Little Andrew: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17380. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour): This Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill as other members have said in the earlier parts of the debate is a very important piece of legislation addressing yet another small but significant gap in the growing raft of protections that we have in place for victims of crime—in this case victims of very serious crimes. Indeed the cases where we know that this bill had it been in place earlier would have had some effect are harrowing and distressing cases. These are cases where an offender usuallysociopathological in nature not content with the violence they have inflicted upon their victim some time afterwards wants to carry on victimising the victim sheeting home the terror that they inflict upon them and continue to remain in contact or in close proximity to them. So this bill provides a very important device that will protect those victims in the way that we already haveprotection orders in domestic violence cases—for those who are victims of that type of offending.We should note that we still have issues with enforceability—the extent to which the protection orders are enforced the means we have to enforce them or at least the resources we have to enforce them. So we do not want to create another important device to protect victims that is found wanting not because of the device itself but because we simply do not have the means in our enforcement agencies to provide proper and adequate enforcement. So I make the plea to the Associate Minister of Justice that as he rises through the ranks of Cabinet and develops a louder voice beyond justice principles and into the allocation of resources he makes sure that the administrative and enforcement requirements of matters such as this are properly met through proper resource allocation and budgeting.Part 2 deals with the mechanics if you like of applying for an order that a victim can make against a violent offender under this bill and indeed the conditions or the contents of that order. There is a two-step phase if you like. A victim can apply for an order without notice and that can result in a temporary non-contact order and there are conditions associated with that which a judge can put into it. That of course needs to be eventually served upon the offender. Once an offender is aware of an application having been made that then becomes an on-notice application. When an order issues as a result of the on-notice application it becomes a final non-contact order. Again there can be conditions attached to it as indeed there should be. So that is all good. As my colleagues have said in the earlier part of this debate in this Committee stage of this bill we welcome that particular change. That is important.There is also scope added in by the Law and Order Committee for an order to be extended to other people—those who have aided and abetted the offender and those who have been party to the offence in some other sort of way. A victim who secures an order can have the order extended to those other people so that they can be afforded protection against all those who may have malicious intent against them. That provides a very well-rounded set of provisions for those orders. Amidst all the muttering on the Government benches at this highly animated time at the moment—there is clearly something going on that the thousands of people watching tonight will be interested to know and perhaps we will hear a bit about that. As we deal with this very important piece of legislation and as members on the opposite side of the Chamber are distracted by some activity going on in their quarter let us not understate as we develop our rubric—indeed our matrix—of victims’ rights and victims’ provisions just how important this will be.One of the important changes that I know was achieved in the select committee process was the threshold for the making of the order so that the conditions under which an order can be made are now set at a slightly lower threshold. The offender has to have been subject to a term of imprisonment of 2 years or more as opposed to 5 years as appeared in the original bill. So that starts to make it a little more meaningful. But I cannot go past the point that if the provisions are to be truly meaningful—just as we want with protection orders and other parts of not only our criminal jurisdiction but the civil jurisdiction of the family court legislation—they have to be enforced. Those who are protected by the laws need to know that there are the means that they can summon up at short notice to provide them with enforcement and therefore the protection that the order promises.On that basis these are welcome developments. The rest of Part 2 provides as you would expect for effective and sensible administrative procedures that allow for an amendment of the order or indeed a discharge of the order. We would hope that the nature of these orders and of proper enforcement is that victims get to a point wherethey are no longer fearful for their person and themselves that they themselves can take control that they can shed these orders under their control get on and pick up their lives put them back together and be happy.So this bill is welcome as I have said and I know that this Committee will be doing the right thing for those people who are affected always against their choice in this sort of way and who are subject to violent offending and who were it not for these orders could be re-victimised time and again. This is a good thing and I look forward to supporting it.