Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Madam Chair. I rise to speak to the Domestic Violence—Victims' Protection Bill. I was on the Justice Committee not for all the submissions but certainly for substantial discussions around this bill. National take the issue of family violence very seriously indeed and when I was in a ministerial role I was part of the wider family violence group of Ministers who addressed a lot of the concerns and wanted to do things that would actually prevent domestic and family violence from occurring for younger people and also for elders and seniors. So across many ministries we worked hard in a prevention role.This bill we feel misses the boat and misses the main point which is to try and help women who have been victims of domestic violence but in a way that is going to work properly. The education campaign which has been suggested in Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 42 in the name of my colleague Mark Mitchell will require the Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment to put in a very widespread nationwide educational campaign because one of the issues that emerged at select committee is that people didn't really know what they could do if they were on the brink of being involved in domestic violence in the midst of it or in the aftermath. So being able to have additional information about what to do and where to go for help is a very important part. This was acknowledged by many of the submitters and by many of the members of Parliament who have had these experiences at our electorate level.As the Hon Judith Collins put forward turning it into an ACC situation—a vast organisation already very well geared up to deal with victims of trauma. Whether it is rape whether it is any other form of violence that occurs ACC already has the mechanisms to be able to move into prevention into rehabilitation or into helping in the aftermath—not only the immediate victim herself or himself but also their family members and others. These methods we feel are very important ones for New Zealand as a nation to think carefully about and to support in a meaningful way.I would urge this Government—and this member too—to be supportive of the Integrated Safety Response pilot because about five years' work across more than nine ministries led to this pilot. It is very effective in its early days. It is something that we feel will bring together all of the various agencies whether it's police justice ACC for that matter health and so forth—all of the ministries that have any involvement in helping people recover from violence but also giving them the help that they need to prevent themselves getting into worse situations.This body of work is entirely where New Zealand ought to be going and it's almost there. I would urge this Government and this member to speak in favour of the Integrated Safety Response pilot to be funded from beyond next year. The police and others and the early reports of it say that it's going very well indeed and we would like to see that continue because it is addressing the fundamental issues and the problem—CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): I would encourage the member to come back to the specifics of the bill. That is another programme.Hon MAGGIE BARRY: Sure.CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Thank you.Hon MAGGIE BARRY: So that's something that we feel very much would work as a preventative. Those are tried and true.The member—and some of our submitters as well—talked about the situation in Australia. Australia we feel is a very different environment indeed from us. It has not been accepted incidentally beyond certain employers. It has certainly not been accepted across all of Australia and there's probably very good reason for that. The member would like New Zealand to be the first country in the world to trial this and to put it into law; I feel that that would be inappropriate for all of the reasons that colleagues have put forward. The burden it would place on the wrong people and the idea of having support people and others also being entitled to 10 days runs out of control and runs contrary to what a sensible approach would be.The Supplementary Order Paper that my colleague Mark Mitchell has put in to really enshrine and to give more backbone if you like to employers to be able to do the right thing in this situation by allowing domestic violence to be absolutely held up as a way of applying for sick leave and so forth I think is a very correct way to go. I think that Supplementary Order Paper 41 is something that we are very much in support of and qualifying for paid annual or sick leave for the purposes of dealing with the effects of being victims of domestic violence is very appropriate along with Mark Mitchell's other SOP on education. So we believe domestic violence is a scourge and a problem. We do not support this bill because it does not address it.