Beaumont Carol: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBeaumont Carol: Victims of Crime Reform Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 16 April 2014. Volume:698;Page:17365. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CAROL BEAUMONT (Labour): I also wish to join my colleague the Hon Phil Goff in acknowledging the Minister in the chair Chester Borrows and in fact to reflect on the point that our junior whip Iain Lees Galloway made that you would make a fine Minister of Justice. In fact you may have an opportunity to be so quite soon.Iain Lees-Galloway: There’s a vacancy coming up.CAROL BEAUMONT: Yes there could well be a vacancy in that area. So I wish you luck with that Minister.Getting on to the bill the Victims of Crime Reform Bill we are speaking now on Part 2 of that bill. As others have said this part is about ensuring that victims’ rights in the adult criminal jurisdiction are applied in the youth justice jurisdiction. So that goes through Part 2 which amends the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act 1989. Part 2 talks about certain situations including family group conferences when a child or a young person is in custody pending hearings and what happens in situations where children and young persons abscond. It talks about who can present at hearings in situations where there is a child or young person who is the perpetrator of the crime.I just want to reflect here for a minute. When I spoke on Part 1 I talked about victims of sexual violence and the particular needs of that group and the particular impacts—very deep impacts often—of sexual violence crimes. Of course that would equally apply in Part 2 and in fact we have seen situations—quite troubling situations—in this country with the so-called Roast Busters case in Auckland not that long ago around young persons and sexual violence where I think very troubling cultural attitudes were displayed by young persons around sexual violence. In that situation in the youth jurisdiction you may well have both youth perpetrators and youth victims potentially affected by the changes in this part.You can see in Part 2 that a number of changes have been made that I think strengthen the provisions here. In terms of better victim support at Youth Court hearings an amendment is in this part—in clause 38 amending section 329—for victims to bring support people without seeking prior permission while allowing if necessary the judge to restrict numbers. Also clause 38A amending section 385 means that victims of offences committed by a child or young person would be notified when the child or young person absconds from a youth justice residence. As the Hon Phil Goff mentioned that would also apply—about being notified—when the child or young person dies in a youth justice residence. In terms of the definition of “victim” in schedule 1 amended by clause 39 that amendment aligns then the definition of “victim” in the Children Young Persons and Their Families Act with that in the Victims’ Rights Act.Those are some of the provisions in Part 2. I just want to pick up a point about funding though because in the regulatory impact statement it does clearly say that “Agencies have indicated that to successfully implement some of the proposals they will need to look to reprioritise funding from other areas. If funding can not be re-prioritised … then this may result in pressure on services and service delivery may be affected.” I am sure that none of us would like to see service delivery affected for victims of crime. It specifically identifies two of the provisions in this part as being within that category of the need to ensure there is adequate funding. That is the automatic access of victims of child and youth offenders to the Youth Court and also the proposals around victim impact statements in both the adult and youth jurisdictions. So I understand that the Minister in the chair the Associate Minister of Justice did comment on that but I would just like to ask him whether he would just really like tocomment in a little more detail given the very clear concerns that were flagged up around this issue in the regulatory impact statement. So in concluding on Part 2 I will leave it there.