Bradford Sue: Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
Bradford Sue: Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill — Second Reading 
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SUE BRADFORD (Green) 
: 
 Over the past few months I have been a member of the Law and Order Committee that has been looking at this bill and at its Government counterpart the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2). Along with my Green Party colleagues I am pleased to be supporting the committee’s recommendation to not pass this bill—not because we do not support its intent but rather because its purpose has been incorporated and strengthened within the corollary Government bill. When Dianne Yates first introduced her member’s bill I was concerned that it did not really go far enough particularly in the area of defining the circumstances around issues relating to consent. Ms Yates’ bill spoke only of consent not occurring when people are prevented from physically resisting because they are drugged without reference to other offences that might occur because a victim is unconscious for other reasons. 
 On the other hand the new bill that will come before the House for its second reading shortly I hope extends the issue of consent to include alcohol as well as drugs and to situations where the victim is asleep or unconscious without any intoxicating or stupefying substances having been taken willingly or otherwise. I know that Ms Yates is most supportive of this outcome and of the fact that the Government has seen fit not only to expand on her original intent but also to use this opportunity to update the law on various other aspects of sexual offending. I will not go into every detail here as I am sure it is preferable that we discuss the particulars of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) when it comes back to Parliament rather than tonight. However I would like to take this opportunity as others have done to thank Dianne Yates for her courage and persistence in getting her member’s bill before the House and for her sensible support for the progress we have subsequently made in updating the legislation in this difficult area. 
Laws around rape incest and other sexual offending are by their very nature particularly difficult to talk about. For some of us that is because we have been the victims of some or all of those offences; for others it is because of an inherent distaste for discussing particularly in public issues about which many people are squeamish and uncomfortable. However silence has always been the mark of the rapist and the oppressor and does not indicate consent in either public discourse or private relationships. For too many generations women and children and some men too have not been able ever to talk about what has happened or is happening to them. We have only to look at the recent trials on Pitcairn to see where this culture of suppression and silence ends up. 
However rape sexual violation and incest are not crimes that are now quaintly foreign or out of date in Aotearoa today alas. The culture of silence condemnation of the victim and self-blame is still all around us in New Zealand whether we like it or not. Women’s organisations and others making submissions on both bills to the select committee once again talked about how few rape and sexual violation complaints actually make it through the court system to conviction compared with the likely number of offences committed. They also spoke of the way in which too many victims even now feel so put off by the processes of police and the law and by the fear of what family friends workmates and neighbours will think if they find out that they never make a formal complaint. 
The fact that the law up until now has not clearly and adequately recognised the offences that occur when someone is raped when asleep or unconscious makes the passage of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) a matter of urgency. This has always been a particularly murky area of the law and I am hoping that when the new bill finally comes into effect it will strengthen more victims enough for them to feel able to come forward as well as encouraging the police to persist with prosecutions that up until now they have felt were not viable. I also hope it will mean that the courts take these offences more seriously and that our historically low conviction rates might rise. 
Ultimately of course I hope that the new law might discourage some offenders although I am not holding my breath on that one. It will not be laws on their own that will change an age-old culture that says it is OK for guys to take advantage of women when they are out of it. Trying to transform that particular mindset is something we will need to continue to work on where and as we can in our generation and in others following I fear. However as lawmakers in this House I believe we have a duty to try to do everything we can to improve life for all those who are and will be in future the victims of these age-old attitudes and behaviours. 
I feel honoured to be in Parliament as we outlaw drug rape just as I was honoured to be here when we decriminalised prostitution. There is a connection. Both issues are about empowering a group of particularly vulnerable people in society—predominantly but not solely young women—to take more control of their own physical mental and sexual health and safety. 
In conclusion I acknowledge everyone including submitters who has been part of working on and supporting this bill and the Government bill alongside it. Once again I thank Dianne Yates in particular for persisting over a long period with this difficult but very necessary reform.