Bridges SimonHon SIMON BRIDGES (National—Tauranga): I want to say first off that I don't get up to speak on this politically and I don't say that lightly. If this was about politics actually National would just sign up to this because the intentions are good it all sounds great and I'm sure Kris Faafoi's genuine in what he's saying. I also want to say with I hope humility—I can't say this about really much else in this Parliament—this is one area where I'm more experienced than any other MP. I was a senior Crown prosecutor who did jury trials and specialised in sexual abuse cases. I've done a lot of them and I am still haunted to this day by some of the cases I did. It's a deeply distressing area it's an awful area and I acknowledge the statistics that Kris Faafoi's put here.But I want to speak directly to Kris Faafoi the Minister in this area and his officials because I do hope—I fervently hope—they will make changes at select committee. And I say to Kris Faafoi look actually most of this bill is fantastic. We sign up to it we agree with it. It's about helping complainants and victims. And I'm going to go through some of the things I think are really good in this bill and we support wholeheartedly but there are two clauses in this bill where they are a mixture of unworkable and unjust. And as a law they will see innocent young men—and I say mostly young men—convicted in our courts and that's not right; that's unjust. And I've said much of it's good. The provisions in this bill around better methods of giving evidence for family violence complainants child witnesses—that's wonderful. I say regarding the directions that judges will be instructed to give—and they're already doing a lot of this—around the myths the misconceptions; for example that it's only strangers that commit sexual violence—clearly nonsense. And juries do need to hear those directions—it's good that it's there—enshrined formally in a statute and this law's going to do that.The added flexibility around victim impact statements and the greater optionality and choice if you like that victims will have to give their statement by video recording out of court where the judge has the power to clear the court in certain cases—I think that is all great and does go to what this bill's meant to be about which is preventing the re-traumatisation of complainants and victims in the court.But there are two clauses that as I've said are unjust and unworkable—they're just plain wrong. And the reality is nearly all the lawyers: the prosecutors the defence lawyers agree with what I'm saying. The judges think these clauses are wrong. And they mean as I've said that the accused—as he or she is in a serious criminal jury trial rather than a defendant; mainly young men—won't get a fair trial in some sexual violence cases where these clauses apply. And that means actually I haven't done the maths—I could go away but my estimate would be many hundreds of basically men a year won't get a fair trial. Jonathan Eaton QC an eminent criminal silk in the South Island says We believe that the bill could lead to significant injustice particularly for the more vulnerable members of our society such as youths members of minority populations and those with diminished capacity. We already have too many young men and women in our prisons who should not be there."And so let me run through those clauses. I'll try and do it briefly. They're not simple areas but the first is clause 8. It renders presumptively unlawful evidence of any sexual experience by a complainant with the accused. And I just simply say to Kris Faafoi the law's already strong enough in this area. A defence counsel can't just come along to court and on a whim start asking about the prior sexual experience of the complainant. They need to have the judge's approval and sanction to do that and it has to be relevant—and not just relevant highly probative—to the guilt or the lack of guilt—I won't say innocence because that's not the criminal standard but the non-guilt of the accused. But here we're limiting the evidence even where it is relevant and probative to whether the accused should be acquitted. In the New Zealand Bar Association's submission to the select committee they talk about in many cases details of previous consensual sexual activity between a complainant and defendant will be of direct relevance to those allegations before the court. By way of example a complainant's consent to sexual—Angie Warren-Clark: How so?Hon SIMON BRIDGES: The member's yelling at me "How so?" I'll tell you how so and they give an example: "By way of further example a complainant's previous consent to certain practices similar to the activity complained about e.g. bondage may be of particular relevance to the fact-finder." As the House of Lords in the United Kingdom said as a matter of common sense a prior sexual relationship between the complainant and the accused may depending on the circumstances be relevant to the issue of consent. [Interruption]DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! Sorry to interrupt the member. It's really difficult when you've got a barrage coming from my right to hear the member but he's got a right to speak.Hon SIMON BRIDGES: Thank you Mr Speaker. I accept it's an emotive issue but it's an important issue and I would ask for some respect while I make serious points that I think are incredibly important. Really all I'm saying on this clause is that it will be made artificially harder for the accused—who have rights too by the way Louisa Wall—to put their defence and for juries to get at the truth.The second clause is clause 14 and what that does—and I'm really really rushed because there's more I want to say on this important matter but what that effectively does is say that in most of these cases it has to be pre-recorded evidence some year or more before the case. And I can tell you as a prosecutor the Crown has all the resource. There is a complete inequality. And for a defence counsel well over a year before the trial to have to have all the ducks in the row to put that case to put the defence fully is basically impossible.This is entirely unworkable. What it's actually going to mean Louisa Wall is that judges and defence counsel will informally agree and the victim will come back to court and give evidence twice. They will be re-traumatised I believe by this bill and the clause in here that is entirely unworkable. If it is workable frankly it's even worse. If it is workable what it does is do away with the right to silence—a centuries-old right for accused in court cases. Do it once do it right.In the three or so minutes I've got left we could be cynical about lawyers but the reality is here they nearly without exception have lined up against these two clauses because they know that they are wrong. And personally I want to be clear: I came to this Parliament and I was going to read to you from my maiden speech—I won't in the interest of time. I only spoke on one primary issue of political substance and policy—it was the rights of victims and the need for redress because actually the cases I've done haven't seen justice in this area. The statistics are abysmal and there are things we did change and we need to go further and do more but I say to this House that you can't achieve justice for victims by performing an injustice on the accused—it just is not right. And the fixes here are actually relatively easy and minor—they're doing away with clearly wrong clauses in this bill. William Blackstone a jurist—I don't know; two or three centuries ago—says it's better for 10 guilty people to escape than one innocent suffer. I don't know about the ratio but as I say you don't do right by doing wrong to accused in these cases and I worry greatly about that.I say to this House don't let the apple here rot. Don't let the little bad bit affect the great good that's in this bill—cut it out and we've got that opportunity to do that at committee of the whole House. We have the opportunity with the two wrong clauses that will see young men go to jail unnecessarily wrongfully in this country to amend those clauses. That would leave a bill that the National Party could wholeheartedly support and that will do some good and will ensure some victims aren't re-traumatised.I want to say because now that I have raced through I have just got a few seconds for a couple of other things. It's remarkable to me that on the one hand the Government's doing the Criminal Cases Review Commission to try and get those wrongfully convicted and yet on the other they do this. I also say to David Parker it's entirely wrong that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report here gives a clean vetting. There's not a lawyer worth their salt in New Zealand who could do that with these clauses in this bill. We support this bill right now. We hope though there'll be sense—some practicality so that people aren't wrongfully convicted—through Supplementary Order Papers at the committee stage so we can support this bill at third reading."