Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Can I begin by stating my support for this Domestic Violence—Victims' Protection Bill at this the second reading. I too would like to acknowledge my colleague Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice domestic and sexual violence Jan Logie.Can I also point out that there is a Supplementary Order Paper 39 that the said Minister has tabled in the House. I'm glad that people have read the report of the Justice Committee because every single issue that was highlighted in there from the Labour Party has been implemented in this Supplementary Order Paper. So actually wake up people. Read the Supplementary Order Paper.I do want to state that I was a member of the Justice Committee in the 51st Parliament and with my colleague Poto Williams we listened to many of the submissions. So I'm going to talk about some facts that came out in that process. So the first fact is that Women's Refuge surveyed 450 women in their care. Prior to being in their care 60.1 percent of them had been in full-time employment; after they had entered an abusive relationship that fell to 27.5 percent. After they'd left those abusive relationships actually only 34 percent of them were able to gain full-time employment. So what does this mean? If you're a victim of family violence actually it doesn't just go away. It affects you for the rest of your life. You become damaged and because of that damage and because of our knowledge we need to keep you in work. What does work actually do?DEPUTY SPEAKER: Actually not me. Not me.LOUISA WALL: We need to keep victims sorry Madam Deputy Speaker into—DEPUTY SPEAKER: It'd be nice if you kept me in work but—LOUISA WALL: Well you don't need to be kept in work; you're working. It helps you to build stability resilience and it also helps to break the cycle of abusive relationships and increases independence. So all of these factors actually point to the solution that my colleague Jan Logie is making through this bill.The New Zealand Public Service Association Inc. says in terms of lost productivity related to domestic abuse it costs us $368 million per annum. I'd like to acknowledge the champions of pieces of legislation like this who don't need legislative reform. They are The Warehouse they are the University of Auckland they are ANZ they are Countdown and they are Foodstuffs and they've been ably supported by Women's Refuge. I also want to acknowledge that Countdown have the Shielded Site. So this is a protected site. This is for women who want to disclose abuse and they have 120000 visits each week. People can go on to that site and disclose. So we have incredibly—excuse the pun—progressive businesses that actually want to take some responsibility to address our appalling statistics.I'd like to quote Suzanne Snively from the National Business Review who on 12 June 2018 said this: The Domestic Violence (Victims' Protection) Bill currently before Parliament presents an opportunity to bring about some of the most significant social change in New Zealand since the introduction of universal suffrage in 1893. And it's good for business." How about that? So Jan Logie your bill tonight is creating significant social change and I'm incredibly proud to stand here to speak in support of that.In 2014 Minister Amy Adams said there were 100000 incidents of family violence. In 2016 that had gone up to nearly 120000 incidents of family violence. Nearly 50 percent of all homicides and reported violent crime in New Zealand is family violence - related. We are the first country in the world ladies and gentlemen for intimate partner violence. A third of New Zealand women experience intimate partner violence. What is the cost of family violence for us as a country? Seven billion dollars per annum. That's an average of 13 women 10 men and nine children killed. Twenty-four percent of women in our country suffer from sexual assault six percent of men. If you're a disabled woman then you're twice as likely to be a victim of violence. The victims of this family violence ladies and gentlemen are women. So that's why my colleague Jan Logie has focused on victims and supporting victims to stay in work. What we know is that work provides a pathway to gain confidence and to escape the abuse. Workplaces therefore employers—small medium and large—are part of the solution. The bill that's been presented tonight is a solution for family violence. If we want to rid our country of family violence then this is the bill that we must all support.Hon Member: Seriously?LOUISA WALL: Did someone say "seriously"? I am saying seriously.I'd like to quote ANZ HR manager Gina McJorrow who spoke in the submission process and she said this: "It's counter-intuitive but it costs very little. The cost of losing someone to sick leave turnover or unexplained absences lower performance and disengagement all adds up. Providing paid special leave is not as expensive as you think." So the reality of the situation and the evidence that we have from employers who have implemented this solution is that it works and it costs less for them to implement these policies than absences and actually in some cases deaths.The reality for ANZ the reality for Countdown is that 18 months ago two years ago they bought into this solution because they had staff members who died. They were murdered by their partners. So they wanted to provide an opportunity for those women to be able to say "I'm living in an abusive situation. I am the victim of violence and I need your help." So what this bill says is that we need to help and we need to provide an environment where businesses take responsibility for ensuring that workplace hazards are eliminated and it's not about the money. The excuses from the Opposition that this is going to cost business I just find sad. I find it sad because I've talked about the consequences of family violence the consequences to women. So I find it sad—oh actually maybe it is an appropriate differentiation between our side of the House and the Opposition that they want to prioritise the cost to business as opposed to being part of a solution to eradicating family violence.I am going to take this opportunity and I've talked to my mate Jan Logie about this because during the select committee process there was one issue that my colleague Poto Williams and I had with her and it was actually about her focus on victims. Actually we said that if you really want to eliminate family violence if we really want to eliminate family violence then why isn't this part of a White Ribbon solution? A White Ribbon solution would actually extend some of these provisions to our men to our perpetrators because we want them to go to court we want them to have counselling we want them to have access to that transparency in their workplace so that they can get help too. But Jan was really clear that for her the focus is on victims first. I guess she comes from that perspective because it actually is always about the powerful over the powerless. But I guess we have to start questioning that concept of power actually Jan because we live in a society where violence has become normalised.So if you normalise a behaviour because no one wants to address it then actually do you have power? If you have got no conscious control or conscious ability to say "Why am I doing this? Why am I hitting my wife? Why am I hitting my partner? Why am I abusing my children?" to an environment that's actually damaging them. So that would be my only plea that actually—and I know and I want to acknowledge that some businesses now are actually providing the opportunity for perpetrators to get the help they need too. Kia ora."