Grigg NicolaNICOLA GRIGG (National—Selwyn): Thank you Madam Speaker. I like my colleagues of the National Party rise to support these two bills at the first reading. I think Simon Watts very eloquently touched on the backdrop to the need for legislative amendments such as these. We often talk about the very damning indictment on New Zealand society—extraordinarily high rates of violence towards both women and children—and it really is something that is a national shame to this country. We as parliamentarians and indeed legislators must take any and all opportunities that we can to strengthen judicial and court systems to particularly protect victims and especially the most vulnerable victims in society which are of course our children.We have seen a 15 percent increase in sexual assault offences and a 23 percent increase in sexual offences against children in recent years but despite that we've only seen a 5 percent drop in the number of people charged for these types of crimes. Similarly we have seen family violence instances escalate in recent years. We have seen a dramatic 35 percent increase in family violence episodes yet just a 31 percent drop in charges and indeed convictions. So that is why as I said in my opening statement we must as parliamentarians take any opportunity we have to strengthen the provisions within our court. And I speak specifically to the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill whereby we will look to make amendments within the legislation. But I think that the topic that most participants in the House today have spoken to is around strengthening provisions for victims of sexual violence and of course most focus is rightly on changing provisions relating to consent for children who have been impacted by these crimes. It is of course an omnibus bill. We do know that because of current provisions just 6 percent of sexual assaults are reported. And I think we owe a duty in this House to make the necessary changes to ensure that we can enable more victims of these types of violence to get the justice that they deserve.This new bill will insert a new subclause that means the proof that defence are allowed to prosecute for that children will no longer need to be questioned around their understanding or indeed when they have given consent—we're looking for any and all opportunities where we can reduce trauma to these kinds of victims. A number of members have also talked about the removal of automatic name suppression. While we do understand the provisions have been kept there primarily for victims that have been offended by members of their own family that the lifting of that name of that offender may obviously be related to the victim—in some instances as we've seen very recently in Christchurch with the Mama Hooch case that we all know about it has become something of an empowerment for the women who have been impacted by the horrific offending that took place in that bar over a number of years. Some of them have chosen to lift that automatic name suppression so that they too can begin their journey towards healing. So we do support any amendment to this bill that will allow a streamlining for the courts to be able to remove that automatic suppression. So with those brief comments I will conclude my contribution to the House this afternoon and we do look forward to watching the passage of this bill through select committee and indeed the work that that select committee will do on that. Thank you Madam Speaker.