Kedgley Sue: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) Care of Children Amendment Bill Adoption Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Kedgley Sue: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) Care of Children Amendment Bill Adoption Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 August 2011. Volume:674;Page:20595. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I will speak briefly to say that the Green Party is very very happy to support this legislation and to join in what seems to be a consensus in this House. We support the comments made by previous speakers. But I say in particular that although this legislation will do much to provide support for families and to streamline some of the procedures to assist families we must do more to address the underlying causes of violence and family violence in New Zealand. 
The previous speaker Steve Chadwick mentioned addiction and alcohol. We heard compelling evidence in the Justice and Electoral Committee that alcohol is one of the major fuels of violence in New Zealand. We hope this House will adopt a very very comprehensive and far-reaching approach to try to reduce the harm of violence and to extend addiction treatment and alcohol treatment around New Zealand. 
The other issue that nobody has mentioned—and I think it does deserve a mention—is the amount of violence on television in films and in computer games. We know that the violence on television in computer games and in films is contributing to a culture of violence in New Zealand. Extensive research has found that children who are exposed to a lot of violence on television end up thinking that violence is a legitimate way of solving problems. They think that violence is more normal and they become more aggressive and more violent themselves when they grow up. This is particularly the case with boys. 
I managed to get some funding to look at the amount of violence on New Zealand television and one of the most concerning findings of that study was that the cartoons children watch tend to have the most episodes of violence in New Zealand television. In fact some of the cartoons particularly on the Nickelodeon channel were little more than animated thuggery. If we are to be serious about addressing violence and the causes of violence one of the things we need to look at is trying to reduce the amount of violence on television particularly in cartoons and the programmes that children watch. We need to look at the amount of violence in computer games and on television. 
Above all the other thing we need to look at is poverty. We know that impoverished families tend to be more violent and we know we must do more to reduce the underlying poverty and inequality in our society. We know that the more unequal a society is the more likely it will have more violence and more social breakdown. 
The Green Party has proposed a series of policies that would do a lot to address poverty in New Zealand and that would deliver $60 a week to some of our most impoverished families. As we observe the terrible happenings on the other side of the world in what we thought was one of the safest places in the world—namely London and England—as we observe the violence that is erupting there many are saying yes it is alienated youth it is poverty and it is inequality that are some of the underlying causes of that astonishing outbreak of violence. We would do well to address the underlying causes of poverty in New Zealand and issues such as alcohol abuse and the amount of violence on television otherwise these bills although they will be steps along the way will not really do much to reduce the underlying causes of violence in New Zealand. Thank you. 
Bills read a third time.