Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National): I want to begin my contribution on this bill by acknowledging three Nelson people who told their stories to the select committee as it considered both the bill but also the select committee report on Wendy's petition. Now Wendy Hamer is a Nelson mental health nurse that was brutally attacked in her work. She was punched she was kicked she had boiling water poured over her and her attacker told her it was his intention to kill her and that he would get off on an insanity plea. The insult that was added to the injury was not only the not guilty by insanity" plea but the fact that legally she had no entitlement to make a victim impact statement to the court and then worse was that the offender was soon placed without any consultation or involvement with her back in her very community supermarket and the like. Now Wendy's petition was launched in Nelson—actually at my caravan at the Nelson market—and over 1500 people joined Wendy in her plea to this Parliament to change the law. Her presentation to the select committee—I think all members will acknowledge—was incredibly powerful and I want to acknowledge the work of Graeme Moyle with Louise Upston in Taupō who has brought this bill and helped drive this significant change.I also want to pay tribute to Sarah Preece another Nelson woman who presented to the committee and had an equally horrific experience. Sarah was brutally raped in her home by a man who had presented to Nelson Hospital A & E but had not been able to get any attention for a matter of hours. He walked out of A & E told a number of people that he intended to rape invaded this woman's home brutally assaulted her and raped her. And just like in the case of Wendy Hamer when the matter went through the court process no opportunity for a victim impact statement no opportunity to be consulted at all on where the offender was placed. And then even more insulting was that the offender had access to all of her medical records but none the other way round showing how deficient the system is being focused on the offender and not the person who is the victim. Now I even had a third case in the same period come to my attention a Mr Mark Watts—he presented to the committee—where he was viciously assaulted with a machete to the head to the point where it was within millimetres of him dying and he suffers a permanent disability and head injury as a consequence. I do want the Parliament to note the select committee's report on Mark Watts' case in that it highlighted a very real problem and inconsistency in law in enabling an assailant to walk free in such an assault. The person who committed the assault against Mark Watts had a head injury and the judge said he was in the impossible position in that they did not meet the legal criteria under our Intellectual Disability (Compulsory Care and Rehabilitation) Act so was not able to have the person criminally accountable but nor able to put any compulsory treatment order. In such an extraordinary assault the person walked free and has gone on to commit further offences against others. The select committee noted it was not able to deal with that deficiency in the law. I've written to the Minister of Justice at the time and while I welcome the changes that we have made in this bill I do want to bring to the House's attention what the select committee has got to say about that case and ensuring that that gap in the law is also fixed. The fact that I have had just three cases in recent experience in Nelson highlights how significant the law changes proposed in this bill are. I'll give the House the statistics: back in 2000 there were four cases in New Zealand of a plea of "not guilty for insanity"; last year there were nearly 40—38. My view is that there are many more of those cases. It is possible that the stabbing incident that occurred in Dunedin on Monday may be another that falls into this category. I want to congratulate Louise Upston on such an important member's bill. It's actually very unusual for such a complicated issue to be resolved through a member's bill. That's only been possible because of the Government's support of its officials and I too want to commend the chair of the committee and the support of officials that have enabled us to proceed with this reform. The balance that this bill attempts to strike is so that we improve the rights of victims of such assaults where people suffer serious mental illness while rightly balancing these rights so that those who are unwell are still able to get treatment. The challenge moving forward on this in my view is equal to our criminal justice system. I'm proud to be part of a Government that with the criminal justice system that was excessively focused on the needs of offenders had to give it a heavy shunt with victims' rights legislation. And what we are doing with this bill is playing catch-up and grabbing that mental health system and giving it a shunt so that there equally is a greater recognition of victims' rights. The provisions in this bill that provide for victim impact statements the provisions in this bill that require consultation and notification for those victims of such crimes and the change in the language from "not guilty by way of insanity" to "proven but insane" are all improvements.But the point I'd make to the House is that unless there is in parallel a culture change within the Ministry of Health that deals with these challenging special patients then the reforms in this bill will not be successful and that is something that Parliament needs to continue to monitor.I want to make one closing point. In my own experience of working with these cases in Nelson and as we've heard the evidence from the select committee I can't help but reflect on the long-term challenging issue for New Zealand of a small number of very challenging people that struggle to live in the community because I don't think there's a member in this House that would prefer that rather than dealing with the aftermath we actually prevented these assaults and serious cases occurring beforehand. In my view while the de-institutionalisation that occurred through the 1980s and the 1990s was right there is a small group of people who are absolutely struggling to live unsupported out there in the community and we need to develop new models to make sure that those people have a living environment in which they do not get caught up in the sort of offending and cases that we saw before the committee and the increase that we have seen in the number of cases. Again I would commend the bill to the House. I'm proud to have been a member of the Justice Committee that has worked on this bill and made it a better bill to address a very real issue. Again I want to acknowledge those brave submitters particularly Wendy Hamer and those that supported Wendy's petition. It is not often that you're able to see through an individual constituency case that highlights a real flaw in the law that a petitioner's launched and then the Parliament unanimously takes on board the message and makes substantive change in the law that in my view will both make New Zealand safer but also ensure that victims of some of these awful cases get a fairer deal from our justice system. This is a good bill and it deserves the support of every party and MP in this House."