Moroney Sue: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMoroney Sue: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 24 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18832. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]SUE MORONEY (Labour):It is a pleasure to rise and speak in support of the third reading of the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill which we have in front of us. I want to make a contribution to this debate because the Government’s record on violence against women and children has not been great to be honest but this bill is one small measure that it has made that could well make a difference because I think that what we do know is that probably the people who will most make use of these orders will in fact be women. The statistics are very clear that most of the violent offences—not all but most of them—are perpetrated by men and in most cases the victims are women. That is one thing I would like to be really clear about in this debate because certainly the Labour Party has no difficulty in acknowledging the gender impact of a bill such as this and fortunately in this case gender impact is a positive one. But I would urge the Government to take its gender glasses off and actually make sure that all the bills that it passes through this House do have a gender impact analysis and that the impact is positive for women and for children.This bill creates a new order a non-contact order that victims of a violent offence may apply for to the District Court. It applies to violent offences which is defined as a “serious violent offence” in clause 4. I was pleased that the Labour members on the Law and Order Committee—and I am not one of those members on the select committee—were able to make an important change I think to this bill because originally when it was drafted it was going to apply only to offences where there had been a sentence of 5 years or more. Certainly the Labour Party felt that was far too lenient it was far too light because a lot of the offences can actually carry jail terms of around about 2 years and yet they have been very violent acts—often involving sexual violence—that have been perpetrated. So we argued for and were successful in getting the bill to be amended so that the violent offence could be one where the offender had been sentenced to a term of 2 years or more. That is important because that will cover a lot more of these violent offences. If a person has been a victim of a violent offence and the person was sentenced for 2 years or more they will be able to apply for a non-contact order.The idea of non-contact orders is something that has existed for some time now in the area of domestic violence. I think that although it has proven to be somewhat successful I do need to place on record my very deep concern that on-the-spot protection orders in the domestic violence area are I think being used to replace areas where people should actually face convictions instead. I am deeply concerned about that because many people in this sector tell me that although the use of on-the-spot protection orders is increasing the rate of people being charged with domestic violence is going down at a time when the number of incidents being reported is going up. It worries me that these lesser protection orders the on-the-spot protection orders are being used instead of people being properly placed before the court and facing much much stiffer penalties for the act of domestic violence.I am convinced that this bill will not suffer the same fate and I am convinced of that because these non-contact orders can happen only where there has already been a conviction. So I am satisfied that we will not see the same trend that we have seen in the domestic violence field because in order for these non-contact orders to be used at all a person already must have been convicted for a violent offence. It is going to be used for when those people finish their sentence and to ensure that they cannot continue to intimidate or harass the victim just by their mere presence—just their mere presence because of the violence that has taken place beforehand—and I think that is really useful.But I would urge the Government to take a long and serious look at what is happening in the field of domestic violence. I ask the Government to be transparent about it and I ask the Government to make sure that there is proper reporting on what is happening in the domestic violence area. We know that the number of incidents is going down. We know that the rate of people being placed before the courts is going down and we also know that the number of convictions is going down. That is a story of growing problems with safety for women and children in this country. Where that exists that means that women and children in New Zealand are more at risk and they are less safe than what they were previously. So I think that is an area that the Government needs to look at very closely.Before granting one of these orders a judge must be satisfied that the victim is suffering ongoing effects of the offending. It will be interesting and important to review how this particular part of the bill is happening once it is in operation because we know that sadly when it comes to the victims of violent crime particularly where women and children are involved sometimes the onus of proof becomes very high for them. It becomes very high for them to prove their case and I am concerned I am worried that if a judge has to be satisfied that the victim is suffering ongoing effects of the offending how high is that bar going to be? They have to be satisfied. Further the judge has to be satisfied that the possibility of contact between the victim and the offender would be detrimental to the victim and that the order is necessary to prevent contact between the victim and the offender. There must also be no existing order against the offender such as protection orders and non-harassment orders. So there does seem to be quite a high level of proof that is required from the victim before a judge is satisfied that one of these orders can be placed and I think that that is an area we need to make sure we monitor very closely once this bill becomes an Act and these orders are in place.An order can be for any duration decided by a judge but if there is no time limit it will expire after 2 years unless discharged earlier by the court. So I think we can expect that many of these will be for around about that 2-year area. It will again be something that we need to monitor closely as to whether that provision for the default expiry being 2 years is appropriate or not. I think we will know this only after this bill becomes an Act and has been in place for some time and we have some data to actually measure. But I would encourage the Government to think about ensuring that there are good review provisions for this bill once it does become an Act.Breaching a non-contact order is punishable by a fine of up to $5000 or imprisonment for up to 6 months or up to 2 years if the offender has two or more previous convictions for breach of a non-contact order. So clearly there are consequences for people breaching these orders. That is important because again referring back to the domestic violence scenario—which is not what we are talking about here but this is very loosely based on that—we often find that there is no punishment that there is no consequence for breaching a protection order. Indeed some of the most tragic cases we have seen recently in New Zealand have been as a result of protection orders being breached and nothing being done about that.In conclusion Labour is supporting this bill. We are pleased to see that it has reached its third reading and we look forward to its implementation and to reviewing the ongoing impact of this bill. Thank you.