Parker David: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
Parker David: Child and Family Protection Bill — In Committee 
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Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour) 
: 
 As other speakers have said Labour supports this bill the Child and Family Protection Bill and it has suggested some Supplementary Order Papers to slightly amend it in a way we think would improve it. Despite what we see in the media New Zealand has not got a problem with rising crime overall. In fact crime levels in New Zealand have dropped pretty consistently for the last decade. There have been two exceptions to that which are of concern to this Parliament and I am sure to people on all sides of the Chamber. One is the weird really violent kind of crime which in a way is almost fantasy crime. Some of that is drug-related relating to P and it has been on the increase. That has obviously been a concern. 
The other area of crime that has been on the increase has been domestic violence. It is a moot point how much of that increase in recorded incidence of domestic violence is occasioned by an increase in the reporting of that violence and how much of it represents an increase in actual violence but it has probably been a bit of both. Therefore it is appropriate that we in this Parliament try to do what we can to improve that situation. 
Obviously the biggest things long-term are changes in societal attitudes and acceptance of violence in communities needs to decrease. But in addition to that we need to have appropriate legal mechanisms to ensure the proper protection of members of the community. Hilary Calvert who recently arrived in this Chamber I know has some experience in these Family Court - related matters. I look forward to her contribution. Protection orders are the mechanism that are available to people to go to the court and say that they need to be protected from a violent person they have been in a relationship with. It is quite common for those protections to be needed—in fact it is sadly common for those protections to be necessary—not just for the other adult in the relationship but also for the children. It is also a sad reality that most often those protections are needed by women in respect of violence or the threat of violence from men. 
The point of contention that has become narrowed here and is really the main point of contention between Labour and National is what should be done in respect of children under protection orders as they start to become adults and also at what point they should move from protection as a child of the family and have some sort of separate legal status and what ought to be the default position. The position the Government is taking in respect of this legislation is that where children reside in the home the protection should continue for them until the order lapses. When they leave home the order should lapse if they are 17 years of age. It is on that narrow point that we disagree with the Government. We have put up two Supplementary Order Papers and I will be interested to hear the Government’s response to them. 
The first that we propose is that the order that has been for the benefit of the child in the family should continue indefinitely for the benefit effectively of the person who is becoming a young adult until he or she opts to cancel it or until some other party opts to apply to the court to cancel it. It would not be just the child who could apply to cancel it; it could be a parent; it could be someone else who has an interest and thinks that this has now become redundant and ought to lapse. 
If people think that is going too far then we have a second Supplementary Order Paper. We say that at least until that person becomes 18 the protection that the person is afforded through the protection order should automatically follow the person when he or she leaves home and goes into a flatting situation. That seems to me to be a pretty practical middle course if the Government does not like the open-ended effect of our first Supplementary Order Paper—which we would prefer. This is a narrow point of difference but it is an important point. I can envisage many instances where a lot of young people actually will not give any thought to the effect of their leaving home on their protective status under a protection order. If it has been necessary to include that child in the name of the protection order in the first place it seems to me that it is unlikely that the change of place of residence enables us to assume that that necessarily makes that young person safe in their new situation when they would not have been safe in their original home situation. If they would have been safe in their original home situation then presumably they would not have been named in the protection order or some step would have been taken to let that protection order lapse. 
That said we agree that this is good legislation overall. I will not take any more time to speak to other particular parts in the Committee stage because that would be inappropriate. I just would like to have a response on that narrow point from the Minister in the chair the Hon Nathan Guy.