Borrows Chester: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) Bail Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Borrows Chester: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) Bail Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7363. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
CHESTER BORROWS (National—Whanganui) 
: 
 It is great to be part of a Government that is taking a lead on the issue of family violence and also to be part of a Parliament where parties across the House take the issue seriously. As a result of this legislation significant hurdles will be put into the cycle of violence. As a person who has worked a lot with families who are suffering from violence within the home I know that it is a sad truth that within violent homes we teach our boys how to be violent to their women and we teach our women in many cases that their role in life is to put up with violence and to endure it as best they can—that that is their lot. So it is good to see a roadblock come up in the legislation dealing with violence. It will be a significant hurdle to the cycle of violence being perpetuated through the generations and that is a good thing. This legislation is about breaking that cycle of violence. 
It is also about empowering the vulnerable. The vulnerable in our community particularly women and children need protection. Over time they often get into a situation where they are unable to protect themselves make themselves safe or create and maintain a safe environment for those they love. 
There have been a number of lessons that I think we have picked up on and there are a number of challenges for those out in the community in respect of this legislation too. One of my concerns and one of the concerns of the Justice and Electoral Committee is the lack of availability of lawyers operating within the legal aid area especially in rural and provincial towns. Five days is not a heck of a long time to be able firstly to come to terms with the situation that has arisen to gain some advice or some support from those we would normally rely on to provide that to get us through and then to identify locate and get an appointment with a solicitor—and at the back of people’s minds frequently is the cost; people wonder how they will pay for it. So there needs to be a significant stepping up of community groups that people turn to for support help advice and information on family violence. The legal fraternity also needs to step up and to make themselves available in a timely way so that they can help people who turn to them in times of need. 
I talked briefly about education; I will talk a little bit more about that. The It’s Not OK campaign is confronting us on our televisions on a nightly basis and that is a good thing. But similar campaigns in the past have got a bit wobbly and fallen over. After families have been through the cycle of violence on a couple of occasions and have taken steps to address it—maybe they have reported the matter to the police and maybe charges have emanated from that—the cost to the family becomes quite significant in terms of loss of income loss of support and loss of parental support. So getting people to report a third and fourth incident becomes quite difficult when the lessons are not learnt by the perpetrators on the first and second occasions. There needs to be some more education amongst our community so that 6 12 or 18 months down the track violence is still not seen as OK and to make sure that this particular campaign does not go the way that for instance the “It’s Not Just a Domestic” campaign went in the early 1990s. That campaign saw a fairly steep rise in the reporting of domestic violence but it then tailed off as the same families decided that it was too big a disruption. 
Another point in respect of education that was made during the select committee process was the need for training of police officers who attend the scene of domestic violence crimes. One of the big pluses of the police strategy on domestic violence in the last few years has been to have attending police treat the scene of domestic violence as a crime scene: they photograph the scene seize exhibits freeze the scene and do a proper investigation in order to substantiate charges that may come from the incident. But it was noted before the select committee that there was a little gap in some of that learning in respect of deciding at the scene who the primary offender is and who the primary victim is. Often the person who is most composed and most calm is actually the perpetrator of the violence because the violence has not been done to them. For an attending police officer the most reasonable person to speak to at the scene of the crime is the offender not the victim. The whole disempowerment scenario and regimen that goes along with domestic violence kicks in and can in some circumstances pull the wool over the eyes of the not-so-experienced attending police officer. So there is a real need for extra training for attending staff so that they understand the dynamics of a situation that they move into and can take action against the correct party. That need was flagged. 
One of the final points I will make is about the ability of the District Court when sentencing people who have been arrested for family violence incidents to issue a final protection order which after the initial imposition in the District Court would fall back to the Family Court for for instance appeal or later amendment. When we look at this we have to wonder why it has taken us so long. Historically in the late 1980s we became very rights-focused in this country. We had quite a long way to go in respect of rights so we saw some very big changes. But through the early to late 1990s and into the 2000s we moved too far away from the responsibility aspect. Now we have come to a time when the community is seeing a need for us to be a little bit more interventionist. The implications of standing back and being too mindful of rights and not being cognisant enough of the responsibilities that go with living in this free and democratic society have hit home in Parliament if I can use that phrase. It is very timely that that has happened. 
It is a relatively new experience for me being new to Government and not having been in the House all that long to see my fingerprints at least a little bit—and we know that success has many fathers—on legislation that has come through our select committee process and is being passed through the House. 
What a privilege it is to know as the previous speaker Lynne Pillay said that we have done the business and that we are leaving the place just a little bit better than it was when we found it. It is a privilege to be a member of Parliament—a privilege that fewer than a thousand people within our country’s history have experienced. It is something that I am sure all members of the House take very seriously. It is quite a proud moment to be able to see that this legislation will make life a little bit better for quite a number of people in this country. I commend the bill to the House.