Little Andrew: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLittle Andrew: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18758. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]ANDREW LITTLE (Labour):I rise to speak on the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill and just note that as we have said throughout this debate this bill will do some good things. It responds to a pretty obvious and clear-cut case where a device like a non-contact order was needed in Invercargill. It was a case in which on the completion of the offender’s sentence a rape victim was then harassed and presumably intimidated by the offender in the period following it and she had no recourse and no ability to do anything about it. So this bill will certainly fill that gap and it is for that reason that of course we support it.But it is deficient in a number of respects. I think that a Government that was genuinely focused on victims’ rights and on protecting victims would have ensured that the victim did not have to meet the cost of seeking and applying for and obtaining one of these orders. It would be a very simple thing for a Government to ensure that the legislation covered that. It could have ensured that an order such as this could have been provided for either at the time of sentencing if the sentence on the offender was a non-custodial sentence or during the parole process if the offender was sentenced to prison and certainly for a prison sentence of longer than 2 years. But this Government did not want to do that because it has developed a strong track record of talking large but doing the bare minimum and this is just yet another example of that. This Government is developing a track record as it goes into this election of not wanting to defend its poor track record and of not wanting to defend its poor performance not only in this area in relation to victims and criminal justice but in a whole host of other areas.That is why we now have a party in Government that has stooped to the lowest levels of the gutter sliming and slipping its way through to divert attention from its own appalling track record. It just does not want to have to defend itself on what it has done because what it has done has been so appalling and in this case when it comes to victims and victims’ rights it has a pretty poor record. There is a lot it could have done. It has had 6 years to step up to the plate and do some real things when it comes to victims. But oh no the Prime Minister swans around New York and swans around Washington pulling the strings of his party organisation and his office back here to dish up 11-year-old letters and make allegations against others in this House because those members know that they do not want to defend their track record come this election. The Government will do everything that it can to divert the public’s attention from any real serious issue because it has now reached the grubby lower levels of the gutter slipping and sliming its way through because it cannot stomach the fact that in the next few weeks in the next couple of months it is actually going to have to defend its appalling track record.This is at a time when victims are suffering at a time when the Government has cut $40 million out of the police budget and many millions more out of the justice budget and at a time when courthouses cannot even protect courtroom exhibits in their courthouses as in the case of police pistols that were the exhibit in a criminal matter and were nicked from the New Plymouth courthouse. The Government cannot defend that. Police stations around the country are either closing down or cannot do their job police cannot get training on their Glock pistols because this Government has cut their budget and police cars are having to be rolled over way beyond the 100000 kilometre rate—and Steven Joyce comes into the Chamber here smiling away because they love it.Government members do not care about the fact that the people who are the worst victims of a run-down police force and a run-down justice system are the poor and the indigent the people who cannot fend for themselves. That is what this Government has come to and that is why it will engage in the politics of diversion of dissembling—Simon O’Connor: Lowest crime rate in 32 years.ANDREW LITTLE: The lowest crime rate? It is the lowest reported crime rate. You have only got to talk to front-line police—not something that Steven Joyce will have done for a long time. If you talk to front-line police if you talk to the defence counsel and if you talk to the Crown solicitors in this country they will tell you what an absolute shambles the criminal justice system is. People have given up. They have given up reporting it now because they get told: “Well the police cannot be there.” Victims of crime now are being told: “You take the photos you make up the report and bring it down to the station when you’ve got a spare moment.”Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order!ANDREW LITTLE: That is what people are being told Mr Deputy Speaker. Victims of serious crime are no better off and the Government knows that this bill will be a baby step compared with the significant steps that are required to afford them better protection. Well that is disappointing but that is the Government we have got. It is the Government that we have got at the moment but it is the Government that the people of New Zealand know is about to go.It is on its way out because the people of New Zealand want a Government that identifies serious issues and takes serious steps on serious issues—not half-hearted steps not steps that give the appearance of doing something—that actually put the burden and put the risk back on victims. That is what this bill does. This bill says that if you are the victim of a serious crime and you want to be protected from the perpetrator of that crime you have got to stump up. You write out the cheque you find a lawyer prepared to make the application you find a lawyer that you have to pay the costs for to make the application and you know that the offender if they have received a copy of an interim order or at least the application controls whether or not there is a hearing. And if the offender demands a hearing then the victim once again has to stump up for the costs of representation. That is what this bill does. That is how much this Government cares about victims about doing something serious about victims.This Government is saying with this bill: “Here is some protection we’ll give you but you’re going to write out the cheque because we have taken $40 million out of the police we have taken many millions more out of the courts and now the burden is on the victim.” That is how this Government views criminal justice and victims’ rights in this country. It is appalling and that is why people want an end to it. People want a Government in office that takes victims’ rights seriously—Hon Steven Joyce: Ha ha!ANDREW LITTLE: —and one that provides real protection for victims not a giggling Minister for Economic Development who laughs at the thought of poor people having to meet the cost of their own protection against offenders in this country and not backbenchers like Simon O’Connor who laugh scoffingly at the prospect of poor people who are the victims of serious crime having now to meet the cost of their own protection because he is happy to be a backbencher and support Ministers and cheer them on when they gut the police budget when they gut the Ministry of Justice budget and when they gut the courts budget and they tell victims of crime that they must meet the expense of it.Government members do not care that in one of the provisions in this bill they provide for it—and I know that Mark Mitchell will be most concerned about this because he has dealt with it before—but even when an order is issued from the court according to this bill an offender can apply for a discharge of it at any time. Those are the words: “at any time”. So no sooner has an order been issued than an offender can rock on up to the court and apply for a discharge. Who will meet the costs of the victims’ representation? The victim themselves once again because this Government does not understand that when 46 percent of people in this country cannot get a pay rise in any one year people are poor people cannot afford expensive legal services. If they are the hapless victim of a serious crime to which this bill might apply they have to stump up and pay for their own protection. That is what this bill does.Then the only other remaining question of course because it creates an offence if one of these orders is breached—a bit like protection orders at the moment—is whether the police really have the resources to enforce these orders when they are most needed. Can the police summon up the resources with a $40 million cut to their budget to provide protection to victims under one of these orders when it is really needed? Can the police work with victims to prevent a breach of these orders? Well you would have to say on the current track record and with what is happening with police these days that there is a real risk that once these orders are issued there will be orders that will go unenforced. That would be a real pity. It is all very well putting this stuff on paper but you have got to back it up with action. And this Government has proved time and time again that it will do the window dressing it will play the charade but it is not prepared to back it up with decent resources to protect innocent people.So we will look very carefully at the way this rolls out. We will look very carefully and let us hope that victims in this country get a better deal. They will get a better deal that is for sure but it will be under a different Government.