up to even report at all to anybody let alone going through any sort of formal justice process is one of the least tempting options one of the least—one of the most cruel options that we can offer to anybody as it stands today and that has to change. This legislation acknowledges that we are accountable our systems across Government to make sure that we cause no further harm and that creating further trauma and causing further harm is part of the prevention work to create even more harm for generations when sexual violence happens to anyone their whānau and their community.We have heard from the many advocates and organisations that this bill has taken too long to progress. So again I thank the Hon Kris Faafoi for bringing it into the House. Some of the many examples of what we heard from advocates and organisations included Te Ohaaki a Hine—National Network for Ending Sexual Violence Together (TOAH-NNEST). Services were concerned and said that we know the common reaction of those accused of sexual assault is to attack the character of the victim by ridiculing and making them public. They go on to say that [We believe] the government has a moral duty to listen to research that indicates this change is vital [also] for the well-being of child victims." We just heard Jan Logie put on to the floor the very quotes and examples of exactly that particular instance of trauma that is unacceptable; that is an absolute hideous shame for all of us in Aotearoa.So I know this bill will have tangible meaning for people's real lives. This is why I acknowledge and thank Minister Faafoi for being one of the many family violence - sexual violence ministerial colleagues to have brought and launched Te Aorerekura National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence. This legislation is part of the absolute minimum of steps that we must take to actually ensure that we are serious that we are taking serious the journey to wellbeing and long-term restoration of sexual violence complainants and survivors and that we are enabling more tools and support to help people with a pathway that does lead to actual justice and to actual accountability.I wanted to also make it very clear that we need to see more of this direction with legislation in this House as lawmakers. As policy makers we need to see more across all of our systems not just in justice for sexual violence survivors and complainants. That is part of the transformational and intergenerational work that this legislation before us in the House presents. And we have a challenge that I will end on: that we cannot tinker around the edges. I know that as parliamentarians we all care about the wellbeing of victim/survivors and complainants and that we know that preventing further trauma in our systems will also prevent further intergenerational harm after the first instance after the incident of harm that has happened. So I am proud of the work that Te Aorerekura will do to bring that to realisation. Thank you."