Coddington Deborah: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Coddington Deborah: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20031] 
DEBORAH CODDINGTON (ACT) 
: 
 The previous speaker said she did not know why some parties were voting for the bill and no it is not a perfect piece of legislation but it has been around for a year. In my view a consideration of 12 months is not indecent haste. 
If the bill goes back to select committee and if it goes on with more public consultation more children will be abused while that happens. While we delay and kick the child sexual abuse issue around like a political football more and more children are abused and the effect on those children for the rest of their lives is absolutely appalling. This is not a crime like any other crime. The effects are far-reaching and they affect all of society. 
Victims of child abuse do not care about whether crime legislation is being overhauled on an ad hoc basis or on a perfect basis; they do not take those sorts of things into account. All they think about is what they are going to do next—even how they are going to get out of bed in the morning. Children do not have the vote. It is our responsibility to protect them; they do not march down the street and demand better laws. 
I support what Ron Mark said that men who use child prostitutes should be prosecuted. They should have the full force of the law brought down on them. But who can say that being a child prostitute is a lifestyle choice? The reason those girls are child prostitutes is that they have been sexually abused in the past usually by family members or someone known to them. That is how the majority of child sex crimes occur; they are committed by people who are known to the victim. The people who snatch the Teresa Cormacks off the street are rare. Those offences are usually committed by clergyman teachers doctors JPs—respected honoured members of society. If we go on delaying legislation like this just because it is not perfect those children will continue to be abused. 
ACT will be supporting the amendments on sexual grooming. That is an insidious crime and we need only to look at the actions of one Peter Liddell to see the destruction that that man has brought about. For example with regard to Jenny Anderson’s talkback show on Radio Pacific when Peter Liddell had name suppression lifted in the Court of Appeal that came on the news at 1 o’clock. At quarter past one a woman rang. I will not say her name but she did say it on air. She was crying and she said she had just heard the news that the name suppression on Peter Liddell had been lifted. She talked about her son who had been counselled by Peter Liddell. He was a young Maori boy and Peter Liddell favoured vulnerable young Maori boys. Her son kept coming home saying that Peter Liddell was sexually abusing him but the woman said: “We didn’t believe him. Peter Liddell was the man in the white coat the trusted counsellor.” This woman had just found out that her son had been right. Jenny Anderson asked: “Where is your son now?” and the woman said: “He killed himself because no one would believe him.” That was the most damning indictment I have heard on sexual grooming. 
I also support the amendment that makes rape gender-neutral. I do not see why men should not be convicted of raping other men. 
The matter that concerns me in this legislation is that we seem to be over-addressing issues that are already taken into account by the courts. For instance there are already convictions for mistaken identity. 
If we look at some of the cases in my books we see that there are cases of men who have been prosecuted because they have climbed into bed with a woman when she has been asleep. She has often gone to sleep because she has drunk too much but that is no excuse for someone to get into bed and start having sex with her pretending he is her husband. When she has woken up and discovered the person is not her husband the person has been prosecuted and sent to jail. The same outcome has applied to cases concerning drugs. Judges have taken the view that those people could not consent because they had drunk too much or been drugged. 
We have moved on so far in this country when it comes to the prosecution of sex crimes because once we would have had the attitude that those women deserved it. Thank goodness we do not have that attitude any more and that we do take the attitude that no matter what a woman does—whether she goes out wearing a short skirt and a low cleavage whether she drinks too much or whatever—she does not deserve it just as a man who walks down the street in an Armani suit with a wallet-full of money does not deserve to be robbed. We do not take that attitude. 
The other irony while I am on that subject is to ask why it is interesting that when men wear skirts they are cross-dressers but when women wear trousers they are not.