Hipango HareteHARETE HIPANGO (National—Whanganui): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai. E mihi ana au ki ngā tāngata o Aotearoa mō te kaupapa o tēnei wiki Te Wiki o Te Reo Māori. Ka huri au mō te kaupapa o tēnei wā e kōrero au ki Te Whare Pāremata ōku whakaaro i tēnei pire.[Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I greet people around New Zealand with regard to the focus for this week Māori Language Week. I now turn from that to the present matter where I shall present my views on this bill to the House.]My greetings to all of our citizens of Aotearoa in acknowledging that this week is a celebration for us to embrace Te Reo Māori—our Māori language—as an official language of this nation. I do that as I turn to speak about the kaupapa the purpose of the korero before the House this afternoon. These are my thoughts that I share in relation to this bill the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. I've not been a member of the Justice Committee. Although I have sat on it on several occasions I wasn't able to at the time that this bill came before the Justice and Electoral Committee. My colleague the Hon Nick Smith commented that it is a comprehensive rewrite of family and violence legislation—a comprehensive rewrite that was last done 25 years ago.I will address the House on my experience of 25-plus years of not only talking about this type of legislation and all the other laws that this bill as an omnibus bill is addressing to make amendments to but I will also share my journey my walk of the talk within all of these laws. Those laws that this bill is amending include the Domestic Violence Act 1995 including changing its name from the Domestic Violence Act to the Family and Whānau Violence Act. This bill will also amend the Bail Act 2000 the Care of Children Act 2004 the Crimes Act 1961 the Criminal Procedure Act 2011 the Evidence Act 2006 and the Sentencing Act 2002. In all of this legislation I have either represented clients be they perpetrators or victims and also children before the courts—for every single piece of that legislation that is being amended under this omnibus bill.Now an oversight that I have made and I wish to turn to this is that the honourable Minister Sio mentioned that this bill is about addressing wellness—bringing back to our nation the responsibility of wellness being embraced by our communities. Law is but a tool that provides the levers for a solution. It is not the solution. The wellness within our communities is about our communities taking responsibility to provide those solutions but this law is about enabling the tools for the courts to address some of those concerns.I turn specifically to some of these aspects that have been talked about in addressing family violence. This bill is focused on reducing rates of family violence. It is a comprehensive approach prioritising early intervention and prevention. It has three main features. The first is: Establishing a framework to support a cross-government response"—cross-government response—and that is about "increasing people's ability to access risk and needs assessments and services providing for codes of practices and new information-sharing [provisions]." That is one of the three main features and I will come back to address the House on that. The second is about: "Making changes to improve accessibility and effectiveness of civil orders". The House has been addressed on police safety orders and protection orders. Time permitting I will return to that. The third main feature is: "Improving the criminal justice response by creating three new criminal offences and providing for more accurate recording of family violence offending in the criminal justice system."If I may return the first of those features—"a framework to support a cross-government response". As counsel advocating the plight particularly for children who have been caught up in cross-party fights and the fuelling of fights between their parents on either parenting orders or protection orders or bail applications we have had difficulty accessing necessary and crucial information from Government agencies to provide and put as evidence to the court reasons why either bail orders should be made why certain conditions of protection orders should be made or why certain conditions of parenting orders could be made. And the frustration that we as advocates for our child clients have had is Government agencies not providing the disclosure of that information to provide as evidence to the courts. This will free that up.I turn to the second of those three main features—improving the accessibility and effectiveness of civil orders. The bill—and should the opportunity be presented to me to address the House again perhaps at the committee stage I will speak more in detail around that—does address the fact that police safety orders can now be such that in the event that there is a child and that is defined as a person who is up to the age of 18 a police safety order can be made against a violent child.I have represented mothers of violent children and there's been no provision for them to seek the support by way of a court order to be protected from that violent child unless their child comes before the Youth Court system and is detained. Where there are clear grounds to believe that family violence has occurred by a child who is aged 16 years or over but under the age of 18 the police are able to issue a police safety order for the benefit of the mother or the woman.I turn now to the third of those three main features: improving the criminal justice response by creating three new criminal offences and providing for more accurate recording of family violence offending in the criminal justice system. One of those has been alluded to by my colleague the Hon Mark Mitchell around the creation of a new offence of strangulation. Over many years I've advocated representing women who are the victims of domestic violence and one of the critical—critical—features of that assault male assaults female has been strangulation. It's been evident that that is the precursor to more serious criminal offending. This will now enable and create that in its own right as a criminal offence—strangulation.The other is coercion to marry and that has been canvassed in previous legislation by colleague Jo Hayes with the introduction of her bill to the House now to be made into law. We talked about the protection of vulnerable young persons around coercion to marry. Then the other the third is a specific offence created: an assault on a family member not just either a summary offences common assault charge or a male assaults female charge under the Crimes Act but a specific notation of assault on a family member. What many people won't be aware of unless they've traversed the criminal justice system on a regular basis is that judges are often restricted to have noted on the record the nature of or the specific status of a person as a family member—for that to flag with any future appearances that may come about before the court. So this bill addresses those aspects that I have raised before this House. Opportunity permitting there will be so many more. It is comprehensive it is detailed it has been 25 years before there has been this as I say comprehensive overview and I certainly commend this passage from its second reading through to the third reading. Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker."