Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. Just to put it on the record in this House the reason why I took a call while this House was waiting for the Minister to arrive or for a Minister to move a motion is because we take the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill extremely seriously.I want to acknowledge the Hon Amy Adams who has been the Minister leading this work and I just want to point out the fact that had I not taken that call this bill right now would not be getting debated in the House. The Minister himself—the Minister of Justice—did not see fit to get himself into this House to move a motion to allow us to debate this bill. So don't sit on the other side of the House—they might find it funny; there's someone over there laughing. It's actually not that funny. If you want to be serious if you want to take this issue seriously then show that you're serious about it.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I am actually quite serious about it.Kiritapu Allan: I raise a point of order Madam Speaker. There's a long convention in this House and as per the Standing Orders that we don't make reference to members who are not within the Chamber and—DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'm sorry; I'm going to sit the member down because actually in this case this House was held up because the Minister was not available to move a motion that was on the Order Paper. So it is not about someone being absent; it's about the Government not being able—[Kiritapu Allan stands] You're not going to argue with me. It is not a Standing Order.Hon MARK MITCHELL: Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. And that's why I chose to stand and take a call on this: because actually I want to hear what the chairman of the Justice Committee Raymond Huo has got to say. I want to hear Greg O'Connor's contribution—another member that has dedicated a large part of his adult life to dealing with family violence. I want to hear what Ginny Andersen has got to say—another member that has worked within the police system and has probably got a contribution to make and some comments to make around this bill. I want to hear what my colleagues have to say. I want to hear our police spokesperson Chris Bishop and his contribution on this bill or the Hon Dr Nick Smith and what his thoughts are on it because this is important.We stood in this House and we debated a bill that the honourable Jan Logie brought through in terms of domestic violence. I had to tolerate the fact that I was continually attacked and challenged around my own commitment to dealing with and trying to address the family violence issue—and it is a big issue in this country—when actually I've dedicated most of my own adult life to dealing with that.It's not some sound bite. It's not something that we talk about just because it's politically convenient. It's actually something fundamentally that's very deep and part of my own DNA. I've spent and dedicated most of my adult life into trying to improve people's lives and trying to get on top of family violence. So I find it pretty deeply offensive that I'm having to take a call in this House when the Government should be moving the motion to try and keep this bill debated. So thank you Madam Deputy Speaker for allowing me to lay that out there so that people at home will actually understand exactly what did happen and what went on in this House. People can judge for themselves the actions of others. This bill implements the decisions announced by the National Government in September 2016 aimed at breaking the pattern of family violence and reducing the harm and cost inflicted on those who suffer violence and the wider New Zealand society including increasing access to risk and needs assessments and services and more accurately recording family violence. And I have to say that there's been a very recent case that we've all probably been following and that was the tragic case of the mother in a small township in the central North Island—her husband was convicted of it recently—where she was killed. She was left in the ute and was pushed off a boat ramp and she sat there for almost 12 months.One of the indicators that we know can clearly tell us whether a woman is in serious danger of maybe ending up as a homicide statistic is the fact the offender will often start to grab them around the throat and hold them around the neck. If you go back and if you have a look at the history in that case you would have seen that actually he had started grabbing her around the neck and holding her around the throat.So under this bill that information has to be captured and has to be shared with the relevant agencies so that it's a red flag and it becomes something that we can act on much quicker in terms of getting measures in place to provide the protection that she would have needed. Then perhaps we could have prevented a terrible and a tragic outcome for the family—and for her obviously.Some of the things that we have done in terms of our term in Government—and I do congratulate the Government for bringing this bill to the House although it was reported back by the select committee in August of last year so it has been languishing on the Order Paper. I would have preferred to have seen it come into the House before the domestic violence in the workplace legislation but it's good to have it here now and it's good that we are debating it.In 2016 National introduced a $132 million package of reforms which overhauled family violence laws and the way the system prevents and responds to family violence. In Budget 2017 we invested $37.2 million into targeting family violence services including the Integrated Safety Response pilot and I would make an appeal to the Minister—and I know that I put this to him today in the House—please let's see the funding switched on again for the Integrated Safety Response pilot which we knew was working. It also folded in the Gang Action Plan and I see we have the Minister of Police in the House today. I know that he's taken a very firm stand against the gangs and organised crime. One of the things that he could do is talk with his colleague the Minister of Justice and actually switch the funding back on for this programme. It was achieving results it's a good programme it's already been developed; keep using it.In 2017 the investment fund for mental health saw an additional $4 million to pilot a culturally responsive therapy service for children aged five to 12 years that have experienced or been exposed to family or sexual violence. I think the one thing that we can all agree with in this House is that very sadly when we see family violence often the perpetrators have been victims themselves. They have actually grown up in an environment where they've been the victim of serious violence sexual assault and psychological abuse and I think we're all committed in this House and in this Parliament to try and tackle those really tough social issues. The only point that I would make though is that because you have suffered because you have been a victim yourself—that doesn't give you a licence to create more victims. It gives you a licence to seek help and seek support and this is where the real investment is what can really make a big difference in terms of Government's investment: actually getting in much earlier in people's lives and providing that support and that help and maybe staying alongside of them for a lot longer as well. National took action across the board to better protect victims of family violence by a new 24/7 national sexual violence helpline to provide nationally accessible information and support to people affected in any way by sexual harm. We established the Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence. This was across 16 portfolios—so it reduces that risk of having people trying to operate across siloes—to oversee a work programme aiming to improve the current system and to deliver the best results for all those affected by sexual violence. We significantly improved our investment in crisis support services for victims of sexual violence. The Ministry of Social Development and ACC have worked together to ensure service coverage across prevention crisis response long-term care and recovery. We increased the penalty for breaching protection orders. This was really important. We identified that offenders were largely ignoring and breaching protection orders on a regular basis. So we looked at number one—one thing that we did was we actually made it easier for a woman to get a protection order which I think was really important because we identified that a barrier was the complexity in the process that they had to go to to actually get a protection order put in place. So we made sure that it was easier for them to get a protection order in place. We also made sure that we increased the penalties so that the protection order was less likely to be breached. We improved judges' access to information in family violence cases by improving information-sharing regulations. This is really important because if you talk to judges often one of their frustrations is they've only got bits and parts of information. They'll often have to end up sending prosecutors or court staff away to try and gather and try and fill out so the judges can get a holistic whole picture of what's going on in terms of that person's life and then they're able to make much better and much more informed decisions. So this was actually a very very good step and a very very good measure that can make a genuine difference when a judge is trying to apply a protection order or a sentence or is making sure that for the victims that are involved their situation is properly considered. So I'm very happy to stand and take a call in support of this bill. Thank you. DEPUTY SPEAKER: OK so I think we're one all now. Let's focus on the actual piece of legislation in front of us.