Wall Louisa: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWall Louisa: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 27 August 2013. Volume:693;Page:13086. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]LOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker. Thank you very much. It is my pleasure to speak on the Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill. I really want to make just a couple of really clear points. For me central to this piece of legislation picking up on what my colleague Katrina Shanks has just said is really the question that if you commit a heinous crime such as rape should that for ever affect your rights to live in the same community as your victim. For me it is central to this conversation and debate that we are engaged in that that is the question to be asked.I am not going to labour on about what prompted this and the fact that there have been some flaws in the drafting of this bill. What I really want to focus on is the whole issue about the victim needing to initiate a non-contact order. If we truly want to support victims in their rehabilitation they should not have to be initiating non-contact orders. There is a current flaw in our criminal justice system. We have protection orders and restraining orders but they are all about relationships that people have and victims have with their offenders. There is an anomaly in the legislation because we are talking in this instance about victims who have no relationship with the offender other than having been raped by them. So it would seem to me that to create a piece of legislation that wants to protect victims but then has victims initiate the non-contact order themselves is actually the biggest flaw in the whole design of the legislation as it is currently worded. So the victim has to seek that non-contact order.I note the individualism of that measure. Knowing some people who are involved in ACC through its sensitive claims unit and the whole process of women who have been through such a trauma trying to get on with their lives I think that anybody who had intimate experience of that process would not be making victims apply for a non-contact order. What I hope this piece of legislation would ensure is that the criminal justice system in fact puts at its heart any response of people in that situation where there is such a gap and looks after the interests of victims in those particular circumstances. So there is an opportunity—because this bill will be referred to the Law and Order Committee and Labour supports that—for other mechanisms to be looked at in terms of this gap in the system.We would advocate that amendments to the Parole Act should take into consideration a systemic response and that amendments to the Harassment Act ensure that whatever protection orders and restraining orders there are they actually ensure victims in this particular circumstance are taken care of. Obviously for us we want all of this done and that is why the parole process provides the best mechanism for these things to be in place before the person is released from jail. Essentially what this piece of legislation does is allow a victim after the release of the person who has perpetrated a heinous crime on them such as rape an opportunity to apply for a non-contact order. So I am hopeful that throughout this entire process we will keep central to this whole discussion about our response as a criminal justice system as a community and as legislators the question of how we can best meet the needs of victims who do not qualify for the current mechanisms we have to ensure that they never have to engage with the perpetrator of a crime against them.I am hopeful that there is a lot of goodwill in the House to make sure that this piece of legislation will work to the fullest for victims and that we look at a community response to this not an individualistic response of making victims themselves be responsible for ensuring that they live in a safe secure environment where their needs are central. Kia ora Mr Assistant Speaker.