Crimes (Drug Rape) Amendment Bill

In addressing this bill, what can I say. First of all, I give my congratulations to Dianne Yates. She must be the luckiest MP I know in this House, judging by the number of members’ bills she has had drawn in the ballot. I do not know whether records are kept as to who has the highest number of members’ bills drawn, but I think Dianne Yates certainly has to be right up there.

💬 Hon Member: She should take a ticket in Lotto.

That is the advice I would give her, too, particularly given that she is looking at leaving Parliament and adopting a more leisurely lifestyle. She might want to take a Lotto ticket because, given the luck she has had here with members’ bills, she is sure to win the big one.

It was interesting listening to her speech. I thought for a moment that we were at an Oscars ceremony or maybe a beauty pageant; I was waiting to hear, at the end of the long list of credits she was giving out to all and sundry who had been involved in research, in promulgating the bill, and in advocating the issue and fighting for it through thick and thin against dragons big, tall, and small, a final pledge: “And I hope for world peace.” When that did not come, it woke me up and I realised I definitely was not at the Oscars.

💬 Stephen Franks: Didn’t thank mum and dad.

She did not thank mum and dad, or the children, or anybody. But to the victor go the spoils and Dianne Yates certainly has had a victory here, of sorts.

I say “of sorts” because her bill, although it will not accepted in its pure form, has been definitely incorporated, as has already been explained, in the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2). Therein is a real issue, because whilst all of us who sat on the select committee understood, supported, and agreed with the intent, the objectives, of this bill—we all accept that a dastardly crime is being committed out there; it probably is one of the most vicious and horrible crimes we can think of—the fact is this bill has now been absorbed into the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2), which seeks to address a whole lot of sex crimes but, more important, purports that one of its main aims is to seek gender neutrality in respect of crimes of a sexual nature. But that bill fails at the very first hurdle, and it fails—ironically—on an issue that Dianne Yates brought to the House in the form of this bill. It fails on the issue of rape.

We on this side of the House find it amusing that the great PC party, the politically correct Labour Party of the 21st century—which has got most truck-drivers rolling in their graves and looking for New Zealand First voting slips and membership forms—is totally incapable of putting aside its prejudices, its sexism, its female chauvinist pig attitude, and accepting that in this day and age men abhor the rape of men by men as much as women abhor the rape of women by men. But, oh no! Under this Government we have a Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) coming forward that touts as its main aim achieving gender neutrality in the justice system in respect of sexual crimes, except that rape can only be a crime committed by a man against a woman. Is it not amazing! Labour is the party whose feminists come from, formerly, such parties as the Communist Party. They come from all walks of life, and support the feminist cause—and good on them—but they are behaving in a most chauvinistic, sexist, discriminatory manner that befits the men they have long campaigned against, championed against, railed against, and expressed pure venom towards. Men-haters of the world unite! Labour is there to ensure that men are forever denigrated.

We know now that if a young boy goes into a prison and is grabbed by some big gang member, or whomever—or a sexual predator, if he is unfortunate enough to be locked up with one—and raped, then, thanks to Labour, that is not a crime of rape. In the paper just the other day there was a story of a man who was locked, doubled-up, in a cell with another man, and was beaten and raped. But under the control of these feminists, these sexists, these female chauvinist pigs, that is not a crime of rape. I find that bizarre—to be kind, to be charitable. I cannot use that other word in the House.

💬 Brian Connell: What word?

That word—it starts with “h”. But that is not right; it is not appropriate. We will sit here in time and debate the Civil Union Bill, and we will discuss how this country has moved on, and we will discuss how gay people, homosexuals and lesbians, have a right to be treated with equality. In the next breath, out of the other side of their mouths, the females in the Labour caucus will say: “Oh no, except when it comes to rape; that is purely a crime against us women.” I ask them to look into their consciences. On the other side of the table, the Greens, United Future, and New Zealand First, and I know that a huge slice of National’s caucus thinks the same way, say that the crime of rape is as abhorrent to men as it is to women. In this day and age, when the Government and people are seeking to have homosexuality—gay and lesbian relationships—accepted as the norm, should they not be accepting that the crime of a man in a homosexual relationship raping a man is rape? If they do not accept that, the question is why not.

There is a huge inconsistency here. In transferring all the issues pertaining to drug rape into the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2), some of us had hoped that that crime would be subject to the purported aim of the Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) to make the legislation gender-neutral. But now I know exactly where the line is drawn. Now I know that when certain people in the Labour Party stand up and preach equality, they are seeking equality for those whom they approve of, not for everybody. They are seeking equality of justice for only those whom they favour, not for everybody. If it leaves men tarnished and stigmatised, they do not give a toss. I just hope that every panel beater, every truck-driver, every shearer, every labourer out there on every building site who formerly has been a staunch supporter of the Labour Party, wakes up to what we really have. We no longer have a Labour Party that seeks equality for all; we have a Labour Party with a particular feminist agenda that it will pursue come hell or high water, regardless of what anybody else wants. That makes those people precisely what, on the hustings, they have criticised men up and down this country as being: it makes them chauvinists, it makes them sexist, and it makes them discriminatory.

That will help us a huge amount at the next election, as New Zealand First hoovers up those former Labour Party voters. I thank Labour very much for that. I look forward to the challenge of the next election, and I look forward to our coming back here with a damn sight more New Zealand First MPs than we currently have, because that is definitely going to happen.

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.

The bill that Dianne Yates introduced appears to me to be a better bill and a bill more consistent in principle than the bill that is replacing it. The member’s bill is more conservative. I believe it is more respectful of the role of the common law and the difficulty that the law gets into in this area when lawmakers respond to emotion and try to make slogans or political statements in legislation.

So I am sorry to see this bill dropped, because I think the replacement proposed by the majority of the Law and Order Committee is more dangerous to liberties and ultimately to respect for the law than what Dianne Yates proposed. Briefly, she in very simple language tried to make sure that the law would catch people who applied something stupefying wilfully and without lawful justification or excuse. That left all the room needed for a court to deal with the complexities of those kinds of circumstances, without directing the court to do what is now being proposed in the bill that the select committee has recommended proceed. That bill has a whole detailed list of circumstances deemed to negate consent.

The problem is that those circumstances create a liability where there may be no fault. Ms Yates’ bill goes directly to the crime—trying to stupefy people—so that consent is irrelevant. The problem with the replacement bill, and the reason I am sorry her bill has been dropped, is that it then negates consent so that people who morally are entirely innocent, and who do not even know that they are taking advantage of someone else’s act of stupefaction, could be caught.

We will no doubt debate that at the Committee stage of the other bill, but I am sorry Dianne Yates was persuaded so gracefully, and I assume easily, to withdraw her bill, when I think it would have been better left on the Table where it could compete as it ought with the product of the majority of the Law and Order Committee. If ACT had been represented on that committee, I hope we would not have found ourselves on the side of the majority. We would have found ourselves with National, New Zealand First, and United Future in expressing concern about the approach that has been taken.

I believe that, once again, we have an area of law involving sexual conduct whereby the making of fashionable political statements is seen as more important than retaining the kind of care and evolution in the law that is needed in these circumstances.

The committee has been looking recently at another product like this of a rush of blood to the head. The changes to the Evidence Act in 1989 were made, I understand, in just such a climate of pious, solemn concern—the sort of tone of almost funereal discourse: sadness and regret. Ron Mark mentioned that he thought he was at an Oscars ceremony; it was an Oscars ceremony without much joy. The attempt was made, whether consciously or unconsciously, to put those things beyond criticism or debate. This whole area needs a great deal of debate. I believe that the committee’s attempt to show its concern for the victims of these crimes—which is perfectly justified—and to show that it cared, could lead to the sort of product we had in the late 1980s, when we got rid of the requirements for corroboration and we empowered experts, who turned out to be unreliable theorists, to give what was effectively evidence, instead of expert reports, to the courts. As a consequence, many of us have very serious doubts about some of the cases involving children’s evidence that occurred in the early 1990s. I warn this House against doing the same thing in the other bill in the same state of pious excitement. ACT will, of course, support the dropping of a bill that the rest of the House has decided will not proceed, but we will certainly want to see a better scrutiny of the replacement.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.