Brewer CameronCAMERON BREWER (National—Upper Harbour): It's with great pleasure I rise alongside colleagues on this side of the House and across the House and around the House in support of the second reading of the Family Proceedings (Dissolution for Family Violence) Amendment Bill.I want to start out by firstly acknowledging Ashley Jones in the gallery and the work that she and many others did to get us to this point. Those who think that you can't change anything in politics from a member of the public's perspective and you can't change anything and they won't listen to you anyhow Ashley's proven them wrong. She has managed to turn her lived experience into legislative change in as James Meager articulated a relatively short period of time too. We know sometimes petitions can languish but her petition was brought on to the steps of Parliament back in 2021 with over 5000 signatures. And it headlined that petition on the steps of Parliament as Change our archaic divorce laws so abuse victims can be free of their abuser".When you look at when this was last looked at and the legislative framework that currently has to work under it goes back over 40 years to the Family Proceedings Act 1980 which came into effect in 1981 and has been governing the laws around the dissolution of marriage ever since and was extended to the dissolution of civil unions in 2005. And so as one of our colleagues across the way said "This is long overdue."I want to acknowledge the Hon Dr Deborah Russell for shepherding this through and working with the Justice Committee so diligently and she's always the first to give credit to her colleague Angie Warren-Clark. As a previous speaker said "Angie Warren-Clark was a professional in this space having been a Women's Refuge manager and a family violence expert." if you like.Looking back as someone said just earlier that domestic violence family violence family harm is a real plight on New Zealand society and sadly it is. We look at the New Zealand Crime & Victims Survey's most recent report of 2021-22 and get this: 24 percent of New Zealand women experienced intimate partner violence during their lifetimes making New Zealand have the highest rate of domestic violence out of 14 OECD countries. In 2020 New Zealand police responded to a domestic violence call every four minutes. And looking at some stats between the years 2009 and 2018 that decade 88 New Zealand women were murdered by their partners. Of the woman who were killed 51 percent had left their abusive partner within the last three months. A further 14 percent of women were killed after leaving their partner longer than three months. And so two out of three were actually killed by their ex-partners but in the eyes of the law they are of course deemed partners. And so separation does not equal safety when you look at those stats alone.And I also want to acknowledge some of our previous speakers and some of our leaders in this House. I want to acknowledge the Hon Karen Chhour the Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence and our spokesperson and leader in that space the Hon Louise Upston. I want to acknowledge the Hon Mark Mitchell Minister of Police and of Corrections and the Associate Minister of Police Casey Costello. These people have real lived experiences and as our Prime Minister would say we have the right people in the right places and that's what a team is all about. And when you reflect on those four people those four Ministers on this side of the House representing the three coalition parties inside Government that's real experience lived experience that they're bringing to the bringing to the fore doing their best and all of us here across the House tonight are coming up with some legislative solutions.I just wanted to reflect a little bit more on our guest tonight Ashley Jones and tell her story because we've heard a lot about the bill within its technical details in what the select committee changed and why. But let's have a look at the motivation and the story that kind of motivated over 5000 New Zealanders to sign that petition and then for the likes of Deborah to shepherd it through the House. Ashley's story is one of a woman taking on the law system to help thousands of others with the same experience. She has never given up on herself or the belief that all victims of abuse should have more rights. After leaving her abusive marriage in 2020 Ashley found herself in a two-year limbo of separation required under the law before she could file divorce papers. During that time she was subjected to financial and emotional abuse from her husband who refused to properly engage with the separation proceedings. In Ashley's case after two harrowing years she tried to file her divorce papers but was told that because she didn't know her husband's whereabouts her documents could not be processed. It took a further 11 months before she was officially divorced from her abusive husband. So two years through Ashley's example is a minimum this can languish and the obstruction and the control can continue well beyond that two-year period as Ashley found herself.I want to also acknowledge the Hutt Valley Women's Refuge and the role that they played with you Ashley and all Women's Refuges around the country and all the work that different community leaders do in this space. So it's with regret that we even have to go here but I finish as I started out. This goes to show that members of the public can change laws in New Zealand that members of Parliament can listen to them and respond in a legislative sense to the lived experience of Ashley and thousands and thousands of others—one could argue up to 24 percent of New Zealand women who have experienced some form of harm by their partner—and that things can be changed for the better.And this is only a small piece of the puzzle but it's a puzzle that this Government is up for and we will continue to work as constructively across the House as much as we can as a coalition Government to get the right results because the answers here are not left wing centre left centre right right wing. They are solutions like this that make relatively small legislative adjustments but a major impact on someone's life just as Ashley has shown us what she has been able to do as a single person with a lot of friends and family supporting her as far as coming to the steps of Parliament in 2021. And here we are three years later which in parliamentary time is pretty quick making a real difference to legislation that's well over 40 years old well overdue and will be well received by many many women tonight. Thank you Madam Speaker."