McLellan Tracey; Kuriger BarbaraDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Speaker. I'd like to just start my contribution by acknowledging the member who's just taken her seat Rima Nakhle for the fortune of inheriting this bill and for doing such a good job of introducing it to the House today.I think it's fair to say that I don't think anybody would disagree that victims of crime deserve—absolutely deserve—to feel safe and absolutely deserve to feel supported by the system. For that reason Labour will be supporting this bill. Most often than not though victims of an offence have ongoing fears not only for their physical safety but often for the safety of their family members as well so there is some work to be done in this quarter. However I'm glad that the member touched on something and that was that Corrections kind of already do have this ability. Corrections already provide a range of support and the Act enables some of that to happen but we are mindful of the fact that sometimes the specificity and making it very clear rather than the general application has a purpose so for that reason we are prepared to support the bill but I do want to make a couple of remarks around that.When we think about what Corrections can do and the range of support that they can provide to ensure that victims are protected from further harm from those offenders along with the standard kind of conditions as set out on the Parole Act—things like having to report to your probation officer and telling the probation officer if you're going to be moving—the courts and the New Zealand Parole Board can also impose some special conditions for sentences and orders such as those non-contact orders. So whilst we acknowledge that that already exists we can see that there is at least some merit in specifying this. Those non-contact orders which consider—and have the ability to consider the ongoing safety and the choices and the preferences of the victim not to be contacted by the offender. So it's already there and I just want to acknowledge that.With what this bill does though we don't actually think it provides any additional support over and above what's already there. Corrections already provides various kinds of mechanisms to ensure that those who have been subjected to crime and who feel the way they feel about those particular perpetrators—they have an obligation to try and limit the continued mental and physical harm that offenders of crime can cause. But this bill creates an obligation as has been said by the member for the chief executive and for prison managers to protect those who are subject to a protection order and the victims of crime from contact from prisoners. I think there are some details that need to be worked out there so perhaps during the select committee process while it's quite specific and it's specified and it's not necessarily over and above what already exists I think there are some details that do need to be worked out and the select committee is a good place for that.What the bill also does as the member has very eloquently said is ensure that the victims and others who are subject to protection orders under the Family Violence Act 2018 are also protected from unwanted communications with those prisoners.I think the issue I have though is that whilst acknowledging that this is a member's bill and whilst acknowledging as my own have been pulled from the tin it's a bit of a lottery this Government has talked a pretty big talk and a pretty big game on supporting victims and victims' rights. We've heard today through the general debate about the first 100 days and therefore that's somehow supposed to specify priorities and it's taken this member's bill to be drawn to actually have something come before this House that's particularly dedicated to supporting the victims of crime and their rights.So I think it's a little bit rich that despite having talked a big game on one hand not that long ago the section 27 reports were scrapped. We've heard it being referred to today quite unceremoniously as the stopping somehow of some sort of gravy train which I think is a pretty vacuous comment that was made earlier on and I think it simplifies and it is yeah just quite an unfortunate characterisation of something that actually provided the victims of crime a chance to have a voice in this process as well. So to scrap that on one hand and yet to say that more needs to be done is a little bit of an incongruent sort of position.I think the other thing that also concerns me when we think about how we could better support the victims of crime and the various mechanisms that we can either utilise better or ensure has some sort of priority recognition in terms of daily business and business as usual is the fact that it's yet another example of something that's being loaded on to a service where they're actually being told not that long ago to go away and make 6.5 percent cuts to and to make those cuts and to come up with those line-by-line savings that the chief executives of these departments and these organisations have been asked to do just to make tax cuts work just to chuck that out there—6.5 percent to the Crown Law Office 6.5 percent to the Department of Corrections 6.5 percent to the Ministry of Justice and 6.5 percent to the police. At some point you've got to add that all up and it almost conjures up a visual picture of the sorts of things that fall through those gaps that aren't seen as necessarily priorities and that are seen potentially as nice-to-haves" and things that can get done once all the other really important stuff is done. But I think looking after the victims of crime is important and I would have liked to have seen a commitment from this Government alongside the introduction of new legislation to ensure that there are actually resources in place to support these types of measures. Because no matter even if it's just small it still requires resource and it still requires that someone work collaboratively within an existing system to enable these new measures to actually make sense in a practical sense in so far as that which would actually filter down and help real victims.When I think about that I think about the contrast that during our last term Labour made I think some of the largest ever financial investments into victims. We reviewed legislative settings; we launched operational pilots in the court many of which were incredibly successful; we tripled the level of funding for victims' assistance schemes; and doubled the level of funding for Victim Support. Whilst that's not an opportunity to make direct comparisons it's certainly worth noting because you can't achieve these types of measures that we're talking about today unless those structures and that scaffolding is in place to support that.So Labour has made progress I think in increasing also the access to justice particularly for low-income New Zealanders. There's a whole list of things that I could rattle off in so far as how that's been done but it's just to illustrate—and I'm sure that colleagues might like to expand on that as we go through this process but as I said happy to support this bill through to select committee. Very pleased for the member to be able to shepherd this further and we will be supporting the bill. We wish it all the best and we want to ventilate this a little bit more in select committee with some practicalities. Thank you.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I'll just belatedly say the question is that the motion be agreed to."