Ardern Jacinda: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) Bail Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Domestic Violence Amendment Bill Sentencing Amendment Bill (No 2) Bail Amendment Bill (No 2) — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7364. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I do not think it is really necessary to reiterate the importance of the legislation the third readings of which we are now discussing tonight. We have heard consistently throughout contributions from both sides of the House that domestic and family violence contribute to 80000 recorded events per year and of course there is the role that violence plays in homicides and—as the Minister of Justice rightly pointed out—in intergenerational family violence. Labour saw it Labour recognised it and Labour crafted the original version of the legislation. The National Government had the good sense to further that legislation in some form or another. 
There are perhaps two significant changes that the Government chose to make to the legislation. The first change extends the period that a police safety order covers—from Labour’s initial proposal of 72 hours to a period of 5 days. I have to say that having heard the submissions from various community organisations and from those in the law enforcement community I feel content that we have struck the right balance in the legislation with the extension to 5 days. 
The second significant change is what was omitted from the legislation. The Government had an opportunity to create comprehensive legislation but it reneged. Minister Power talked to us about the Government’s Child and Family Protection Bill but it is in no way as comprehensive as the previous omnibus Domestic Violence Reform Bill which was introduced by the Hon Annette King. I will spend some time going over the changes omitted and the opportunities lost in the same way that my colleagues have done. 
The Minister briefly addressed the House on that particular question. He told us the amendments that were removed by the Government were still under active consideration. I question what there was to consider. From my perspective the evidence was clear the submissions and feedback from community groups were clear so I cannot see where the debate lay on those clauses. 
For the benefit of my colleagues across the House I will go over four of the most significant changes. The first was the Government’s lack of recognition of the fact that we continue to neglect our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in the definition of children in our legislation. The Government has already used the opportunity in its Child and Family Protection Bill to fulfil another international obligation but has ignored our obligations under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child when it comes to the definition of children. We had the opportunity to further protect children through the amendments made to the Bail Act that allow us to put conditions that would enable children in violent domestic and family relationships to be protected. I do not understand what the harm in doing that would have been. Perhaps there is a political point the Minister would like to share with us about the wider ramifications for our youth justice system which I would also debate him on. 
The second aspect of the legislation introduced by Labour that was removed was access to funded addiction treatment programmes. Again I do not understand why the Minister chose to not address that in this legislation. It was a perfect opportunity. Perhaps we would not have to put the House under urgency to consider it in another piece of legislation. It could have been moved into this one. It would have been a very efficient way to deal with it. 
We already know via the evidence that if we look in isolation at tools for the police we miss an opportunity to address the contributors to domestic violence. The evidence suggests that alcohol and drugs are huge contributors to domestic violence in the same way that they are contributors to youth crime. Again that is something that this House must continue to work on. 
The third aspect is application without notice for a protection order which I think fitted fundamentally within the objectives of the legislation. As much as the Minister may choose instead of listening to these points to give tips to his colleague Simon Bridges on how to bat back the points made by the Opposition he may wish to consider why it would not have been more efficient to put that provision in this legislation. If we had already established the evidence if we had already consulted the community if all those major significant organisations had said that this was the way to go why did we not proceed? 
The fourth aspect was about information sessions for protected persons. We already had looked at in a sense an iteration of this in the existing legislation. If we explain to offenders about protection orders and alcohol and the ramifications of those and the requirements for them to attend stopping violence programmes why do we not give information sessions for protected persons? There is no reason why that should have been delayed for active consideration by this Government when there already was an aspect of it in the legislation. I would be interested to hear Simon Bridges tell us why explaining to a victim the nature of the threats he or she faces and where he or she can get support is a bad idea. I look forward to hearing the members from the National side of the House explain to me why those aspects did not deserve to be in this bill. 
We must acknowledge in this House that the arm of the State the tools for law enforcement are just a small part of the wider solution and preventive measures that we must put in place to tackle domestic violence—they are a small part. We must look more broadly if we are to really tackle the contributors to domestic violence and the support networks required for the victims of domestic violence. We must look beyond tools for law enforcement and tools for use simply within our justice process. 
I am pleased the Government has put forward this legislation and progressed it through the House. I am pleased that the Minister has acknowledged and demonstrated his awareness of the importance of this issue but I think we have a lost opportunity here. I am very willing and open to congratulate the Government in the future if those four aspects are progressed in this House. But I am disappointed that they were not progressed.