Chadwick Steve: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Child and Family Protection Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:660;Page:8840] 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK (Labour) 
: 
 Labour will be supporting this bill. In fact the objective of this bill is to protect and enhance child and family safety and I am sure that that sentiment is shared across the House. It was great to see the member who has just resumed his seat speak out too. Ethnic communities in our country need to be part of the solution to the appalling rates of child abuse. 
Last year in the House I remember the Minister for Social Development and Employment standing up and haranguing Labour in Opposition saying that the previous Labour Government did nothing about child abuse in this country. I was hurt and I took great offence at that remark from the Minister; so did Annette King and so did all other Labour members. We had started a journey facing up to the fact that there were appalling levels of child abuse in this country and we did many things to start the journey that is now beginning to produce legislation to try to fix the levels of domestic and family violence in this country. We set up things like the Taskforce for Action on Violence within Families which had Ministers of every portfolio overlapping in effort and an all-of-Government approach to address the systemic and complex issues of family violence. We also set up a cross-party committee. I have to state in the House today that Judith Collins as the spokesperson at the time was invited to attend those meetings but she did not attend even one. That is why I was so distressed when Minister Paula Bennett said that Labour had done nothing when in Government for 9 years. 
Labour was implementing the Te Rito family violence strategy very very consistently across all Government portfolios. We also facilitated a breakfast session of all parties called the Littlies Lobby which had good support. This Government has been in office for 1 year but has not set up or continued any cross-party forum like the Littlies Lobby to discuss issues that impact on children and families. That support stopped at the end of the election and here we are now 14 months later and there is no opportunity for us to network across parties with all those who care about the incidence of family violence and the protection of children in our society. We also thought that we would see a platform for Every Child Counts. When in Opposition National asked: “What are you doing about children? The five strategic planks of Every Child Counts matter to us.” But there was nothing absolutely nothing about our all getting together and getting experts and advocates to come to speak to us as MPs to talk about what we can do along programme lines and legislation lines to make a difference. I think that is a shame and I think it is arrogant; the answers lie with all of us here as legislators in this House. 
From the Littlies Lobby we moved on to do things like repeal section 59 of the Crimes Act. We brought in an assessment tool used by GPs midwives family doctors and accident and emergency staff to assess and diagnose the early signs of child abuse—that manifestation of family violence. Those early intervention models were well established by the Labour Government. I want to put that on the record to show that Labour certainly did not just sit on its hands. 
But the sad thing about this bill even though Labour will support it and it does go some way towards the legislative end of addressing domestic violence and the impact of child abuse is that it does nothing to address the causes and drivers of child abuse. That needs an early intervention model which we have not heard of from this Government. The Government just wants to legislate and then to sentence people and put them away. It is doing nothing about the development of early intervention models and community development models that make a difference in the lives of dysfunctional families. 
There is a wonderful resource Dr Annabel Taylor who is the chair of the Family Help Trust in Christchurch and she says that it is not just about programmes or resources; it is about everybody working together. She says that for every $1 spent on early intervention models the cost-benefit effectiveness is $19 saved by the State at the end on legislation like this that addresses offending and puts people in jail. Early intervention models work but we are not seeing any evidence. We look forward to Whanau Ora to see evidence of early intervention and community development because that is what builds resilient children resilient families and then resilient communities. It is no good just looking at legislation. 
I also want to point out that last night we saw that approach again in the “Boot Camp Bill”. What a great answer: just kick offenders in jail and put them on boot camps. That is not the way we should address the problem; we should address housing poverty and parenting. Those are the drivers of children who later on become dysfunctional—and that has been my lifework as a midwife. But here we are again with more legislation. 
In 2008 Annette King as a result of the ministerial taskforce introduced the Domestic Violence Reform Bill. It was a wonderful bill that was a result of our going out to communities with the National Council of Women and all of the intervention and support services to see how to make protection orders work. The National Council of Women came and gave lots of great ideas. That bill now languishes on the Order Paper as No. 45 yet here we are addressing a bill that has omitted so many aspects that were in Cabinet papers and that would address domestic violence. 
Simon Bridges 
: Steve you’re not in Government any more. 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: I will tell that member where the Government bill comes up short because I know that he too is committed to making sure that we address all of the multi-tenanted facets of family and child abuse. Five major planks are omitted from this bill so it is an imperfect tool but we will support it and try to make it a little bit better. Our Domestic Violence Reform Bill changed the age of the child but that provision is missing in this bill. There we were last night talking about children going into boot camps but this bill has a different age again. That is something so simple that it could have and should have been addressed in this bill so that the Domestic Violence Act could cover someone under the age of 18 which is in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Currently a child is anyone under 17. 
This bill does not provide the court with the power to direct attendance to an addiction treatment programme but Labour’s bill would have fixed that. How silly! Why did Government members not refer to the Cabinet papers in the drafting of this bill rather than put the bill forward and say that they will fix the drivers of domestic violence. 
There is another aspect here about information. This bill does not require people to have an information session when they have had a protection order issued against them. It would have been so good to have the victims of domestic violence know where to go to keep the other children in the family safe or the women themselves or in some cases the men. But in the paper today we see a manifestation of Government members sitting on their hands and doing nothing. The headline says: “Survivors speak out for family violence reforms”; we will go and listen to them. Everything in our Domestic Violence Reform Bill that was covered off to look after victims of domestic violence is missing in this bill and I think that that is terribly sad. It is an oversight. 
This bill is a response that shows that the Minister Simon Power who really is keen on law and order has moved too fast and has not looked at the detail in order to correct the provisions that have gone into this bill. If he had stacked up his bill side by side with Annette King’s bill which was the result of the ministerial taskforce we would have had a much more perfect bill. I think it is a shame that her bill is not the one we are talking about today. 
Hon Christopher Finlayson 
: How can something be more perfect? 
Hon STEVE CHADWICK 
: That is right; it can because ours was. I thank the member for that. 
This bill falls short. When Judith Collins came in she ranted on in all the press releases about doing something for victims of family violence but this is a short order. It falls short for the victims for the women involved in domestic violence. We will support it and we will try to make it better but what a pity the Government has missed the detail.