Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I'm almost afraid as I stand here tonight of what we've done. My colleague the Hon Mr Shaw has just referred to this as being a narrow bill. I do get his point in one sense there's not that many offenders who get classified as insane in this country. That's right. Compared to other sorts of offenders they're quite a small subclass. But in another sense I think it's one of the biggest things we've done this year when it comes to the criminal justice system. And that is frightening.It's big in two senses. First what happens at the top of the system when you get to criminal trial right up here [Lifts hand above head] influences everything in all the decisions that prosecutions and police make down here at the bottom. It becomes a bottleneck if you don't keep that space wide enough so that people can see the prospect of success. We all know that we have victims in this country who do not come forward or who give up because they look up at that top and they see only a bottleneck and they drop out and we lose their voices. This bill sends a message that the voices and the reality of victims are valued at that top point at that apex of the criminal system. And that's significant. It's significant in another way. And as we've discussed during the committee stage which was so thoroughly enjoyable this is a really significant bill because it puts the victim into the adversarial system in a way they have rarely been put at the centre of the adversarial system. The adversarial system is conceived as a two-party thing a little bit like the traditional version of this House before we had the wonder and panoply that we see before us of MMP. It was a two-party system that admits of no other and for that they recognise the reality and the significance and the dignity of two sides only: the Crown and the defendant.This bill for perhaps the first time gives victims an independent right of standing where they are not just tools one way or another to get evidence from for the purposes of those two important people: the Crown and the accused. That's incredibly significant. But it is nerve-racking. I found it so exciting but it is frightening and it should be frightening because the criminal justice system is right criminal lawyers are right to be protective of our system. Because the criminal justice system is about the protection of some of the most vulnerable people in our community.One of those two parties the defendants they are so often so powerless. And if we don't have a system that enshrines their dignity as a matter of absolute importance in our system then we do not deserve to call ourselves a civilised society. We have to protect the rights the dignities of defendants. We have to do that. We also though have to look at the truth and the trial has to be an effective mechanism for the discovery and the investigation of truth—in balance with the dignity and the rights of the defendant. Hence we get our evidence laws. Hence we get things like the American version no allowing of the Fruit of the poison tree." These are important things there might be evidence but if you've got it through the destruction of the defendant's rights then that is enough of a block. We give up on truth when it affects the dignity of the defendant to that degree. It is a system of checks and balances and when we interrupt something as crucial as that then we should be nervous and we should be mindful and by God we were throughout this process. It has been a careful arduous often circular often spiralling back upon itself process and so it should because it's important.As we do it however and as I think about what my dad the criminal lawyer is going to say when he gets a load of this one when I think about the unconstitutional—but nonetheless they're going to happen—sideways glances I'm going to get from judge friends when they get a load of this—Chris Bishop: Oh just a bit of big-noting while we pass it.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: —those doubts I have those uncertainties about what we've done they are worth it. Oh bring it on Mr Bridges. You're all good—I've got teenagers.Hon Simon Bridges: Hey I didn't say anything! I appreciate you know that it's easy to confuse the boyish good looks but …DEPUTY SPEAKER: Any time now you'd like to carry on do so.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: One teenager or another; it doesn't really make much difference to me.So what we're doing is really really significant. It's going to be something that's going to be picked over not only by my criminal practitioner colleagues but also by my criminal academic colleagues because the other way in which this is incredibly significant is as my colleague Vanushi Walters was talking about in terms of an ongoing process of the reform of the criminal trial which has been advocated for by academics over the last 30 years. The victims' rights movement as it's known within academia has been gathering pace mainly as a result of the growing awareness in the early 1980s of the trauma inflicted on victims in the trial when they were victims of sexual assault. The victims that we saw as I said earlier echo the pain that has been talked about and found for the last 30 years. It is extremely significant I think in the development of the criminal law in this country that we are bringing this in. I think in the years to come this is going to be seen as a point at which Parliament shifted the goalposts and encouraged the adversarial trial to evolve. It is a scary thing we've done but it was the right thing.The fact that the victims we saw as Ms Upston brought up earlier were not vengeful that they weren't out to grind down the person who had hurt them speaks also to what we're doing here. It's not about law and order and "lock 'em up". It's not about making sure the person gets punished for what they did. That's all taken care of. What it's about is the giving of due respect to the victim. It's not about the destruction of one person in order to elevate the victim; it is about the elevation of all of them as key pieces in our criminal justice puzzle. That is significant and that is right and that is important work. I wish I could see some of my academic colleagues when they get a load of this one. Boundaries are difficult places. Boundaries are going to be difficult difficult places to be at but they're worthwhile places to be at because otherwise what on earth are we doing here in this space?Also in terms of our process I think I do need to stop at this point and thank those officials who worked so incredibly hard and had to put up with nonsense the likes of which even Simon Bridges can't produce. We want to thank Dr Crawshaw who again guided a bunch of know-nothing parliamentarians through the complex process of the mental health system and got us out the other side I think with everyone intact. I want to thank my colleagues on the committee for all of the help that we gave each other and all of the forbearance particularly our chair Ginny Andersen and most of all the lady of the hour herself Louise Upston—absolutely remarkable bill. Given how much work it cost I think maybe you could not put another one in the ballot box just—DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member's time has expired."