Shanks Katrina: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
Shanks Katrina: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Reading 
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KATRINA SHANKS (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) in its third reading. It is good to see that the majority of the parties in this House are supporting this bill. I think it will certainly make a difference to the lives of our most vulnerable people: our vulnerable adults and our young children. It is disappointing to see that the Green Party cannot support this bill and I really have problems understanding what part of this bill it does not like in terms of protecting our most vulnerable from abuse and neglect. 
I thank the officials who worked on this bill in the Social Services Committee. We worked well as a team. I also thank my select committee members. We do not normally get bills like this in our select committee but we are a select committee with an absolutely huge heart and we have as members would expect from the Social Services Committee the interest of the vulnerable always at the forefront of what we are doing. I think we asked the right questions and we held the officials to account either when we did not understand what we were being told or when we disagreed with some of the reasons we were given. We challenged them and we sent them back and back and back again. I think that shows members that we as a select committee took this very seriously. We think we have put together legislation that will protect our most vulnerable. 
This bill has four main objectives. It clarifies the claim of right defence aligning it with the original purpose of the defence at common law. That was spoken on at length in the select committee and in the House it has been debated pretty thoroughly especially last night. It toughens the law around sexual grooming. It seeks to protect our most vulnerable from abuse and neglect and to bring those who are accountable for those horrific offences to justice. And it increases the penalty for possession of an offensive weapon. The bill is an essential component of National’s work to tackle violent crime and to make communities safer. It is also an important move to ensure that New Zealand children and vulnerable adults have a future free from assault neglect and ill treatment. 
Throughout the debate we have heard that New Zealand has one of the worst instances of child neglect and abuse in the OECD. It is not good enough that these children and vulnerable adults are forgotten. Every single one of these children and vulnerable adults could have had a future and this National-led Government wants them to. 
The bill makes three key changes to ensure they are adequately protected. It creates a new offence of failure to protect a child or vulnerable adult from the risk of death grievous bodily harm or sexual assault as a consequence of an unlawful act by a third party or failure of a third party to perform a legal duty. It doubles the maximum penalty for cruelty to a child from 5 years’ to 10 years’ imprisonment. It extends the offence of neglect or abuse to include vulnerable adults and it extends a legal duty on parents and caregivers who have a duty to provide the necessities of life to take reasonable steps to protect a child or vulnerable adult from injury also. 
This bill is about responsibility it is about protection and it is about justice. We know that this one piece of legislation is not a silver bullet to protect our children and vulnerable adults from abuse or neglect but we hope that it will send a clear message that it is not OK. 
It was my pleasure to chair the select committee that had this bill before it and I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.