Andersen GinnyGINNY ANDERSEN (Labour—Hutt South): Thank you Madam Speaker. This bill in the name of Louisa Wall at its third reading aims to prevent and mitigate the harm caused by image-based sexual abuse. As I've learnt through the process and the passage of this legislation while we typically think of sexual abuse being something that would happen in real life as the world has changed and as our lives have become increasingly transplanted to being on an online platform so do the harms and the crimes that come with that online platform. Therefore it is appropriate that our legislative framework changes to protect those who are vulnerable and to hold accountable those who have offended. I would like to commend Louisa Wall as the member in charge of this bill as taking a real issue—a real issue that affects the lives of predominantly young women in New Zealand and internationally—and endeavouring to provide further protection for women against image-based sexual violence that occurs on a daily basis.We know from Netsafe that approximately 5 percent of New Zealanders have reported being exposed to such events and activities but from hearing submissions I suspect that that figure is much higher than what we see as we know in around a lot of sexual violence offending that the rate of unreported crime is high in that space. So it's important that we take the time to debate this bill and it's important that we get that message out there that being exposed and being threatened with having nude images of yourself put online is not only unacceptable but it's illegal once this bill becomes law.So the problem currently where the law sits is that section 22 of the Harmful Digital Communications Act passed back in 2015 stipulates that there is a requirement that the perpetrator intended to cause harm. So while there's the act of posting the image the mens rea or the intent that the prosecution needs to demonstrate is that there was an intention to cause the victim harm. So it is very easy in a courtroom setting for that perpetrator to argue that it was a joke or it was done in jest or it was unintentional or not required. So for that purpose those images have been able to stay online to be duplicated to be shared to be replicated on multiple different platforms and having those removed is incredibly difficult once they've been uploaded. So there's been a real barrier to law enforcement and to New Zealand police in the past because of the difficulty of proving that intent that the perpetrator intended to harm the victim as opposed to just show off to their friends.So what this bill does is it introduces a new offence of knowingly posting a digital communication that is the intimate visual recording without the consent of the person who is the subject of that recording. So in essence the mere action of posting that image without consent there is harm implied within that action. So there is no requirement for the prosecution to prove that the perpetrator intended to cause harm. That is a significant step forward for victims of sexual violence online because it enables greater action to be taken early on for things such as take-down orders in order to remove those images as quickly as possible.So why we support this bill and why this is a good move going forward is that we know that image-based sexual abuse is an increasing problem in New Zealand. As young people are increasingly using online platforms for relationships for exchanging images we need to make sure that there's adequate legal protections of their rights and also the ability to hold those who are offending accountable. Image-based sexual abuse is most common amongst young adults. One support agency told media that five years ago they were working with victims as young as 15 but now they're working with victims as young as 12 years old as more young people get themselves online. As parents we want to make sure that our children are as safe as possible even though they are engaging in online platforms more so than they have ever done before.The next reason why we are supporting this bill is because of mental health. We know that the biggest impact upon young people who have those images of themselves unknowingly shared or against their will has a significant impact on their self-confidence on their mental health and their ability to grow up feeling strong proud young women in New Zealand. Researchers found that the impact of image-based sexual abuse on mental health is similar to that of sexual assault in real life. Victims have reported experiences of trust issues post-traumatic stress disorder anxiety depression and even suicide at points when there has been repeated sharing of an image that cause them real distress.Victims are exposed to the threat of being stalked attacked bullied and stigmatised particularly if their contact details are published alongside their images. It only took through the submissions period to hear those sad stories of young women who felt like their lives had been ruined because a former partner or someone they'd had a relationship with had then gone on to share video footage or images of them nude. Once those images are available and uploaded onto different platforms internationally it is incredibly difficult to remove those. So we heard stories of young women who had promising careers in certain areas who felt completely debilitated by the fact that a disgruntled or angry former partner was able to get revenge was able to use power over them in a way that prevented their life from operating as it would have done before that image was shared. So it is only right that those people that endeavour to cause harm and do cause harm to women should be held accountable within the courts and within our legal system and that is exactly what will occur going forward.We need to also point out that this bill will protect victims. It's a step as part of a wider suite that this Government stands strong by and is making sure that our legal system is more victim-focused and that we look at things through the lens of how the victim is able to not only have rights but is able to make sure that their protections are guarded when they are going about daily work and activities such as engaging online.We know from all of the submissions that we heard that there are some strong voices out there. I would like to acknowledge a few that that came forward and have been strong proponents of this bill. Netsafe came and stated quite well to the Justice Committee that in recent studies they found that New Zealand adults consistently perceive this activity as one of the most unacceptable types of online behaviour and to note that. InsideOUT was one of the ones that gave a really great submission to the committee and they acknowledge the effect of the harm on victims and they referenced the significant effects of posting a person's intimate visual recordings.Also we heard from ones far out such as Rural Women New Zealand and they used their examples of their own members who had been exposed and gone through very traumatic circumstances. They stated that they believe that unauthorised posting of intimate visual recordings is consistent under psychological violence and/or coercive control. Many of those submissions talked about that power imbalance that coercive behaviour we often see with perpetrators of family violence and sexual violence and this is yet another tool along those lines of control over another person. And more often than not it is a younger female that is at the end of that illicit intent.So in terms of some of the changes that the committee put in place we clarified the age of consent to make sure it did not contain a minimum age for someone to provide consent for an intimate visual recording to be posted online. It is important to note that the new section 22A(1A) set out in clause 4 sets a minimum age of consent at 16 years in line with the age of consent which is also consistent with what's in the Crimes Act.I would like to commend Louisa Wall for seeing this bill right from the beginning through to the end. I would like to acknowledge all of the hundreds of people who have submitted to the committee and I'm really proud that we've made good changes to a bill that will significantly not only improve the rights of victims but make New Zealand a better place for young women to grow up strong and confident. I commend it to the House.