Collins Judith: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
Collins Judith: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading 
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JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 That is the second speech tonight from Government members who have just read out what is written in the commentary on the bill. 
Georgina Beyer 
: That’s right! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: At least the member is honest enough to admit it which is good. She will certainly get a point and she is a very good reader. 
It seems to me that all we have been dealing with in this House over the last 4 or 5 hours is what I would call the issue of “filthy perverts”—people who molest the children who live with them and all that sort of thing. Frankly we should spend less time on those people and more time on the children and the people who are victims themselves of sexual abuse and abuse generally. 
There are a few concerns that we in the National Party have with this bill but we will certainly support it going through to the Law and Order Committee. We are very hopeful that the committee which we have members on will be able to sort out some of those issues. 
For a start this bill deals with amongst other things carnal knowledge. That is what we used to call it in the old days and that is what we understand now as sexual connection with somebody under the age of 16. If this Government had any real concern about carnal knowledge then it would be doing something about going around maternity hospitals particularly in my electorate and others and having a look at the young mothers in those hospitals who are very much under the age of 16 years and 9 months. It would be looking at why girls of 10 11 12 13 14 and 15 years of age are having abortions or having children today—and I can tell members they have not had virgin births. We have a situation where there is a huge occurrence of carnal knowledge and a bill that is supposed to help deal with it. It is already against the law but this bill will go through and we will all feel so much happier at the end of the select committee process. Once the bill is passed into law as no doubt it will be we will think we have done our duty by the country but nothing will actually happen to stop what is already happening. 
One of the sections the Government has put forward—new section 131A inserted by clause 7—defines a family member. It says it all really. It states: “… one person is a family member in relation to another person—(a) if they are living together in the same household;”. That is the Government’s idea of a family member. Would that include a flatmate or someone who happens to be staying over for a matter of 3 months or something? That is obviously what it does mean. It goes on to state: “(b) if—(i) one of them is a parent step-parent foster parent guardian sibling half-sibling step-sibling uncle or aunt of the other;”. 
I like many other people have been utterly disgusted that every time there is some pervert or someone who kills a little child and happens to be living with the mother of that child that perverted person gets called a stepfather. It is an absolute disgrace. That person is not a stepfather. We should not define such people as stepfathers. They are people who prey on solo mothers in particular and their children. This bill will not do anything about that problem because their having any sort of sexual relationship with that child is already an offence. 
I ask whether these sorts of bills are really just to make us feel good and feel as though we are doing something. We hear: “Oh well we’re going to set out this law” but the reality is that if we are not going to enforce the law police it and have penalties dealt out or if we are going to say consistently that it is a lifestyle choice and put in a framework that encourages that sort of irresponsibility and perversion then unfortunately offences will continue to happen. 
The previous speaker the person from United Future made some very good comments about the prostitution reform legislation. I will not go as far as he did and blame Tim Barnett for the problems of prostitution because certainly I do not believe that Tim Barnett ever wanted to see children on the streets of Christchurch prostituting themselves. However I will say that when we set up a law and say that it is OK and that things are fine the reality is that we know the details of the law—most of us do anyway because most of us read it before we speak on it—and some other people also find out the details of the law but 12-year-olds generally do not understand all the detail of the law and 13-year-olds and 14-year-olds do not understand either. In fact most people do not. They have to work on the general feeling from the law. When we have politicians in positions of power including the Prime Minister saying it is OK for people to be pimping and using others as prostitutes then it tends to set an example that it is OK to do all those other things. 
One of the comments made tonight by our previous speaker Richard Worth was about the misuse of this sort of bill to put forward public policy objectives that reinforce the idea that people are entitled to enjoy a fulfilling sexual life with other persons of their choice irrespective of their sex. That has absolutely nothing to do with the substance of this bill. It is yet another example of this Government saying to the Parliamentary Counsel Office: “Go forth and give us some law that sounds really woolly and that will make us all feel good and we will send that one straight back— 
Dr Wayne Mapp 
: That comes from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes I am sure it did come from the Ministry of Women’s Affairs. It would be the only thing the ministry has done as well. We have in this bill another example of it. 
Not very long ago at the Justice and Electoral Committee as people will have read in the  
Independent 
 newspaper at the time the Parliamentary Counsel Office made a plea to us saying it was sick of being used to do politically correct stuff for the Government. It was sick of being told to muck up its drafting to try to please some people who might vote for the Government. That is not good enough. This bill is another example. We in the Opposition look at it and say: “What? Another piece of legislation where its intent is going to be lost in all the glossy detail.” 
There is also another statement—another politically correct thing—in the bill. It states that the public might be ready to be told that rape is not rape any more. It will now be known as sexual connection. Why would we want to call it that? People understand what rape is. They do not need to have another term called sexual connection. Half of them will not know what we are talking about and will think it is something completely different from rape. Therefore they will say it is OK to rape but it is not OK to have sexual connection. We have to keep things simple. If we do not keep the law simple then we end up with people inadvertently breaking it or absolutely thinking that the law means something completely different. 
I will deal with one final thing tonight—that is the issue at the moment of the lack of policing in this area of sexual connection rape and under-age sex. In my electorate recently I heard—and it was from the police—of a 15-year-old prostitute being picked up with her client who was aged about 50— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: That’s disgusting. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Yes the member is quite right; it is disgusting. This girl was prostituting herself at the rate of about $40 a time to pay off the $4000 debt she owed to one of the local gangs for P. When I said to the police that I presumed they had arrested that pervert who was with her—I believe that it is very good to use a bit of judgment occasionally since nobody in the Government seems to have much—they said no they had not arrested him because there was no proof. For goodness’ sake! The police should have dragged him in charged him put him in the cells for the night and allow the court to deal with the proof. The girl confessed to the police exactly what she had been doing. She of course had no responsibility as Mr Franks would have noted and the police took her home. Her mother said: “OK that’s the end of it.” and that was it. That happened after the prostitution reform legislation and after we had been told that children would no longer be prostituting themselves. In fact that is happening every day everywhere and now the signal has gone out to the police: “Don’t even bother doing anything about it because Parliament thinks it’s OK.” 
Bill read a first time and referred to the Law and Order Committee.referred to the Law and Order Committee