Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora Madam Deputy Speaker. Like many of my colleagues I'd like to acknowledge those who started the process: the Hon Amy Adams and the previous Government who called together those across the House to actually start to pick up on this issue. It's good to see that that collegiality has continued because obviously this is an issue that's too big to us to make politics of. So I just acknowledge those who started it and have continued that on.I want to talk a little bit about the 10-day police safety order. That was a point of concern for New Zealand First—it was part of a conversation that we had. We understand why there was that increase around police safety orders. The concern we expressed was to make sure that there were places available when predominantly men are removed from their homes. We wanted to make sure that there were places for them to go to.During my time in Opposition I visited Gandhi Nivas the initiative that started in one place in Auckland and has now spread to become three or four. I think there are other models throughout the country. When the police remove an individual under a safety order they take that individual to a Gandhi Nivas house so that they—as I say they are mostly men—have somewhere to sleep they have somewhere to be and they get access to services. You know without being flippant there are two sides to this and we must make sure that we keep the balance. We have to support the victim absolutely and any children inside the house that witness domestic violence or are victims themselves but we also have to make sure that we go to that preventative side to that early intervention side to that intensive intervention side where we make sure that those who perpetrate are well supported to understand that there are other ways to manage this. Again I acknowledge Gandhi Nivas house and the work they have done and the success they have had in that particular area.I agree with the Hon Maggie Barry on elder abuse. It is good to see that that conversation is getting wider and that we are recognising it and as the current Minister for Seniors it's something that's very important to me. I want to concentrate mostly though on some new parts—from the Supplementary Order Paper—that were included and are now parts of the main bill. I'm really focusing I suppose on coercive control. I have brought down to the House the fact that it was a piece of work that I was doing for New Zealand First prior to the election. The United Kingdom put it into legislation on 29 December 2015. They were the first nation I believe to put coercive control into legislation so that it could be a crime. That was the first time we really saw it recognised. Many times coercive control is the start of a pathway to much greater violence and we need to stop that. If we're talking about prevention and early intervention we must focus on coercive control.I want to clearly describe what coercive control is and I want to do so not for members of the House but for those listening or watching this so that they can hear what they need to keep their eye out for either in themselves in others or in their lives. The term coercive control" spans a broad range of actions that are intended to intimidate restrict and control a partner's behaviour. This can include restricting access to money refusing to socialise with family or friends threatening to release intimate details or pictures monitoring e-mail and social media accounts and even tracking somebody's movements through smartphone software. Now if you're happy each of you for another to know where you are at every moment of the day that's not a problem at all. But if somebody requires you to download an app on to your phone and actually activate an app so they know where you are every minute of the day then you might like to consider that that's a problem.The only other thing I do want to say here though is that if anybody out there recognises that behaviour in somebody they know please don't rush off and go and take action in your own right. Certainly create an environment where you can talk to the person that you are concerned about and support them but please don't rush off and take action without first of all making sure that you have spoken to that individual about what they want to do. Because at the end of the day with the best will in the world we can put people we care about in danger if we decide that we know better. We must empower those who find themselves in circumstances not of their own making to know that we will support them that there are services out there and that we will help them as we can but we will not take further power from them by making that decision on their behalf. So while I want people to recognise what that looks like I don't want people to decide that they know better for somebody else's life but please just to support them.I think what's really interesting—and I looked up how many people have been charged under coercive control since 2015—is that of 35 police forces in the UK in the first six months 798 people were arrested and 130 were charged; if we go to 1 January 2016 to 30 June 2017 3937 arrests were made and 666 charges were laid. Now that might be only 16 percent of those that were arrested but the point is it became something that was watched for. The areas as Associate Minister of Education I have responsibility for are healthy relationships student well-being anti-bullying programmes and so on and so forth inside of our schools and coercive control is an area where I believe we can do greater work to educate our young people to recognise the behaviours in themselves and in others.Now before I sit down though I want to ensure that we don't think that this is just about men or on the other side of it just about women because I don't want our young men to firstly not recognise the behaviours in themselves but also not recognise when those behaviours are being used against them. And when I was just looking up how the UK model was going on 16 April 2018 the first woman was actually convicted under that law. "The university graduate is believed to be the first woman convicted under the new domestic abuse laws after scalding her boyfriend with boiling water stabbing him and keeping food from him." Interestingly enough this young man was actually disabled. So it goes to what we're talking about. We can't make assumptions about who this population is. We can't make assumptions about whether it's a social demographic over here or an ethnic background over there. We must not make these assumptions because assumptions lead to judgment.But what we must do is be aware. What we must do is educate the next generation so that we can turn the tap off at the same time as we are making sure that the population that we have at the moment we are holding to account but also supporting to find other ways. I commend the bill to the House."