Ardern Jacinda: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Ardern Jacinda: Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 October 2009. Volume:658;Page:7350. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call on Part 1 of the Domestic Violence (Enhancing Safety) Bill. I thought I might take this opportunity to go over briefly some of the more substantive changes that the Justice and Electoral Committee made which the Minister of Justice referred to. But before I do I highlight again what a considerable advance this legislation is. That is of course originally thanks to the drafting by the then Labour Government but I also congratulate the Minister on taking on this legislation. I am sure at some point in the third reading we might go into it in a little more detail. Some of those additional pieces could perhaps be expanded on although as the Minister has mentioned they have been put into the new legislation. There are still parts of Labour’s legislation we would like to see acted upon. 
This legislation is a very new type of tool for police to add to their tool kit in preventing domestic violence. I want to highlight that this tool is intended to be a preventive measure but with that come some difficulties. Of course we are asking the police to intervene in many cases before a crime has occurred. The Police Association came forward and suggested in the select committee discussion that for instance some of the penalties for breaching a police order should be heftier than what had been proposed. We had to put back to them that we needed to weigh up the consideration of the fact that in the first instance a crime had not yet occurred and that some of the association’s suggestions may be considered disproportionate. That was a balance that I think the select committee has struck in what it has produced. 
The first change that I want to touch on briefly is in respect of some words that were either changed or removed. I think that that was in order to aid the police in making a decision as to whether a police order is required. The select committee tried to have a very practical discussion with officials about the kinds of practical situations police officers may find themselves in so that we could ensure that we were not adding any words unnecessarily that may prevent police officers issuing orders where it might be extremely useful. One word was “immediate”. We recommended the removal of the condition that an order be issued only if necessary to safeguard the immediate safety of the person. That was on the basis that at any one point in time when a police officer arrives at a house there may be a period where the dispute may seem slightly more settled but that may not be the case a few hours after the fact. We wanted to give maximum flexibility to the police in that regard. The other word was “serious”. Proposed new section 124B(2) of the Domestic Violence Act sets out the matters to which the constable must have regard when considering whether to issue an order. One matter was whether there was a serious likelihood that domestic violence might be used. We felt that the word “serious” was quite imprecise so we recommended removing it. 
I will touch on two other issues. The committee rightly picked up on the fact that when a police officer is called out originally the criterion was that a constable could award an order if there was a view that that person had not committed crime significant enough for an arrest. We considered that there might be another offence that may have occurred in that environment or in that home to cause the person’s arrest which might be completely unrelated to domestic violence but that there might be reason enough to suspect that a safety order might be useful. We wanted to ensure that even if an arrest had occurred a safety order could be used as well. 
Another issue I will touch on briefly relates to who could award an order. We determined that it would be worthwhile to clarify that a constable who is not a qualified constable must receive authorisation from a qualified constable. That was specifically to take into account the fact that in a rural environment someone may not have reached the required bar in order to issue an order but may be the only person available on the scene at that time to do so. We wanted to give not only maximum flexibility but also oversight to those situations. We considered that it would be appropriate that that may occur via telephone.