Mitchell Mark: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Mark: Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 19 June 2014. Volume:699;Page:18760. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney):That sounded like a leadership speech to me. I will tell you what—Grant Robertson: This certainly won’t be.MARK MITCHELL: I know that Mr Robertson has bottled it. He has not got the bottle to stand up. He has not got the bottle to take the reins. He has not got the bottle to get out there and try to rebuild what is a languishing and suffering labour movement at the moment. But do you know what? Mr Little has. He has got the bottle. We came in together. We are both in our first term. I have got a lot of respect for Mr Little. He has got the bottle to stand up and say: “Don’t worry; I’ll take over. I’m going to take the reins. I’m going to fix this.” I am waiting with bated breath to watch for it in the next couple of days. He talked about Glocks. He is arming himself. He is getting himself ready. There might be a Mexican stand-off happening in that caucus room at the moment but he is equipped. He is ready. He has got the skills. He has got the bottle. He will have a go at it.The Victims’ Orders Against Violent Offenders Bill is a very important bill. I just want to discuss some of the things that we talked about and some of the submissions that we heard during the select committee process. Of course I want to acknowledge our select committee chair Jacqui Dean who is a very very good chair of the Law and Order Committee. We work well together. I want to acknowledge Mr Goff who is another very good member of our select committee. We do work well together. We do drive towards consensus. We had some very good discussion in relation to this bill and I think we made some very good changes to it. I would just like to go over a couple of those.Clause 5 of the bill as introduced defined a violent offender as being a person convicted of a violent offence for which they have been sentenced to 5 years or more in prison. The committee decided to make a recommendation that in actual fact some offenders who are convicted and sentenced to maybe 2 years in prison are still serious offenders and they could still be a genuine threat to a victim. We felt we would like to lower the threshold and get it more in line with the Parole Act of 2002. The committee made that recommendation. It was a good one and it is going to be a good change.The committee also made a recommendation around clause 11(b) to provide for final non-contact orders to extend to associates of offenders under certain circumstances. To meet the criteria the offender would have to have encouraged the associate to behave in forbidden ways as set out in clause 11(a). The associate would have had to have engaged in that behaviour so there would have to have been an act. It is not enough just to say that there is a possibility. The associate would have to have performed or done something to fall within clause 11(a). The definition of “associate” was also inserted in clause 4.The bill also allows—and this was very important—for a victim to apply to a District Court for a non-contact order at any time after the offender has been released from prison. The committee recommended that this be amended so that applications can be made any time after sentencing. The significant thing about this change was that what it meant in practice was that a victim had to wait for the offender to be released before they could go to a District Court and make an application for a non-contact order.What it means now is that on the offender’s sentencing—when they have been sentenced and they are on their way to prison—the victim can make an application then. What this means is that the order is then in place for when the offender is paroled or comes out of prison. The order is active immediately. It is already in place. But what it also means is that it gives the victim cover to make sure that the offender whilst in custody cannot contact her at all. This was a very very good change. There was a lot of debate and talk around this and it was a good solid recommendation that came out of the committee.The committee also recommended amending clause 7 to allow an application for a non-contact order to be made without notice if the court is satisfied that the delay could lead to undue hardship for the victim. We had a young lady who had the courage to appear before the committee and make a submission. Her circumstances related directly to this clause.Finally I would just like to say that I am very proud. This is a very good piece of legislation. It does go a long way to ensuring that victims do feel safe. I want to support the Minister’s comment in the opening remarks. This Government is very focused on making sure that victims feel safe and victims’ rights are adhered to.Just very finally before I finish I want to acknowledge that we are seeing the problems in Iraq. The Middle East is a part of the world I was lucky enough to spend some time in. I have a real love for it. It is a place that has got massive potential a rich history and I just want to acknowledge the people there. It is often the non-combatants the people who are caught in the middle of this type of conflict who get hurt the most. I just wanted to acknowledge them. Thank you very much.