Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Firstly I must acknowledge and commend the member Joanne Hayes for bringing this bill to the House. Congratulations to you on having it drawn from the ballot. I commend you for the work that you have done to bring this bill and the work that you will do on shepherding it through. Labour will be supporting this bill. I also want to commend the member who has been a co-chair of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians group along with Labour's Louisa Wall and the previous chair Dr Jackie Blue who initiated the legislation and has really encouraged the women's organisations within Parliament to think about what types of pieces of legislation we can support across the House as members of Parliament. This is one such piece of legislation. It has been discussed quite fully and robustly at Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians meetings and we are very proud as an organisation to be supporting this piece of legislation.What is coercion and what are we talking about in this particular piece of legislation? We are talking about marriages where one party or at least one member of the party is unwilling or lacks the capacity to actually make the decision about being married. Often they are marriages between older men and young girls. I know that the member bringing the bill to the House was very moved by a Women in Politics meeting she attended in Kathmandu where this was actually discussed. She was particularly moved by the physical and emotional harms that can happen particularly to young girls when they are forced into relationships with people at a young age and forced into sexual relationships and having children which sometimes can do physical harm to them because of their age. I know that she was passionate about ensuring that this piece of legislation actually found its place in Parliament.Often the brides come from overseas and I know the member referred to that. Our immigration is such that we allow people to come through on partnership visas or on visas where you can sponsor people into the country. It is often the case where some women are sponsored into the country by people who will become their husbands if they are not their husbands already and they can after a period of time around 2 years decide to no longer continue with that relationship and no longer sponsor that person. That woman no longer has an immigration status in this country and that is problematic for her because it means that she is forced to leave often having to leave behind children who were born in this country. So I think when we are talking about this piece of legislation we also need to consider the wider implications of what happens to those women particularly when they are sponsored into the country and can be abandoned by their husbands and left really with nothing and forced to go back overseas. Sometimes the cultural context within which they are returning means that they are shunned by their own societies and it is problematic. It is one of the things that Shakti the ethnic refuge raises with politicians constantly—that it is an issue for them.And speaking of Shakti I do want to say that it is the only ethnic-specific refuge in this country that deals with women who have no immigration status women who have been abandoned by their husbands and unfortunately it is also not supported in terms of that work. We have heard over the course of the last few months Shakti's pleas to ensure that its Wellington refuge gets funded and that unfortunately has fallen on deaf ears. So I am hoping that the passage of this bill for the House actually raises the awareness of specific ethnic refuges for women particularly those who will lose their immigration status should they be abandoned by immigration policies put in place by our Government and our Parliament. I do want to quote from Shakti's youth coordinator about the importance of this bill because they are supportive of this. She states: And for young people to know it's not okay and that they can speak up about it and for parents and relatives to also know it's not okay to force anyone into marriage."But it is not just about ethnicity. Yes Mrs Hayes raises that as a specific concern but it is not only about that. What does this bill do? Well it actually allows for people of the age of 16 or 17 to marry but only on their successful application through to the Family Court. So while currently that is possible with parental consent what this bill does is add another element of safety to the process by requiring a Family Court judge to hear the application and to approve it. That will allow for cultural practice to continue but it adds an element of safety and comfort to the people of New Zealand that those people engaged—those young people engaged—in marriage are not being forced into it and not forced to do so.I also want to quote the justice Minister Amy Adams who said that this piece of law was going to fill a hole that is in our current laws. In that regard I want to commend the justice Minister for this morning launching the Family Violence Summit where much was discussed particularly around the new risk framework in family violence and there was a lot of discussion around the current family violence law going through the House at the moment. But there is one thing that I want to ask of the select committee when this bill goes to the select committee and that is: why is this bill not part of the family and whānau legislation currently before the House? Why are we debating this as a separate bill? It would fit well within the parameters of the changes to the Domestic Violence Act that the Minister is currently proposing. Why are we engaged in a separate process for a specific piece that could actually fit very nicely into the current legislation? I would ask the select committee to examine that as a possibility to actually save taxpayers' money and the Parliament's time and fold this into the current legislation before the House which is currently being heard at the Justice and Electoral Committee.I do not want to draw out the debate. It is a useful bill and it will actually add to ensuring that cultural practice is able to be observed but that we are not forcing young people into situations that we ought not to. It actually adds an element of safety. I again want to commend the member. I want to acknowledge the work that she has done in the cross-party women's arena in this Parliament and we thank her for bringing the bill to the House."