King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
King Annette: Bail Amendment Bill — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:651;Page:520] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 During the first and second readings of this bill one of the common things that was said about its effect was that the community would be safer once it was passed. The bill will be passed today. No doubt the Minister in the chair the Hon Simon Power will have it ready for the Governor-General on Monday and it could be signed into law as soon as that. So what I really want from the Minister is an answer that defines for this House how the community will be safer after Monday. What difference will the passage of this bill make once the bill has the Royal assent? I ask the Minister to define for this Parliament so we can have it on the record of the House how the community will be safer. I think that is very important. Will we see after the passage of this bill fewer murders? Will there be fewer assaults? Will there be less violence? We need that definition because members in National have been programmed from new members through to experienced members like Nathan Guy. Those members who have just concluded their speeches have said that with the passage of this bill the community will be safer. 
That is a big claim; it is a major claim and New Zealanders will want to know how we can measure it. How can we measure the claim that when this bill is passed the community will be safer? That is a very important question I say to the Minister and I would like on the record how he will define that so we can measure his performance. That is not unreasonable because the National Party has made much of what it will do in the law and order area—how much tougher it will be and how it will ensure that the streets of New Zealand are safer for New Zealanders. We need the measurement of such a change because it is only by having that definition and that measurement that people will know whether what was said—and the rhetoric—on the campaign trail was right. That is the first thing. 
I wonder whether the Minister will also tell us how this bill will stop murders in the family environment. You see we heard from people today that this will stop murders on the street. Melissa Lee believes that this will stop murders in dairies and on the street and it will stop street violence. We have already asked for that definition but I would like to know how it will stop murders that happen in the family environment. Almost half of our murders now happen in a family situation and most of those people who commit murder have not murdered before. In fact about 16 women are murdered every year by a partner and about six men and 10 children are murdered in a family environment. So about 32 of the murders we have each year are committed in that family environment. The rest we would consider to be committed in a street or public violence situation. We have about 60 murders a year and have had for the last decade. There has been very little change in that time in the number of murders in New Zealand. So how will this change make a difference to that situation? One of the worst situations we have in New Zealand is family violence. How will the change in the bail law affect that? 
The next thing I want to know from the Minister is whether he believes that the streets of Auckland are less safe than the streets of London as Nikki Kaye said in her speech. She said that in London where she lived it was safer than it is in Auckland. I presume we could compare K Road with Soho for example. Well I do not know whether Nikki Kaye ever met the police in London but I certainly did. I went to Soho and I watched their video recordings of what happens on the streets of Soho and I can tell members that every few seconds there is a robbery an assault or a stabbing. That is not the profile of New Zealand so when extravagant statements like that are made they need to be backed up by evidence. So I want to know from the Minister whether he agrees with his member and whether he believes that the new bail law amendment will make K Rd safer than Soho.