Shanks Katrina: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — Second Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — Second Reading 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to stand here this afternoon and take a call on the second reading of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. First I acknowledge all the hard work that the Justice and Electoral Committee did in bringing this bill back to the House and the adjustments it made through that process. The select committee was chaired by Chester Borrows MP for Whanganui who is unique in the experience he brought to that committee. He was a policeman—a detective—for 20 years and then he was a lawyer. The experience and first-hand knowledge he brought to this bill was pretty significant as was his understanding of how domestic violence impacts on individuals and the victims themselves. He has seen so many of those victims himself having gone into houses as the first policeman on the job. I cannot imagine what it would be like to be a victim of domestic violence—I really cannot. It must be a horrific experience. The fear must be incredible and to live like that day after day and year after year as some of these women and their children do is pretty incredible. It is hard to believe that in New Zealand there are 80000 domestic violence cases a year. That is just incredible in a population of 4 million. Over 200 women and children have been killed as a result of domestic violence over the last 12 years and in fact in the last month two women have been killed by domestic violence. That is absolutely appalling and there is no excuse for that in New Zealand. 
This legislation is not a silver bullet because there is no silver bullet for domestic violence. There has to be a holistic approach one that looks at all parts of our society. It is not just the responsibility of the Government to have an answer to this; people need to take responsibility for what is happening in their homes their families’ homes their neighbours’ homes and the communities they live in. If we all tackle this issue together then we will start making some difference. It is not just that; the Government has a responsibility to those women and children and it has to ensure that when they are in trouble or when there is violence and the police are called the police can do something. That is what this legislation is about. It is about giving the police some more tools in their tool box to make more of a difference. 
I believe that the big part of this legislation is the on-the-spot protection orders. They allow the police to go in and give a protection order to women and their children on the spot for a period of up to 5 days against the person who is doing the domestic violence. Also the police themselves can make the decision that the protection order needs to be put in place because many women and their families are totally dominated by the males in those houses and would not do that out of fear. I understand that in 2005 this issue was discussed in some workshops and there was a strong view from Women’s Refuge that the police should not be giving protection orders and we should not be increasing those powers because police do not enforce them—they are so busy doing other police duties and actually need to enforce the protection orders that are out there. But I think it is good we are increasing protection orders and it is also good that we are increasing police numbers to ensure that those orders are enforced. 
I wanted to take a short call on this today. I believe that this is strong legislation that will help women and their children out there and the other legislation that will come through later in the year will go hand in hand with this. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.