Naylor Jono: Evidence Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNaylor Jono: Evidence Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:5089. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONO NAYLOR (National):I just want to echo the sentiments from the previous speaker Peeni Henare. It is certainly a pleasure to sit on the Justice and Electoral Committee and I will touch on that a little bit further as I go through my speech. I want to start by just reflecting a little bit on what a good judicial system looks like. Of course first and foremost it has to be just and justice needs to be done and it needs to be seen to be done. It needs to ensure that it brings perpetrators who are guilty to have an appropriate consequence for their actions. It needs to be timely and it needs to happen in an appropriate time to ensure that justice is being done. But I think the third phase of it which to me is probably most critical is that our judicial system must not revictimise our victims.This bill I think just really does enhance our judicial system in a number of ways. Particularly there are some aspects of it that will improve timeliness and that has been expressed already through the opening remarks of the Minister the Hon Louise Upston so I will not dwell too much on that. But I do want to focus particularly on the aspects of what I think is really one of the critical points as I said about the judicial system: that we do not revictimise victims of crime and to a certain degree that we do not victimise witnesses of crime either. Often witnesses are the untalked-about victims where crime is concerned particularly when somebody has witnessed something that is particularly distressing and they have become by association victims even though they may not have had the crime specifically performed against them.This is in line with a huge amount of work that has already been done by this Government through other legislation: through the Victims’ Rights Amendment Act which has been dealt with; through—and I have forgotten the name of the legislation but it provides for an offenders’ levy so that offenders are therefore having to pay to provide better services for victims and otherwise; and as previous speakers have alluded to the Harmful Digital Communications Bill. It is showing again I guess that this Government is committed to ensuring that victims are being looked after that victims are at the forefront of our minds when we are thinking about the judicial system and we are ensuring that they are receiving the best care and the best processes to ensure that they can come through their experiences in the best possible shape. This is where I believe this Evidence Amendment Bill really does come into its own.I particularly want to focus on this point about how evidence is gathered from victims particularly young victims through alternative means other than putting people in a witness box. I particularly like the fact that this is now going to be a presumptive position. First and foremost it is going to be assumed that a child will give evidence in this way instead of an application having to be made and a Crown prosecutor or otherwise being unsure of what the outcome of that application will be.Can I just divert slightly and tell a little bit of a story from my own past experience that I think is relevant to the situation. I come from a background where I was working in social services. I have had to deal with young people in all sorts of difficult situations but a particular situation comes to mind where a young teenager confided in me that she had experienced a gang rape. It was particularly traumatic for her to have to disclose that to me and as you can well imagine not particularly pleasant for me to then have to deal with it. One of the tricky things that I faced in dealing with that situation was having to explain to this young woman that in order to bring justice to the perpetrators of that crime she was going to not only have to tell that story again to the police but potentially have to tell that story possibly again in court. Although she was keen to see the perpetrators brought to justice that was a big hurdle for her. It was not something that I particularly wanted her to have to do. There was good law in place. As the professional who was the first person to hear that I was of course interviewed by the police because there are aspects whereby that evidence can be admitted as well.But under this legislation should it pass for a professional working with somebody like that who would make such a disclosure it provides a much better avenue to take that person forward in their journey of dealing with the issue and recovering and also bringing those perpetrators to account. It would be great to then be able to acknowledge to that victim that actually it was assumed that they would not have to stand in front of the court and retell their story; that it would be able to be done in an environment that was more suited to them; and that they would be able to have a support person with them while they did that.I think the point that has been raised by Mr Henare over there about the nature of that support person is a really important one. It is probably something that we are going to need to think about because in say the situation I had found myself in it would have been good to have a professional person who perhaps had been supporting this person through what they were facing—perhaps they may have been the support person in a case like that. But we do need to ensure that actually there is not an opportunity for a victim or a witness as I said earlier to be sort of put in a compromised position because of the nature of the support person who is with them. That is clearly something that we are going to have to think about.So I really do look forward to this legislation coming to the Justice and Electoral Committee. As I said before it is a very good committee ably chaired by Jacqui Dean who we have heard from this evening and who is possibly you know one of the better if not the best select committee chair in the House. That is four times that I have said that now Jacqui. I have got to say it only one more time. [Interruption] It is controversial I know and I am going to upset a whole lot of other committee chairs out there but a deal is a deal. I said I would say it publicly and I am.But anyway all jokes aside this is a very very serious piece of legislation and it is one that I think perhaps through the select committee process there may be some things we can examine and look at that may help tweak it a little bit. But the basic premise of what is in here and what it is trying to achieve is I believe exactly where we need to be moving as a nation. It is exactly what this Government is committed to doing to ensure that victims and witnesses of crimes are being dealt with in the most appropriate way and that we are doing so without causing them any more suffering than what they have already been through—any more than is absolutely necessary. So I look forward to seeing the passage of this bill through this Parliament and look forward to getting to the point where we arrive at the third reading we can give it the Royal assent and our victims will be able to I guess really have confidence in our system.I think that ultimately that is really what it is about; it is about us as lawmakers in New Zealand being able to give the public of New Zealand even more confidence in our judicial system. By allowing victims of crime particularly young children this presumption that their evidence will be gathered in this way we are going to be ensuring that they are looked after. That will I believe really deliver a positive outcome for New Zealand. So as I said I am looking forward to this bill coming through the select committee I look forward to its passage through the House and I certainly look forward to it being passed into law. Thank you.