Harawira Hone: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — First Reading 
Harawira Hone: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:989] 
HONE HARAWIRA (Maori Party—Te Tai Tokerau) 
: 
Tena koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Kia ora tatou e te Whare. It is nearly Christmas and for many Kiwis Christmas is the time of year for hanging lights putting up little pine trees stringing cards on the wall getting kai ready organising the hangi and getting out the mattresses for all the relations coming home for the holidays. It is a time for family festivities a time to be with loved ones a time for family reunions and a time for unveilings and good memories at the graveside. 
But for some families those graveside memories will be overwhelmed by grief and anger at the tragic loss of lives stolen in a haze of alcohol and drug abuse in homes where violence is the norm and murder an ugly companion. This is in a country where during Christmas 2005 women’s refuges all around Aotearoa were forced to take in 450 battered and fearful women and children seven mothers were killed in acts of domestic violence and 19 kids woke up to a life sentence without their mums. Such is the context in which we consider these amendments to the Domestic Violence Act and seek to eradicate violence by strengthening the response of the police and the courts. 
I know that it may sound flippant but domestic violence really is a matter of life and death for a lot of people. It is an explosive mixture of threats stalking harassment raging jealousy obsession violence assault and murder that runs through every cultural ethnic and socio-economic group in the country but it runs way too deeply in Maori society. The statistics tell us that in 2005 police had to deal with more than 63000 incidents of family violence that women are four times more likely to be raped by someone they know than by a stranger in the shadows and that more than 25 percent of all women are beaten up by their partners. Such are the facts of life for women who are endangered and for children who are cowering in fear—the facts of life that we keep hidden behind closed doors and the facts of violence that we must put to an end. 
I sincerely hope this Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill will help to address the problem by allowing police to break the cycle of domestic violence through on-the-spot protection orders to protect families from further violence until matters come before the court; by directing courts to take into account when sentencing the fact that victims are children; and by increasing penalties for breaching domestic violence protection orders. Yes this is a “get tough” approach; yes there is way more to this than is immediately apparent; and yes there is much to be done in the way of community standards. But when the safety and the very lives of our children and women are concerned somebody really does need to say “Enough is enough”. 
Over the last 40 years we have accepted the need for fireworks safety for seatbelts in cars and for helmets for cyclists; we can hardly do less for whanau. We need to set standards of safety for whanau to emphasise child protection and to sign up to legislation that treats domestic violence as the serious and criminal breach of human rights that it is. People tell us that things could be done better if only the existing framework was implemented properly particularly in areas like having comprehensive training for everyone working in the sector including judges lawyers court staff and police; better resourcing for advocacy services; and better collaboration between courts and family violence networks. 
One factor that keeps coming up in all of the suggestions we are getting is the call from people like Parekotuku Moore of the National Network of Stopping Violence Services which is to speak out against violence to not allow the issue to be hidden behind closed doors and to denounce domestic violence in all its forms. For example last week some “a-hole” tried to use TradeMe to sell men’s black singlets under the label “wife beater” but following widespread outrage from all around the country TradeMe pulled this sicko promotion from its site. 
This bill is an opportunity for Parliament to raise awareness about the issue of domestic violence to remind the nation that there is no acceptable level of domestic violence to reaffirm our commitment to protecting women and children from domestic violence to speak up about the impacts of domestic violence and to lay down markers about our refusal to tolerate it. But this bill is also an opportunity to speak out against the rampant unemployment that has crippled Maori families for the last quarter-century to protest against the poverty that affects great swathes of the Maori community and that has created the conditions in which domestic violence drugs ill-health theft and lawlessness prevail to speak up for those children forced to live in a world where they do not even know they are poor because they have never had anything to challenge attacks on the rights of workers at a time when unemployment is set to go through the roof and to speak out against a refusal of this House to make eradication of poverty the priority that it must be if we are truly to deal with the problems of violence and crime that are crippling our society. 
All those National members who roundly accuse Labour of playing the nanny State and interfering in the lives of ordinary citizens should know that as National passes this bill into law it is doing exactly what Labour did in the last term—playing a hand in the way in which our society is run in order to ensure that the rights of those who are the most vulnerable are never forgotten. In the same way that the Maori Party stood alongside Labour and the Greens in respect of the section 59 bill to protect the rights of children so too will we stand alongside National to help ensure the protection of families as well. 
Christmas is supposed to be a time of reflection and joy but for many families it will be a time of drunkenness hangovers anger and violence. It will be a time when business is booming for women’s refuges for all the wrong reasons and police have to tear families apart simply to save the lives of those in desperate need. There are many factors behind domestic violence not least the destructive violence of poverty but there can be no excuses for the brutalising of our families in Aotearoa. For all those reasons and more the Maori Party will be supporting this bill. Kia ora.