Ardern Jacinda: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
Ardern Jacinda: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — In Committee 
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JACINDA ARDERN (Labour) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to take a call on the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2). It broadly covers several areas; I think roughly four. We have focused quite heavily on certain parts of this bill and I will probably hone in on a couple of them as we traverse Part 1. 
Before I do so I will make a general statement. It has been referred to at different times by other speakers—that is the very strong linkage between factors of poverty and violence. I think ultimately if we are to address issues of child abuse and child neglect in New Zealand we need to look at these causal factors. Of course I acknowledge that to seek to explain does not see to excuse. In my mind there is never an excuse for child abuse and child neglect in New Zealand but we cannot ignore that when levels of poverty and deprivation are at their highest we also see an increase in the levels of child abuse and child neglect. That is a linkage that we cannot ignore. 
I was very pleased that in the beginning of the term of the Minister in the chair the Minister of Justice he focused on the drivers of crime. This linkage inevitably would have been part of that focus given that it is also one of the roughly five risk factors that we see amongst young people who come before our criminal justice system. I would like to see the issue of the drivers of crime stay on the agenda. It feels like it has fallen away a little bit when we start discussing for instance these kinds of bills which are often band-aids for much wider problems. Also we have a green paper. It will take us potentially 3 years to look into these issues when ultimately I do not think that some of the work the Minister kicked off was intended to take as long as that. So I hope that is a mantle that whoever—actually they would not need to because Labour will just pick it up and continue what we did when we were in Government. We have unfinished business in the area of child poverty and child abuse. 
Coming to the bill itself I will go through some individual clauses of Part 1 starting with clause 4. I think it is important that as a select committee we separated out the reference to “vulnerable adult”. It is not just children we are talking about. Someone is implicit in a crime if they neglect to raise issues of neglect or abuse not only against a child but against a vulnerable adult. I think that was incredibly important. We have heard in the past some quite horrifying stories not only of elderly vulnerable people abused in aged-care facilities but also of abuse against disabled people who might be in receipt of home care. So I think it is important that the definition of “vulnerable adult” is listed in clause 4(1) as: “… a person unable by reason of detention age sickness mental impairment or any other cause to withdraw himself or herself from the care or charge of another person”. They are unable to remove themselves from what may be an abusive care relationship or even just periodic abuse. I am pleased that we are covering those people with that clause. 
I come to clause 5 which actually jumps over entirely into the other area that the select committee covered. The select committee was the Social Services Committee. It was a little odd that we as a select committee considered this bill. As a member of the Justice and Electoral Committee I know that this is the kind of bill we would usually consider. I am still not entirely clear why the Social Services Committee had this bill. Perhaps it may have been because the Justice and Electoral Committee had just a few too many things to consider. Maybe it was also because there was some discussion around three-strikes provisions. Three-strikes provisions as we know never go to the Justice and Electoral Committee; they go anywhere but the Justice and Electoral Committee. We discussed the three-strikes provision in relation to this bill; I will at some stage come to the amendment from ACT on that matter which we will not be supporting. Clause 5— 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I acknowledge the honourable member Jacinda Ardern. 
JACINDA ARDERN 
: I am acknowledged and I will continue. Clause 5 is “Meeting young person under 16 following sexual grooming etc”. In a nutshell right now we have law enforcement officers who for the purposes of protecting young people online will explicitly set out to approach those who might be seeking to groom young people online. I guess a comparison I could make is a mystery shopper exercise for under-age drinking where a young person is sent into an off-licence or an on-licence to make a purchase. If someone makes a sale to that young person then they are by virtue of the law able to be penalised for that. It would be totally inappropriate to do the same thing when it comes to the sexual grooming of a young person online. Even though of course we can hide a person’s identity we would not want to put a vulnerable young person into that situation in order to seek out these offenders. Instead this clause allows that if someone is fictitiously presenting themselves as a young person the person they then draw out who is defined to be a groomer can be prosecuted even though technically that young person was not 16 or under. I think that is a common-sense provision. I think it is probably what the public would absolutely expect and I utterly endorse that particular clause. 
I then come to new section 151 under clause 6. This section sets out that “Every one who has actual care or charge of a person who is a vulnerable adult and who is unable to provide himself or herself with necessaries is under a legal duty—(a) to provide that person with necessaries;”. I wanted to pick up on that. We are bouncing back again to the clauses that relate to anyone who might be implicit in the abuse or neglect of a child or vulnerable person. We have been explicit in that we have not said “the necessities of life” but “necessaries”. We have kept it much broader because we have seen examples in the past—aged care comes to mind—where people may have been provided with the necessities of life but they were not provided with the standard of care that the average person would have expected. They were tied to a bed for example which is a complete loss of dignity and care and humanity for those people. So I think it is important that we have kept that provision broader than simply “the necessities of life”. 
Coming to new section 152 we see here the first reference to a definition of “age” for these provisions. Section 152 states: “Every one who is a parent or is a person in place of a parent who has actual care or charge of a child under the age of 18 years is under a legal duty—”. We have put in there the definition of the child. But there is another provision that pretty much means that the only time someone under the age of 18 can be charged under these provisions is if they are a parent themselves. The select committee discussed that at great length. It was our decision that it was not appropriate for someone under the age of 18 who is not a direct parent to be covered by these provisions particularly if for instance we have a situation where it may be a sibling of another child who is being neglected or abused. They may not be directly implicated themselves but is it reasonable to expect that a child be drawn into this legislation? We thought not. 
Coming to new section 195 in clause 7 we see the criminal penalty lifting from 5 years to 10 years and there are some explicit subsections that implicate a staff member of a hospital an institution or a residence. We had quite a bit of discussion about how widely drawn the circle would become but we think that the tests in this bill are adequate to ensure that it is a reasonable expectation. Someone actually has to be privy to and aware of abuse or neglect being perpetrated against an individual for them to be implicated in this legislation and we felt satisfied by that. 
Coming then to new section 195A I highlight what the Minister has already talked about: who is considered to be a member of the household. We have been explicit here and the select committee endorses that it does not have to be someone who is resident in the home.