Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker and it is also a pleasure for me to stand in the House today and take a call on this the family violence legislation. Can I start by acknowledging the Minister of Justice the Hon Andrew Little and also the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice Jan Logie because I have been working quite closely with them over the last 12 months and they have taken a bipartisan approach in terms of recognising the work the Hon Amy Adams put into this bill. Fundamentally it's very important for Kiwis and so I want to acknowledge the engagement and work that we have done. I have to admit that when the 11 amendments came in as Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 116 I had a conversation with Minister. I read through them and I said Would it be fair to say that these are the parliamentary under-secretary's amendments?" and he said "Yes they are." They came out of the Green Party minority view. The great thing about our democracy is now you have a chance to actually implement those and some of them we can see great value in. With some of them as the Minister referred to—the police safety orders—we have had a debate around that. I personally have had some stakeholder engagement and we accept the fact that we can watch it and make sure that it's not used incorrectly but fundamentally it may provide some more breathing space for victims to get orders in place. I do want to acknowledge the Hon Amy Adams because not only did she put an enormous amount of work into this bill—and her officials and her advisers—but she was deeply passionate about it. I think Minister Little that when you talked about a woman having hands put around her throat you're absolutely right that that is a first indicator that actually she could end up dead. I remember having that conversation with Amy and it became apparent to me very early on as her associate just how passionate she was about this legislation and how important she felt that it was. So it's great to see it in the House and coming through today. Can I acknowledge both of you—thank you. I would just like to put on the record some of the work that has been done and to encourage Minister Andrew Little—and I hope that he will; I'm sure that he will—to pick up some of this work. If you will bear with me I'd just like to run through it quickly and that is that in 2016 we put in a package of $132 million worth of reforms which overhauled the family violence laws and the way the system prevents and responds to family violence. In Budget 2017 we invested a further $37.2 million into targeted family violence services including the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot and the Gang Action Plan pilot. Can I just say I visited the ISR in Christchurch about a month ago and I spent the morning actually sitting in there while they processed the cases. Can I just say that across all agencies everyone involved in that sees huge value in it. It appears to be working and I'd appeal to the Minister that you continue to support and fund and actually grow that programme because it's delivering great results back to our community. The 2017 investment fund for mental health saw $4 million go to a pilot programme around a culturally responsive therapy service for children aged 5 to 12 years who have experienced or have been exposed to family and/or sexual violence. You know this is an enormously important programme in terms of when we look at that social investment model and actually making the investment in our young people much earlier to try and make sure we get them on the right track so that they have better outcomes as they grow. DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'll just remind the member that the third reading is a summary of a bill and whilst you can bring in other issues they can't be discussed for a long period of time. So I would ask the member to come back to the bills in front of the House if you can. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker and I'll take your advice. I guess why I've raised these issues is because a lot of the investment that I'm talking about here relates directly to what is contained in the bills and what we're going to see implemented after the passing of the bills. So there's a direct correlation in relation to that. DEPUTY SPEAKER: You just need to make that correlation in your speech. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker—thank you. So if I come back to that in terms of the bills and the investment that went into a new 24/7 national sexual violence helpline this was to provide nationally accessible information and support to people affected in any way by sexual harm. I'd just like to say that in my own experience I was lucky enough to have a 14-year policing career here in New Zealand which I'm very proud of and I spent 10 years overseas working in communities in countries that were living with deprivation and exposed to terrible violence and you know the situations are always very complicated. When you walk into a household where there's been some domestic violence there can be a number of reasons. One can be as simple as the people don't know how to communicate their feelings and frustrations arise and all of a sudden you find yourself with violence. Or it can be financial or it can be aggravated through drug use or alcohol use. There's lots of complicating factors that we have to try and deal with and unpick but first and foremost the justice system has to be there to react and to protect the victims that are created in that moment. We increased the penalty for breaching protection orders and I think that's very important when we talk about what's contained in the SOP around a police safety order. They don't really mean much if they're not actually backed up with some action if they're breached so we recognised that whilst we were in Government and took firm action around increasing the penalties and sending a clear message around the breach of protection orders. We kept up to a thousand victims of family violence safe each year in their own homes with the National Home Safety Service. If I could again encourage the Minister and the parliamentary under-secretary to remain heavily focused in this area because one thing that I found very difficult personally was going to a domestic violence situation and often having to remove the mum and the kids from the family home when actually when you think about it that doesn't really make sense—taking them to a refuge. We are making big steps in this direction but it actually makes more sense to leave mum and especially the children because you think about the disruption and the trauma in their life. They've already seen some violence taking place. They've probably already witnessed that and now we're actually removing them from their place of security where they feel secure and taking them to a strange place with a whole bunch of strangers and that actually has a negative impact on them. So I would encourage you to please remain focused on that. Because I've only got a couple of minutes left I just wanted to talk—this is a little bit philosophical so I ask for your lenience on this one Madam Deputy Speaker—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well just relate it to the bill and we'll be fine. Hon MARK MITCHELL: Well it's definitely related to the bill in terms of—I saw some comments made in the media about I think it was whānau by the deputy leader of the Labour Party whom I have a lot of respect for and who brings a lot of passion to this House in terms of what he's trying to achieve. But the one thing that struck me about that was that he was deeply upset by the fact that the street that he grew up in in Kawakawa Leonard Street—a lot of the families and a lot of the mates and a lot of the people that he'd grown up with had not been able to access and embrace the opportunities that this country of ours presents. The only point that I would make there and I felt really strongly—and this relates back to having spent 10 years overseas actually seeing what abject poverty looks like seeing what insecurity looks like and having to deal with violence every day—is that a lot of those people would've given everything that they owned to have a house on Leonard Street in Kawakawa and to have access to the opportunities that exist for us here in New Zealand. I think that too quickly instead of looking at the good things and at the opportunities and at exploring ways of accessing those we almost fall into a psychology of victimhood where actually we can't see a way through. We don't actually appreciate what we have in front of us. We don't actually look for ways of being able to unlock that and pursue that. With hand on heart I'm just saying that I've come across and dealt with hundreds if not thousands of people overseas that would give anything to have a house on Leonard Street in Kawakawa and to have the opportunities that this country would offer them. I think sometimes we just need to switch our thinking up and we actually need to look at things through a different prism and say "Let's embrace the opportunities that we have as a country. Let's go for it rather than sit back and wait for it to happen." In my view in my experience not much will happen if you sit back and wait for it to happen. You have to go out and make it happen for yourself. So that's a little bit philosophical but it does relate to this because this relates to family violence and getting trapped in a cycle where you can't see a way out. If this Government works hard and carries on with the work then maybe a way out will become apparent to them. Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker."