Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): I am going to dedicate my whole contribution to the Supplementary Order Paper of my colleague Jan Logie—it is the one that wants to insert intimidating" after "misleading". The reason I want to do so is that I have just been reading from McDonald and Tinsley and why they say it is so important. Just for the Committee's information section 85 in the principal Act is about unacceptable questions that are put to witnesses—to victims a lot of the time. Some of the criteria from the section which we use to determine whether those questions are acceptable or not are that you cannot ask questions that are misleading—that is giving the wrong idea or impression; you cannot ask questions that are improper and that are not in accordance with acceptable standards; you cannot ask questions that are unfair—so they are not based on or behaving according to the principles of equality and justice; and you cannot ask questions that are needlessly repetitive or expressed in language that is too complicated for the witness to understand. So when I look at what "intimidating" means—definitions are really important—it means to frighten or overawe especially in order to make someone do what one wants. It also means to frighten to terrify and to scare. I could not imagine us wanting to frighten to terrify or to scare any witness who was providing evidence in a court so I just do not understand what the issue is. What McDonald and Tinsley said was that if we add "intimidating"—and "overbearing" was the other word that they used actually—it was noted that it "calls for greater judicial management of inappropriate cross-examination and considered such a change may assist such judicial control." It also noted that section 85 is about giving the judge "a wide discretion to control the nature of the questions and the manner in which they are put." I think that some may see it as a little amendment but I actually think it is quite a big amendment because it speaks to the integrity of putting victims at the centre of pieces of legislation. I stand to support this Supplementary Order Paper 194 as does the Labour Party and I want to commend Jan Logie for her passion and for bringing to the Committee Supplementary Order Papers that are going to enhance this particular piece of legislation. I think that she speaks for members of communities that she is actively involved with. She does a lot of work—as others of us do but Jan particularly—with Women's Refuge with women's organisations with Victim Support with organisations that entrust her to come into this House and to speak for them. I would implore this Committee and the Minister and other members of Parliament to add "intimidating" to section 85 which ensures that witnesses who are being cross-examined are not frightened are not overawed and are not terrified by the experience. We have talked a lot about the minute number of women who stand up and have the strength to go through the judicial process. Not enough women stand up and make complaints so we want to empower those women who do with a process that is not going to frighten terrify or scare them. I think that this is one of the Supplementary Order Papers that as I said before strikes at the heart of what this bill is trying to achieve. Again I hope that there will be some common sense tonight and that we as a Parliament will at least pass this Supplementary Order Paper. Kia ora."