Wall Louisa: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) Care of Children Amendment Bill Adoption Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Wall Louisa: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) Care of Children Amendment Bill Adoption Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 11 August 2011. Volume:674;Page:20592. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
LOUISA WALL (Labour) 
: 
 Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker Roy. It is my pleasure to speak on the child and family protection legislation in its third reading. I note that the Child and Family Protection Bill was divided into three bills at the end of the Committee of the whole House stage: the Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) the Care of Children Amendment Bill and the Adoption Amendment Bill. 
I have not had the pleasure of speaking on this legislation before today and I will talk particularly about domestic violence and the impact of domestic violence on our communities. I was in a position in my previous employment as principal adviser in the Office of the Children’s Commissioner to sit on the Waitakere Taskforce on Family Violence. It was a pleasure to sit on that task force with people such as Penny Hulse who is now the Deputy Mayor of Auckland City. The meetings were facilitated by the New Zealand Police. They involved non-governmental organisations and people who were involved in the care of not only the children but also the families involved in family violence. We met on a regular basis and one thing that struck me in the process was that unfortunately the focus on children did seem to be missing when we looked at family violence engagement in New Zealand. 
The police are very good at ensuring that protection at the immediate point is dealt with. I have had the pleasure already of going out with the police. On the day I went out there were three incidents and one was an incident between a husband and wife with a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old in the house at the time. The thing that has struck me is the impact of family violence on our families but particularly on our children. 
We have a process called the Family Violence Interagency Response System or FVIARS whereby the police Women’s Refuge Child Youth and Family and non-governmental organisations come together. They come together to work towards solutions that will ensure that our families are safe and that our families have the support they need. But often in the meetings I think that the particular needs and specific needs of the children are not adequately addressed. 
There are issues about what other agencies can be involved. I think that it is important particularly for children of school age that in the schools they belong to the principals teachers and people who are working with those children are informed when the children have come from a family violence incident. I know from visiting a Randwick Park school on Monday and talking to the principal that she was very clear that children do behave differently if they have been involved in a family violence incident. The people working with those children know that something is wrong but they might not know what is wrong. I think that a much more strategic approach is needed to ensure that the people who will be looking after our children—and I consider that in the context of schools teachers are looking after our children—are aware of when children come from families that have family violence issues. 
From my experience of the Family Violence Interagency Response System process I think it seems to be really focused on helping either the victim or the offender; children are not so much considered in that process. To me there does not seem to be a focus on the family and on how we can make families functional. We have contracts where one group will look after the offender and another group will look after the victim but I think there is very little engagement in ensuring that families are supported. The Domestic Violence Amendment Bill (No 2) is incredibly important because it places the focus on the children but on a different aspect of that focus. 
I came into the House and was asked to speak on the bill because Labour is supporting this bill. The history of the bill is interesting. The history is that the bill stemmed from a Ministry of Justice review of the Domestic Violence Act 1995 and other related legislation. The House will know that Annette King introduced the Domestic Violence Reform Bill which took into consideration the submissions from 103 submitters who represented private individuals academics the legal profession and non-governmental agencies. They represented domestic violence specialists social assistance and public interest groups. So we have had this I guess compilation legislation put together. 
As I said before it is good to see that we will focus on the needs of our children and on the needs of families but I still think we should be reviewing the Family Violence Interagency Response System process with a specific emphasis on the needs of children. Some of the questions that I think need to be asked are whether the children have a general practitioner whether the children are enrolled with Well Child providers and whether the children are attending early childhood education centres. Because a number of the children come from families where unfortunately family violence is a normal set of behaviours a whole lot of social issues contribute to the circumstances. Those social circumstances relate to the fact that parents may not be working and that they may be living in conditions where their housing is not as adequate as it could be. They may be living in conditions where poverty pays a large role where families end up being stressed and where someone in the family partakes of alcohol and then becomes violent. So some of the peripheral and environmental issues related to ensuring that our children and families are protected I think also have to take into consideration for example the density of liquor outlets and whether there is a correlation between family violence and some of our communities where there is a density of liquor outlets. That situation normalises alcohol not only for families but for the children who come from a community where a liquor outlet is attached to their particular dairy. 
I do think there needs to be more of an emphasis on children if we are to look at child and family protection within the context of family violence. I do think we should be looking at ensuring that the children who come from those sorts of situations have the best start in life and have the best opportunities particularly in their early years to start on a pathway that will ensure that they can enjoy our public and free education system. 
One of the issues we have is that in the Family Violence Interagency Response System meetings the only time when children are discussed is if Child Youth and Family needs to intervene. These are our most vulnerable children so I find it really interesting when the Government has a green paper and National members talk about how vulnerable children are. We know who they are: they are the cohort of children that this bill is trying to protect. But it is broader than that because not only is it the children who need the courts to intervene to keep them safe but it is the children who get caught up in family violence in the first place. They are in a position not of their own control. 
You know I think it is very interesting when looking at the intent of this legislation and at children who live in situations where family violence has a major impact on their lives to consider whether those children are getting all the public-good services they need. We have the Tamariki Ora Well Child Schedule in New Zealand which guarantees every New Zealand child from when they are born to the age of 5 eight visits on the schedule. The ultimate visit is called a B4 School check and I think it is really interesting to look at these children and ask questions about whether they have a general practitioner whether they are enrolled with Well Child whether they have had their B4 School check and whether they have had the early childhood education subsidy if they are entitled to it. At the layer below Child Youth and Family intervention we have a Strengthening Families model which is supposed to ensure that children—and a lot of children who live within the context of family violence—have the best start in life and have access to public-good resources that will ensure that they can grow up and fulfil their potential. 
It has been a pleasure to speak at this late stage. Thank you very much for the opportunity.