White HelenHELEN WHITE (Labour) (remote): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill and I'm very proud to do so. Sadly I do know about the prevalence of this behaviour. I've brought up three children in a world that's changed. And this is very very common in that particular age group and it does irreparable harm to it. But I don't want to stop with that age group because I think that this does irreparable harm to many people. And what I would make the comment about is that although this is something that has affected more women in the past and has affected the rainbow community it's also very likely affecting men too.It's really important that we see that bullying moves in its type it changes shape as new tools become available. This is absolutely despicable behaviour and we need to educate our young people as to the consequences of it. A good law doesn't necessarily mean everyone gets imprisoned. A good law actually teaches people good norms and values. It says this is utterly unacceptable behaviour. And so those fines of $50000 that possibility of sending somebody to jail for two to three years is hopefully something that doesn't need to happen because people change their behaviour and they see what they were doing is utterly unacceptable.I just wanted to talk about that breach of trust that occurs because it is something that I think we need—you know I heard one of the speakers earlier talk about how one of the submitters had reluctantly participated" in the behaviour in a way that seems to me what we always do in these situations we talk about the "reluctant" participant. It doesn't matter if the participants are reluctant it's absolutely fine that you are participating in a sexual act. It's absolutely fine that this is going on. It's not actually a problem. What is a problem is the breach of trust that's happened in a relationship that is intimate and special. And actually when somebody does this to you that is totally unacceptable. So there is no excuse and it isn't about reluctance it's about actually accepting that we live in a different world and actually at the base of what is happening here is a behaviour that is an abuse of power. That is exactly what is happening.So I wanted to just talk about what Dr Emily Henderson talked about which is how this actually impacts and reinforces on the rest of the law. Because the words that we were using in the law the need for intention the need for harm—these are concepts that didn't come from nowhere. They came from their own time when actually those were the sorts of prejudices that fed in to our law in this area. So what this law does is it reinforces something really important—that our norms and values have already changed and that those things were no longer working for us.I wanted also to talk to the fact that this is often used as a tool to blackmail people because what we have actually got is people who have had this happen to them who start in a state of shame—which is why it was very important to me in this discussion to talk about the fact that there was no shame attached. Because if this has happened to you you shouldn't be starting with shame and you shouldn't be worried about blackmail and you shouldn't be worried about the things that could happen. You should actually feel that you are affronted and we should be angry at this behaviour.So I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House and I'd like to congratulate Louisa Wall for putting something forward which is actually really significant for people out there. I am very thankful for her doing it I'm thankful for the people who actually came and talked about what had happened to them and I hope that we can see the line within this the universal issue which is that actually bullying is not acceptable any more. It cannot just change form it's got to actually be dealt with. It's an ethical issue for us all—we need to stop abusing power. That is in this area of people's lives and many others. That is what the heart of this bill is about. I commend it to the House."