Curran ClareHon CLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Thank you Madam Speaker. What a joy it is to read in the explanatory note to a piece of legislation in this House in 2019 a reference to the Law Commission's 2015 report that found that the justice system often fails to respond appropriately to victims of sexual violence [and that] The requirements of the court process are not aligned with victims' needs or recovery and risk further traumatising those who come forward. These features and the experiences of victims who have participated in prosecutions can deter others from reporting offences and lead to fear and mistrust of the criminal justice process. Low reporting rates mean sexual offenders may not be held to account resulting in missed opportunities to reduce reoffending and provide victims with a just resolution." The purpose of this legislation is to redress that and it has unanimous support across the House. It is a great thing for that to be happening today.I really want to give a big thankyou to the Minister Andrew Little to Jan Logie and to everybody inside the Parliament and outside the Parliament who has worked so hard and so long to get us to a point today where we are tightening the rules around evidence about a complainant's sexual history and all of the other things that this bill does.No longer will women have to bear those questions standing in the courtroom of: "What were you wearing? How much had you had to drink? How many previous partners have you had? And what's your sexual history?" Every single woman who hears those phrases shudders and can tell you that those are the sorts of questions that are asked of victims and that result in so few women coming forward and putting themselves through the ordeal. The underlying message that sits below those questions is that somehow they were asking for it and that it's a perpetuation of rape myths.What this legislation is doing is tackling that in a way that is at the core of our justice system. Of course it's not going to be easy and you can't just pass a piece of legislation and expect it to miraculously solve the problem. It's going to require a lot more than that. I really agree with the point that Paula Bennett made and a couple of others have referred to around the importance of judges being up to speed. As I understand it there's this place called the Institute of Judicial Studies which already provides training for judges. No doubt we'll hear about this at select committee or at least we'll be able to ask questions of officials around that what that means—perhaps that will be stepped up and perhaps that will be compulsory to ensure that the judges who have an incredibly important role as victims go through the court process have the appropriate skill levels and understanding and skills to be able to intervene appropriately. But again the system change is going to be bigger than that and everybody who operates within the justice system whether they're for the defence or the prosecution whether they're just in the courtroom—the system that victims have to go through before they get to the courtroom has to change. And alongside that goes the community the workplaces the organisations—workplaces like our workplace and the organisations that support us in the community. I want to give a big shout-out to Rape Crisis in Dunedin for the work that they do. They've just rebranded this week as the Otepoti Collective Against Sexual Abuse or OCASA. They've made a big decision to represent anybody who is sexually abused. They actually provide a lot of practical support in our community. Recently they ran a workshop from my Dunedin electorate office on how to upskill us in how we deal with victims of sexual abuse so that we're better at doing that; we can all be better at that. We know that statistically one in three girls one in five women one in six men and one in two—I think Jan Logie said tonight—trans people are victims. Such a small number of them report and such a small number of them actually get a conviction. We know in this House that there are around a dozen women who stood up and said they were the victims of sexual abuse. How many of them actually saw things through to a conviction? There is so much to do so much to do around this issue. What this legislation is doing today is putting it at the heart of our justice system—that we make change. I commend the bill to the House.Bill read a first time. Bill referred to the Justice Committee."