Street Maryan: Third Readings —Text is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStreet Maryan: Third Readings —[Sitting date: 27 May 2014. Volume:699;Page:18373. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MARYAN STREET (Labour): It gives me great pleasure to rise and follow Scott Simpson the chair of the Justice and Electoral Committee whom I consider to be a very capable chairperson.I rise to speak to the Victims of Crime Reform Bill and the four pieces of legislation into which it has been divided. This must be wash-up week. We have had Budget week and that is over and this must be wash-up week because we are arriving on the Order Paper at pieces of legislation that have been languishing for a very long time. So the Government has decided to see what it can do to win a few points—to be able to get out into the electorate before the general election and say: “Look what we did. Don’t look at how long we took to do it just look at what we did and we have got it done in time for Election 2014.”The report from the Justice and Electoral Committee on this piece of legislation is testimony to the tardiness of the Government actually in this respect. The committee membership list in the report back shows that four out of the nine members of Parliament who were on that committee at the time are no longer members of Parliament. They are not even here. We have Dr Jackie Blue Charles Chauvel the Hon Lianne Dalziel and Katrina Shanks all of whom left this Parliament some time ago. That is how long this legislation has been sitting around.In fact if one goes back to the whole point when the consultation on this legislation began it began in 2009. If you look at the regulatory impact statement from the Ministry of Justice there was quite extensive consultation in 2009. That resulted in the Victims of Crime Reform Bill being referred to the Justice and Electoral Committee on 4 October 2011. The Government spent 2 years or a bit more—from 2009 to late 2011—consulting with a range of people which is right and proper. It is good that it did that but it did take a long time doing it. Then the closing date for submissions to the select committee was 17 February 2012. We had the election in between the time thatthe bill came to the select committee and the time that submissions were to close. There were 34 submissions received and 12 submissions were heard. Then the legislation was not to see the light of day again for some time. So here we are at the end of May in 2014 5 years on from the time that the original consultation process started. Let us hope that this is not the way that New Zealand expects legislation to proceed.Since 1987 the New Zealand Parliament has dealt a number of times with the rights of victims of crime and with their interests. Labour initiatives such as the Victims of Offences Act 1987 and the Victims’ Rights Act 2002 were two such efforts to address the concerns and the sensitivities of victims of crime. Both of those initiatives adopted an incremental approach to changing the system and there are some critical issues here that I will get to in just a moment but the aim was to make the system more responsive and more sensitive to the victims of crime and to their families. We support this legislation because it moves along in that same tradition with some incremental change that addresses the rights of victims of crime. But we do think from the evidence that was presented to the select committee all those years ago that it is time to do more.The 49th Parliament repealed the partial defence of provocation and that went some way to remedying the dreadful situation that families of murdered victims in particular—or rather as a special example—found themselves in during trials. The reputation of a deceased loved one was distorted beyond recognition by the defence. Families simply feltrevictimised in the course of the process in court and that still happens. Further substantial reform to address and eliminate this practice is clearly needed.We believe that a reference asking how best to achieve this should go to the Law Commission as a matter of priority. It is important that Parliament does not attempt to alter the balance that exists in our judicial system currently but having the Law Commission apply itself to this may be one way of progressing victims’ rights through this Parliament in a bipartisan or a multipartisan way. It should be referred to the Law Commission as a matter of priority in our view. But even with the changes such as the introduction of victim impact reports prior to sentencing we still have an adversarial criminal system that recognises only the accused and the prosecution.We are very mindful of the exhortations of the Chief Justice and others not to violate the due process guarantees that exist in our system. Providing for an advocate for the victim however need not violate that balance inherent in our adversarial system. So we think that it is entirely possible to establish a role for a victims advocate without upsetting the system of balance between accused and prosecution that has developed over centuries and that exists in our criminal justice system at the moment. But the role of a victims advocate should be considered. It should include the ability to explain processes to victims’ families and to speak up on behalf of victims when statements about their interests and reputation are made.Victim Support as an organisation is already doing some of this work. We believe it should be given better statutory recognition and more secure funding but we do support this legislation.In the course of consultation there were numerous groups that were consulted. I dare say that some of them have forgotten that this legislation was sitting in the bowels of Parliament for as long as it has been and they may not be aware that it has finally seen the light of day. But I hope that those people who were consulted including the Chief Justice the Chief Judges of Family Court the Youth Court the District Court the New Zealand Council of Victim Support Groups the Sensible Sentencing Trust the NGO alliance associated with the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families and TOAH-NNEST or TeOhaaki a Hine—National Network for Ending Sexual ViolenceTogether will have some notification that this legislation is finally passing its third reading.The legislation does enjoy support across the House. There are more things that we could do and Labour looks forward to doing them in Government. Thank you.