Shearer DavidDAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I am going to just take a very short call on this bill which has as we have heard support from right across the House. It is something that I think perhaps the public when they are watching Parliament forget: about three-quarters of the bills that come through this House are actually supported by everybody—or a great majority of the people in this House—who are working to help and push and move things through to make New Zealand a better place. Obviously it is the issues that we disagree on that of course attract the attention and unfortunately it distorts the view in which perhaps many of us see the House.I am very aware that the main event has arrived in Parliament here in the form of Kevin Hague and I just want to say before I start and just go through a couple of issues on this bill that we will miss Kevin. He has been a terrific colleague to have in the House in Parliament and in politics. I wish you all the very best for the future Kevin but I think Parliament will be less of a place without your wisdom and the thoughtful way that you have interjected and worked on issues—so all the very best.As I said the Act that this bill the Evidence Amendment Bill amends was enacted in 2006. It would have made lives a lot better for many people who were facing the gruelling experience of standing in front of a court and having to relate intimate details of their sexual history etc. in front of court rooms often in front of the person who was alleged to have carried out those crimes if the provisions in this bill had been passed then. That was 2006; it is now 2016. It has taken 10 years for this bill to come into the Parliament. It will be passed today; it will be passed as I said before with the full support of this House but I just cannot help but think if it had been passed earlier how many people would not have had to go through that experience as a result of this bill taking so long.Although I commend the Justice and Electoral Committee and the work that it has done on this bill I think the Government really needs to front up and realise that actually it could have done a lot better on this. New Zealand has a pretty terrible record when it comes to domestic violence and sexual violence. We are fifth from the bottom of 31 OECD countries. We kill one child every 5 weeks and of those children who die about 90 percent of them die by the hands of people whom they know. It is not a great record. When it comes to rape and sexual violence it is estimated that of 100 sexual violations about 10 percent will be reported and only 1 percent will result in a conviction. That is pretty terrible as well.This bill will not fix the conditions and the reasons why those offences are committed but it will make the experience of people who are giving evidence in front of a court that much easier. People have gone through the reasons for this earlier but first of all for example it will mean that children by right will not appear in court but will give evidence through an alternative way. That is good news.I think it was Mark Lyon who molested several children. The father of one of those girls who was molested by him said that if we had had this legislation in place it would have made her life far less traumatic and far easier to give evidence in a private room rather than knowing that Mark Lyon was at the end of a video camera and able to see everything that she was doing and saying. So that is one good thing. It places restrictions on video evidence that is collected. That evidence cannot just be shared around. It has to be viewed inside a police station.There are a number of—I just want to mention two because I know time is ticking on. Those are two very important changes that the Evidence Amendment Bill makes to make the prosecution of sexual and domestic violence and general violence that much easier on victims. It is as people have said something that has the full support of the House. It is something that has been worked on. We have heard a lot of very good submissions from some of the top lawyers in the country most of whom have made suggestions but in general have agreed upon the legislation. There is a feeling that it does not go far enough. There is probably a sense that we will be back here amending it one more time. But nevertheless it is a positive step forward. Labour is very pleased to support this legislation in the House today.