Urgent Debates — Roast Busters Case—Independent Police Conduct Authority Report

I have received a letter from Carmel Sepuloni seeking to debate under Standing Order 389 the release of the report by the Independent Police Conduct Authority regarding the so-called Roast Busters case. In order for an urgent debate to be held, there must be a particular case of recent occurrence involving ministerial responsibility. The report was released this afternoon. It finds a number of significant deficiencies in the original police investigation into the alleged offending.

This matter has been the subject of two earlier applications. Those related to the decision not to prosecute, for which there is no ministerial responsibility. However, at the time I indicated that if the Independent Police Conduct Authority report was to reveal a significant development, the matter may warrant the setting aside of the business of the House.

The authority has found that the victims were let down by the failure of the police to identify connections between the cases and work with other agencies to develop strategies to reduce reoccurrence of what was clearly unacceptable, and in some cases alleged criminal behaviour. Having again considered the matter, and having read the report today, I have determined that the House should debate this matter. It is of critical importance that the public have confidence in the ability of the police to investigate. I call on Carmel Sepuloni to move that the House take note of a matter of urgent public business.

I move, That the House take note of a matter of urgent public importance. It is devastating to say that there is only one way to describe the report that was released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority at midday today, and that word is damning. One year on from a thorough investigation that started under the Independent Police Conduct Authority in November 2013, we have a report that clearly demonstrates a failure to follow through adequately on the complaints that were raised not by one, not by two, but by several young women, which documented abhorrent behaviour against them. It shows that there was a failure to consider all of the options around prosecution, which directly contradicts some of the later police investigation. It shows a failure even to record properly the personal information of the alleged offenders. It shows a failure to consider alternative options—if, indeed, prosecution was not one of those options—by the police in terms of holding those alleged offenders to account. And it shows a failure even to communicate adequately and properly among the number of different police officers who were involved in this case.

This report shows that these young women were absolutely the subject of a failed process—there is no question of that. We should all be absolutely alarmed and concerned that that has been the case. I think it would be helpful to go back to the beginning just to cover off what has led to the situation where the House is conducting an urgent debate today. I will then go on to cover some of the specific and most concerning elements of this report.

At the end of 2013 there was a series of disturbing stories that became public in the media, which related to what can only be described as abhorrent behaviour by a group of young men towards a group of vulnerable young women and girls. I want to highlight that some of these young women were merely children at the time that some of these events took place. We were all disturbed by what we heard and saw in the media, and, of course, we expected that there would be an opportunity for a swift response and action by the police—that was the public expectation. We know that there are always layers to these issues, so, of course, it was incumbent on the police to share with us as much as they could—to share with the public—about what they had done to work alongside those victims.

The police response was to state that there had been no formal complaints and, therefore, that they did not have sufficient evidence to pursue an investigation. I want to reiterate that with a quote from the police that went into the public domain. They issued a statement that stated: “… in the absence of significant evidence such as formal statements, there is not enough evidence to prosecute the alleged offenders at this time.” The public, of course, was severely disappointed that there was not, therefore, from the police’s perspective the ability to pursue what we all agreed was abhorrent behaviour. The Minister even came out publicly and implored those who were involved in this case—the victims in this case—to be brave. That was the statement that the Minister used in the public domain—that they be brave.

Putting aside the fact that it should not have to be incumbent on any victim to have to be brave to go through a criminal justice process to have justice done—that should not take bravery—our young women, in particular, should have been well enough supported that it would not take courage to endure our system, and yet those were the words used by the Minister. So that in itself raised some significant and concerning questions. But leaving that aside, we then, within a few days, had a report by TV3 that included another victim coming forward and stating that it was her belief that she had, in fact, laid a formal complaint and had given a statement, and that nothing had been done. Of course, we were all alarmed to hear that additional information.

Labour was swift to make a complaint to the Independent Police Conduct Authority, because questions were raised in our minds as to how it was that the police did not know that a formal complaint had been made, let alone thoroughly investigated, given the nature of the offending that was alleged to have happened. I want to quote from the complaint that Labour made in my name to the Independent Police Conduct Authority at that time. We stated: “While all these issues need to be reviewed, there is a wider question of the adequacy of the investigation itself and the decision that there is insufficient evidence to lay charges. In particular, what efforts were made to corroborate the complaints laid by the victims? Was there a full investigation, including the execution of search warrants and potentially electronic surveillance”—remembering how much of this awful situation did occur online—“and what advice was received before making the decision not to lay charges? Given the current constraints experienced by the police in terms of resourcing, we would also urge that the authority look at whether this impacted on the child protection team over the 24 months that this investigation has taken place.” And, finally, we stated: “The actions of the local police to protect potential victims while this investigation was under way is also worthy of assessment. The information available in the public domain certainly suggests that intervention via schools and social networks was needed to protect other young women who may have been subject to alleged predatory behaviour.”

I feel absolutely justified in the fact that Labour made that complaint and, unfortunately, this report vindicates it. I do acknowledge that the Minister of Police laid a similar complaint at the time. But this was not the first report. The first report released by the Independent Police Conduct Authority looked into the way the police interacted with the media, and the release of information relating to this complaint. I will not dwell on that report, but what it did flag was that there was a complete breakdown in communication between the police officers involved in that complaint—a complete breakdown. You can see in reading that report that one of the concerns was certainly that the police were absolutely stretched. There were clearly resourcing issues. Although that does not excuse individual failings towards victims, it does raise massive red flags, which I hope the Minister of Police will pay heed to. Again, it continues to be a concern for us that we have a police force operating with a $40 million budget cut. That does, absolutely, eventually have consequences, and I fear that it has had consequences here. But, as I say, none of that can be an excuse for the way individuals are treated within a process as serious as this.

I want to go through the key elements of the report where there are the most significant concerns—and I would like to hear a response from the Minister of Police on these. The first is the complete and utter lack of coordination. It is highlighted, from the very first paragraphs of this report—indeed, when the Independent Police Conduct Authority outlines how many cases it was tasked with looking at, it says right up front: “At the start of the Authority’s investigation in November 2013, it was informed by Police that they had received reports of concern about four separate incidents …” They go on to say: “During its investigation into the … handling of [the] complaints … the Authority identified that Police also responded to three other reports of concern involving young women and this [same] group of young men.”

The Independent Police Conduct Authority itself identified that we were not talking about four incidents; we were talking about seven occurrences where the police had an opportunity to join the dots between a systemic problem—between abhorrent behaviour on multiple occasions involving multiple victims—and it was not picked up. Of course, regardless of whether it had happened multiple times, each of those individual victims should have got an individual response that should have given them faith in the system. It should not have taken seven cases to build a case against these young men. But the fact that even that was not identified is a massive, massive problem and was one of the key problems identified by the Independent Police Conduct Authority.

Issue No. 2—and this goes to the most basic of principles, obviously, for the police—is whether or not the lines of inquiry were thoroughly followed up; whether or not these complaints were thoroughly investigated. This is highlighted, again, by the Independent Police Conduct Authority, which found that—I want to highlight this one point—“… all of the Police officers involved in these matters treated the young women and their families with courtesy and compassion…”. We acknowledge that. However, the report goes on to state: “… in several of the cases, because officers concluded that there was insufficient evidence to proceed without the cooperation of the young women, they decided that no further action was required.” This is an uncomfortable truth. Yes, a few of the young women did not feel comfortable continuing with their complaint, and we need to spend a lot more time debating why that is and what we can do to remedy that.

That aside, the Independent Police Conduct Authority found that the police should have kept going anyway. They should have continued with their investigation and lines of inquiry—and why? Because these were children. In fact, the Police’s own policy states: “All reports of child abuse must be thoroughly investigated even if the child or young person recants or parents and caregivers are reluctant to continue.” That is a quote from the Police’s own policy on these issues. So although the police thought that they were doing the will of the victim, their policy actually required them to take responsibility and to continue to investigate, and they did not.

What was also inadequate about the way this investigation took place was that they did not even identify that it was the same young men who were involved; they did not record properly the information about those young men. They did not do other inquiries or police checks to see that other complaints had been made about them. And this is a key point. The Independent Police Conduct Authority found that if the police had done that, then surely they would have thought about engaging in alternative ways of dealing with this case. If the police had decided that the threshold for prosecution had not been met, why did they not simply engage in some good old-fashioned policing and go to the homes of those alleged offenders and hold them and their families to account? How is it that complaints like this were being made about these young men and the first time the police engaged with them was for an inadequate, ill-prepared, ill-considered interview—and that was it.

I might be old-fashioned, but I would wager that I am not alone in the public in saying that the police should have knocked on the doors of those young men. Regardless of whether they were there to put handcuffs on them, they should have questioned them on their behaviour. They should have told their families about what was going on. They should have done everything in their power to stop further victims from being put through the situation that these seven young women were, simply by confronting their behaviour. That did not happen

Probably one of the most significant other findings of the report is the question of whether everything was considered in terms of the ability to prosecute these offenders. I want to read from the report, because this is particularly important. It considered whether or not sexual conduct with a young person under 16, which is section 134 of the Crimes Act, was properly considered by the police as an option for prosecution. It states: “Under section 134 of the Crimes Act 1961, everyone who has a sexual connection with, or does an indecent act on, a young person … has committed an offence. … There is no question that these young men were aware that the young women involved in the six cases … were under 16 years.”—there is no question—“The Authority recognises that it is uncommon for Police to prosecute a young person under section 134 for sexual connection with a person of the same or a similar age. … It is clear that this general thinking underpinned the approach taken by the officers in these cases. … The Authority does not accept the validity of this reasoning, as there were a number of aggravating features in these cases that should have prompted consideration of such a prosecution. … In our view, the fact that the parties are close together in age, while a relevant factor, is not determinative. … The reality is that a prosecution under section 134 says nothing about the presence or absence of consent, because it is simply irrelevant to the facts that need to be proved.”

What needs to be proved is age, and, as the report points out, the young men involved in this case absolutely knew these young women were under age. The report finds that the police should have at least discussed this option with the victims. It is clear that the failings noted in this report are significant. The police have a lot to do if they want to give security to victims in the future that they will handle these complaints adequately.

On matters that generally require an urgent debate there is perhaps a history of contradiction across the House in defence and counter-thrust when we have these sorts of debates. I find myself in the unusual position, as the first responder on behalf of the Government, to agree with just about everything that the Labour spokesperson on justice has articulated in her intervention—not all, and I will go into a couple of those details. It really is difficult to candy coat the findings of the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s investigation into complaints regarding Roast Busters.

I just want to contextualise the events that led to the setting up of Operation Clover in the authority’s review of police’s behaviour, because Ms Ardern did talk about the role in this of the former Minister of Police, Anne Tolley, and the fact that there was perhaps some defence of the police’s actions by the then Minister of Police in respect of the investigations and the knowledge the police had, and indeed there was. But it is why I wanted to contextualise it. The same information deficit led Mrs Tolley, quite rightly, to act on the information provided to her by the police, and the police let her down by failing to provide that information to her. They had not collected the information in the manner and by the means that would have enabled them to respond quickly when the Roast Busters case became public. I think that is symptomatic of the failures that the Independent Police Conduct Authority report has highlighted.

As I say, there is simply no candy coating it. Ms Ardern has outlined a reasonably accurate time line of the events that led to where we are today, and I want to note, firstly, that those general duties officers who first responded to complaints in the earlier investigations that are described in the authority’s report acted properly and promptly. They referred those cases to the very team that had been set up in the Waitematā district to deal with just these sorts of cases, and it was the child protection team officers who, for a number of reasons I will elaborate on, dropped the ball—big time. The authority’s summary in paragraph 116, I think, sums up the essence of the failures: “Indeed, the issues were such that it is unlikely they could ever have been dealt with meaningfully and effectively solely by Police. Regrettably, Police had numerous opportunities to ‘connect the dots’ earlier, to generate a more organised, expansive and cohesive response, and to work in collaboration with CYF, the schools, and the parents of these young men to prevent their behaviour from continuing.” That to me is at the heart of this failure.

What is most disappointing to me as the Minister of Police is that that revelation is against the backdrop of what I think has actually been really, really good progress by police through their Prevention First and their Policing Excellence programmes which were set up by Minister Tolley when she was police Minister. That has led to really, really good outcomes and improvements—reductions in crime, reductions in repeat offending—and increases in reporting in terms of family and sexual violence, which is really hard to be very sure about. But I am pretty confident that, actually, what that is about is a greater level of confidence and support for young women to speak up over this offending. I hope that is the case. I do not think we are seeing a greater incidence of offending, and, as we know, the rate of speaking up is still unacceptably low. We need to make sure, firstly, that we prevent these offences from occurring and encourage young women to speak up when they do, confident that they will be treated with respect, listened to, and believed.

What worries me about this and this report is that it has the potential to set us back, which I noted in my questioning of the New Zealand Police, through Police Commissioner Bush and his team. Naturally, anybody receiving a report like this will accept its findings and work hard to ensure that the actions need to be put in place. But there is a deeper requirement going on here. I need to be sure of whether this is a systemic issue and a failure of the system, or a disappointing exception to a general trend of increasing support for victims of these crimes and one that needs to be remedied and is being remedied already. It was with that in mind that I took the findings of the authority’s report and worked with police to understand three things.

Firstly, what confidence can the New Zealand public have that should similar complaints be laid tomorrow, they would be treated differently and taken seriously? Secondly, does this reflect a culture of ambivalence within the police towards sexual assault complaints? Thirdly, what can we do as a community? It is a community problem requiring a community and Government response to provide our young people with better guidance, skills, and support around appropriate sexual conduct. That last point, I think, is probably for me, as a father of three daughters, the most important thing that can come out of this—that we recheck that we are doing all we can to be very clear that this kind of behaviour is not only criminal but just bad for the young people. It is corrosive, and it speaks to corrosion within some in our young. I have a high regard for the vast majority of our young, who know how to behave properly and respectfully. But that is a very concerning outcome of this, and I think that those three things need to be addressed. That is what I, as Minister of Police, working with my ministerial colleagues, will be doing.

So to that first question—“What confidence can we have that the complaint or complaints will be taken seriously?”—well, members do not need and should not take my word for the fact that I have that confidence. Even before this report was released, the police and other social agencies had worked very hard to ensure that there will not be a repeat of this. I hope that that is the case. As members know, there was a very important Report of the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct in 2007, the Bazley report, which looked into the culture and conduct of police in respect of a number of things, including investigation of adult sexual assault. I received a quarterly report from the Office of the Auditor-General on the progress of what is a 10-year plan to improve the culture, the performance, and the professionalism of police around these sorts of matters. The most recent report, tabled in this House in February, makes what I think are quite reassuring comments: “The Police are focusing more on the needs of people who have reported a sexual assault. Some of the victim support organisations”—those are the people who are dealing with the victims of sexual crime every day—“[that the Office of the Auditor-General] spoke to observed that the Police were more empathetic than previously. They felt that the Police showed greater respect for victims and were focusing on what was right for the victim.”

Furthermore, in respect of the police monitoring sexual assault—I am going to come to that in the context of the second question—a senior manager in the police told us that with these types of information: “We know our business [the] best we have ever known it. We agree that the Police now have better reporting systems to provide a good view of their activities. The information indicates that the Police’s performance in investigating adult sexual assaults has improved.” That is very important to me—both the quality of the investigations and, more important, the joining of the dots. I think what the report has revealed is that had the child protection team officers investigated in a different way and recorded the findings of their investigations in the National Intelligence Application database, the police database, it would have joined those dots earlier. We cannot be sure whether or not that would have resulted in a prosecution where one has not occurred, but what I am sure about is this: had that occurred, a brighter light could have been shone on the activities of these young men sooner, and that could have resulted in prevention of further incidents.

That is actually what police have been focusing on for the last 4 or 5 years: prevention first. The best way to address the offending is to prevent it from happening in the first place. They have worked very hard through things like the neighbourhood policing teams, better patrolling, and contact with a number of organisations, to ensure that they act early and professionally. What is disappointing about this is that that did not happen. So it is incumbent on me as Minister of Police, the commissioner, his team, and every single member of the New Zealand Police to reflect on those findings and to make sure that we take every single action we can to treat complaints seriously, to treat victims with empathy and support, and to record in a way that ensures that patterns of behaviour that start to emerge can be noticed quickly. I am encouraged to note that police tell me that they now work on the adult sexual assault database—part of the National Intelligence Application database—to check that sort of pattern of offending. So I do hope and expect—in answer to the first question—that if the same behaviour were to occur now, it would be investigated in a much better way.

Is there ambivalence, a culture of ambivalence, within the police? Well, the Independent Police Conduct Authority did not find that, nor did the Auditor-General in its most recent quarterly reports—in fact, quite the opposite. Very often when we hear about these sorts of failures, they are systemic failures. In fact, it is said by the authority, these were, effectively, human failures by officers who should have done a better job, frankly. So I am confident, hopeful, and optimistic that this does not reveal a culture of ambivalence towards the complainants. Again, I will be monitoring that very closely.

Lastly, what can we do as a community to provide our young people with better guidance, better skills, and better manners, frankly, as young men, around appropriate sexual behaviour? There are no easy answers to that, but the Ministry of Education and our schools do have a number of tools available. Members will be aware of Sophie Elliott’s mum, Lesley, who has the Loves-Me-Not programme, which she is working on around our secondary schools in New Zealand. There are a number of other programmes like that that are all geared towards changing behaviours and attitudes. There is a ministerial group that is set up to develop strategies for family violence and sexual violence, and it cajoles all of the Government agencies in that space to work together to get better information to improve our performance in family violence and sexual violence. I know it is working. I am encouraged by what I have seen in my 4 months as a member of that group.

Lastly, I want to challenge Jacinda Ardern and Police Association head, Greg O’Connor, on what I think are actually quite inappropriate comments today around police resourcing. I think it is very inappropriate to say that but for police resourcing this would not have happened. That is unfortunate. I reject it and I refute it—in fact, quite the opposite. Do you know how much resource has gone into these investigations, which with better reporting and better investigating at the start would have prevented a heck of a lot of downstream resourcing being invested in this? I do think it is inappropriate to refer to that. The police reject it. The Independent Police Conduct Authority did not say that that was a problem, and the commitment of resources into these types of complaints has not in any way led to the failures that are identified in the authority’s report.

💬 Sue Moroney: How can you be sure?

Because I asked them every day. Trust me, if they were, they would be very forthcoming in telling me. They have said quite the opposite, and I reject the claims by Ms Ardern and Mr O’Connor that resources had anything to do with this. This is a very disappointing exception to what I think is a trend of better policing in adult sexual assault and I hope that that standard will be maintained again in the future and we never have another Roast Busters.

Tēnā koe, Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e te Whare. I read this report in the last 2 hours and I felt sick, absolutely sick, to my stomach because things are not changing fast enough. When the Minister of Police, who gave a very sincere speech, talks about whether there is an ambivalent attitude in the police towards sexual assault, I would have to say that at 61 I have experienced an ambivalent attitude towards sexual assault everywhere in our society. We cannot label just the police. It is throughout our society, and it has not changed. The kind of date rape and assault that I and others experienced as young women is still going on. What we can talk about here is the role of the people in this House. Otherwise, if we do not change our leadership on this issue, the message to young women today is heartbreaking. The message will break their hearts.

The Green Party is calling on the Minister of Police to make change. Eight years after the Bazley review of police culture, after the Louise Nicholas case, a woman still cannot walk into a police station and claim she has been abused and have confidence that she will be believed. That has got to change. Something is not right in the police force. Three separate reviews now have found the same thing. The police do not always treat complaints by victims of sexual and child abuse seriously. This means the victims are not getting justice, and perpetrators are still free to hurt others, and I think that a huge focus of the report is on those whom we do not even know about as a result of the failure to interview the young men in these cases.

The Green Party is calling on the Minister of Police today to immediately establish an independent task force to implement and enforce change in police culture, which is needed to give justice to victims and to prevent further harm. That is the very least that should happen. No more reviews. We have had enough reviews. We need action, and we need a task force to implement the changes.

We agree with the Independent Police Conduct Authority that it is disturbing that these same themes keep coming up about the police culture and their handling of sexual violence concerning young people and adults. We do not need more reviews. We know that the police know what the issues are, and the Independent Police Conduct Authority knows. We all know what the issues are, but we need a task force to lead real change. The report of the Independent Police Conduct Authority shows that the police failed to take the complaints of the victims seriously or to take actions to prevent other young women and girls from being abused. There was no responsibility for what could happen. They did not even talk to those young men, or to some of them, let alone to their parents, in a bid to warn them or to encourage them to stop.

It is almost inconceivable to us in the Greens that these conversations were not held. It is sickening to think how many other girls and women were abused because police did not do that. I was really shocked to read that the police did not even properly write down the names of these young men, and in some cases did not ask for names when a young woman claimed that a boy had abused her. If the police had written down those names, they might have noticed a pattern—that this young woman had complained. It is basic policing—check previous police records, check other complaints—but the police did not even do that. The subtext of this is that boys will be boys—and look at the result. And still the police blame the young women for not being brave enough to come forward or provide the evidence they needed to conduct a proper investigation.

According to the report, a basic investigation of complaints did not happen or was woefully inadequate. There are pages and pages of examples here of failed practice. It is very hard to support the view of the Minister of Police that things are getting better when there could be such systemic failure. It is not about individuals; it is about system failure. Records were not kept. Child, Youth and Family was not involved. Supervision was insufficient. These were the same things that were brought up in 2010 by the Independent Police Conduct Authority and by Margaret Bazley in 2007—the same issues.

What more evidence do we need that the police are not up to the task of fixing the problem themselves? Dealing with the problem in-house is not working. That is why we believe an independent task force of the police should establish a clear work programme and implement practical changes in the force. The task force must have authority to do this. It should be able to review the implementation and change that occurs, and have members who have expertise in sexual violence prevention. This is so basic. I thought we had won this when Louise Nicholas was allowed to work with the police. What is going on? It is not good enough for the police Minister or the police force to say they have changes in hand. Most clearly, they do not. Every day that goes by, victims of sexual violence risk facing this kind of inexcusable treatment. Urgent action is required.

What is really disturbing is that there are suggestions in the report that the victims of the Roast Busters gang were treated with compassion and courtesy by the police. These women did not need courtesy and compassion in the form of niceness; they needed justice. They did not need a cup of tea, a hug, or a bunch of flowers. They came for justice and they were failed—courteously failed, no doubt; compassionately failed. But that is not compassion. It is barely courtesy, and it certainly is not justice. The police claim that they did not have enough evidence to prosecute these men cannot be taken seriously when the report shows they did not even consider what was involved. They did not even look at the range of available offences. It is all outlined in this report. They did not even look at investigating some of the claims of these young women.

The report showed that the police failed to take complaints seriously at all in some cases. It is incredibly disturbing. Is it any wonder that some young women do not want to press charges. I have to look at the other women in this House and ask: would we? Would we at 14? Would we at 13? Would we feel that it was worth it, after hearing this terrible story? Would we encourage our daughters or our sons to seek justice through the justice system at a young age when this is how they are treated? As my colleague Jan Logie said today, it is hard to conceive how the police could now do right by the complainants, but the least the police Minister can do is ensure that failures like this never happen again.

The victims of abuse in this country should be confident they can walk into any police station anywhere in the country, make a complaint, and be taken seriously. Not only that, they should know that the weight of the justice system will fall in behind them and ensure that they get the justice they deserve. It is really horrifying reading in this report. I urge members to read it. We are responsible for the organs of this State, the institutions of this State. We cannot hand this back to the police and say: “Yes, you’ve got a 10-year plan. Yes, it seems like you’re trying hard. That’s enough.” It is not enough. We have had three reviews—three reports—now, and we have a society where some in the media colluded with the police failure over the Roast Busters case, where some people made comments that deterred young women. So I would not isolate just the police force. I would say we have a society where there are still people who will rationalise, justify, minimise, and ignore attacks on young women, who will accept sexual assault as part of growing up and as somehow normal and acceptable.

It is very disturbing to read the comments of the police officer who said that he did not talk to the parents about the young men’s behaviour because he got side-tracked. It is extremely disturbing to think that the culture could exist where he felt he could get away with that within his own professional organisation. So that is why it is not about an individual, bad policeman; it is about the fact that the supervision was inadequate. If you read this report, you will see how the supervision of the front-line police was inadequate as well. So the problem goes up the chain. It goes out of the organisation and into a society where young women are not treated with sufficient respect, and so when they experience, or even allege, this kind of abuse, they cannot get the State to support them enough to even investigate the situation.

It is a damning report, but it is worse than that. It is a situation where some people may give up hope. We cannot afford to give up hope that justice can be done in this country for victims of sexual abuse and assault, especially for young ones. If I was a young woman and if I saw this report now, I would be wondering whether it is worth telling anybody what happened to me. If I was a young man—what is the message to the young men? What is the message to those young men who were involved and who got away with this scot-free and whose parents did not even get consulted because the officer got side-tracked? What is the message? That it is OK? That you can get away with it? That, actually, society does not care enough? That the police force does not care enough to even ask you to be accountable for your behaviour? This is a dark day and we must have an independent task force to make genuine change so that we do not have our young women giving up hope. Kia ora.

Kia ora, Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a sad day, actually. It is a very sad day. This is a sad topic, and I am sure that all of us would prefer not to be here discussing it. I, first of all, want to acknowledge the Minister of Police for his contribution. It was a sincere contribution and I believe he meant every word he said. I believe that he is as moved by these circumstances and this case as everybody else in New Zealand has been. But what are we going to do about it? I also want to acknowledge that the police officers in the New Zealand Police are fathers, are mothers, are aunts, and are uncles, and they can in the first person place this inside the possibility that it could happen to a family member of theirs. So none of us are happy about it, but what are we going to do about it?

This report has quite clearly shown us that we have severe failings inside the police force. I would go further to suggest that we actually have failings inside the whole of that system and inside legislation. Roast Busters, this particular case that the report is focused on, broke out into news. It became a major focus for the country. However, in my own area the exact same circumstances have occurred to young women—young women who then took a case forward to try to find justice through the court system. After a year of walking forward, telling her story again and again and again, with her parents walking alongside her and school counsellors walking alongside them, it ended up with “He-said she-said. Go home.” What are we going to do about it?

It is not a National Party problem. It is not an Opposition problem. It is our problem. So what are we in this House going to do about it? What cross-party accord, what cross-party work, will we do to make whatever legislative change we need to make to have women believed in the first instance, no matter what their age? So when they walk in and say this was done to me, it will be believed in the first instance. Everything must have balance. We have legislation in place. We have laws in place. If a person makes a false accusation, they can be held accountable for that. So how will we make this shift? How will we, as a society, send out the message that you cannot do this to people, whether they be young men or young women—that you cannot, in a moment of vulnerability, take advantage of them and because it becomes he-said she-said you will be fairly free and clear?

We pick up on the Green Party member’s call for an independent task force. We would like to talk about it. We would like Parliament to talk about it. We cannot allow this report to then lie there, for us to wail and beat our breast and then leave it alone. This has gone on for years. Young women feel guilt and they do not report when something happens to them. Many young women find themselves in a situation where have gone out at the weekend, they may have had a drink too many, and something has happened to them that they have not been able to give their consent for. It then takes them days to find enough courage to come forward to report it. By that time, the evidence has gone. What will we do to create a situation where young women do not feel ashamed in the first instance when they know that someone has taken advantage of them?

The Minister mentioned Lesley Elliott’s programme Loves-Me-Not. It is a brilliant programme, and I am not going to play politics with it around who should fund it or who should not fund it. I am not going to go there. Let us not go there. Let us just say it is a brilliant programme and we need it to be in place. Let us go just there—that we need it to be in place. But let us also look at other things like the Healthy Relationships programme, which, again, balances for both genders so that young men and young women at year 9 and year 10 know what a healthy relationship looks like. They also get the knowledge and the information that if this happens to you, you tell somebody straight away. Let us not pussyfoot around. Let us give our young people the knowledge and the skills to actually step forward to the school counsellors, and then the school counsellors go forward to the police. We need to have confidence that although the police might empathise and might feel terrible—I believe they feel terrible for these young women—they also feel empowered to take the case forward.

I cannot go into the minds of the police officers who did not go and speak to the young men or the young men’s families. I cannot go into their minds and figure out why it was—whether they were overloaded or whatever that story was. But, possibly, do they feel empowered enough? Do they feel that if they had taken those cases forward, they would have been supported? Have we asked them? Why? I would love to know the motivation why the records were not kept, why the records were not well reported, and why we did not just take notes around that. So, yes, the Minister can say that we hope that this is a personal failure or an individual failure by certain police officers, but it is not just this case, and that is half of the problem. This is actually across New Zealand. We have such a wide issue here. We need to do something about it.

I want to pick up on Jacinda Ardern’s comments around sexual connection for those under the age of 16—section 134 of the Crimes Act—and that it is an offence. The report acknowledges that in certain circumstances here both the victim and the offender were under the age of 16. So what is the answer to that? If these young men had been spoken to, if their families had been spoken to, if the report had been taken seriously—these are now two juveniles. These are now two children who are engaging in a sexual relationship—sorry, I take that back; I beg your pardon. They are not engaging in a sexual relationship; a sexual act has taken place. They are not engaged at all. The young woman was not engaged. Surely that is a situation that borders on the lines of abuse or neglect. Where were the Child, Youth and Family workers then? Where is the confidence on behalf of the police, when they come up against a case like that again, of how they will treat it in the future? How can we make sure the understanding is widespread that if you run up against a case where both parties are under the age of 16, it will be treated in a different way, but treated seriously, so at least the young woman and her family see, and the young man gets the message, that this is a serious issue and this is unacceptable behaviour?

New Zealand First joins with the other parties of the House. This is one of the most disturbing cases we have had in recent years. Unfortunately, it is high profile but it is not isolated. This is happening in small numbers everywhere across New Zealand. Young women are coming forward after an incident has happened in the weekend—sometimes days after, sometimes weeks after—and reporting to school counsellors across the country behaviour that they now feel unable to deal with. We, in this House, have got to figure out a way to deal with this on a much better level and on a much bigger scale. We need to support it financially. We need to support it emotionally. We need to support it. It has been too long. We all believe that it is not appropriate. We all believe that this is not the way we want our world to work. We do not want young women to say: “That is just how it is.” So I would hope that we might have a cross-party conversation about the independent task force, and I hope that the Government might participate in cross-party talks to sort something out.

I was the Minister of Police who asked the Independent Police Conduct Authority to investigate this case.

💬 Sue Moroney: No, Jacinda put a complaint in.

I did that because politicians cannot interfere with police investigations. I have to say I was the first Minister of Police to ever refer the police to the authority. I was the person who referred the police to the Independent Police Conduct Authority because I knew, as this report shows, that the authority can reach into the individual investigations to have a look and report on how those investigations were conducted, which no politician can ever do.

When I look at what I said at the time, I said publicly that the commissioner had assured me that the inquiry had been thorough, but I was not convinced—and in fact I was made aware—that the full facts had not been made available to him as commissioner, let alone to me as Minister.

💬 Sue Moroney: That’s not what you said first off.

It is what I said. It is exactly what I said at the time, because what had happened was we had had a number of changing, confusing stories given to us—both the commissioner and myself—from the police on the ground that showed, as I say, confusion. So I could not be sure that the commissioner had fully at his fingertips the facts of the inquiry, and in fact that proved to be the case.

I think the things that worried me were, first, those stories were changing. I was also really worried about the age of all of the participants, and that is something I will come back to. There were 13 and 14-year-old girls with 16 and 17-year-old boys. I know that does not seem, as an adult, to be a big difference, but we all know in those teenage years that there is a world apart between a 13-year-old girl and a 17-year-old boy, or even a 16-year-old boy. They are worlds apart. I was really concerned about the ages of the youngsters involved, and I was also worried—and it is not just the police; it is widespread in our community—that when you have a young girl who is involved with sex and alcohol, and those of us who have been parents of young girls have often had experience with this, to actually talk about them as being able to make informed consent I think is dangerous, and to accept that their participation in those events was consented I think is dangerous.

So those were the concerns that I had when I referred the police to the Independent Police Conduct Authority. As the Minister of Police, that is not something you do lightly. The report that the Independent Police Conduct Authority released today makes me pleased that I made that decision because all of those concerns that I had have been validated in this report. I have to say, like everyone in this House, we find the Independent Police Conduct Authority’s findings really disappointing, because we have high expectations of our police, and rightly so. I have always said they are the best police in the world. We are very fortunate with the calibre of people who go into our police, and so we have high expectations of them, and we should have high expectations, and they have let us down. What is more, they have let down young people—young, vulnerable people in our community.

I am also pleased because from today’s report the girls now have the full story, and so they understand what happened to them and their experiences, and why things did not happen the way that they, perhaps, expected them to. But I do want to sound a note of caution. The Independent Police Conduct Authority report released today found individual failures. It did not find systemic failures.

It found individual failures, and we should be making sure that we focus on those. The police Minister has already indicated that he will ensure that they are individual failures and that they are remedied by better systems.

The police have made enormous changes since the Dame Margaret Bazley report, which was a 10-year process. It was not just about changing policies; it was about implementing those policies. The audit report on that shows that they are making progress but they have still got a way to go. Of course, I am absolutely delighted that they have someone like Louise Nicholas working with them, with all the experience that she brings.

The police today have accepted that there was poor practice by their teams. There was poor supervision. There was poor communication. We had different police stations involved, and I have to say we had different Child, Youth and Family officers involved and they did not talk to one another. It meant they did not connect the dots, and therefore they were not able to protect those young women. The recurring theme through it was, yes, they did treat those young women well, and the Independent Police Conduct Authority makes that comment, but that recurring theme of their reluctance to go further because the young women were reluctant to take it further overrode their responsibility to protect the wider group of vulnerable young people in the community. I think that is very important.

The Independent Police Conduct Authority report actually says that because officers concluded that there was insufficient evidence to proceed without the cooperation of the young women, they decided that no further action was required. They therefore overlooked the importance of holding the young men accountable for their behaviour and preventing its recurrence. The police’s whole focus on prevention was let down because they did not focus on that part of the issue rather than on the wishes of the young women. And we all understand why young girls of 13 and 14 do not want to go through that process.

However, there is another dimension that I just want to bring forth today, and it is that I, as social development Minister, believe that Child, Youth and Family should have done better in this process, because it is clear that it was involved in all of this and its processes were not good enough either. That comes out through the Independent Police Conduct Authority report, where on a number of occasions it refers to the fact that something had been discussed with Child, Youth and Family and follow-up action was not taken and records were not kept, and so again those dots were not joined up early enough along.

So I have agreed today that an independent review by the Chief Social Worker, Paul Nixon, based here in Wellington, will be put in place to go over this—the complete practice of Child, Youth and Family in those offices concerned. I hope from that we will then be able to match that with the very thorough review that the Independent Police Conduct Authority has done and ensure that what we have learnt from this means that the processes are changed and that policies are put into place to prevent this from happening to any group of young, vulnerable New Zealanders again. And, of course, the workings of those combined teams, the child protection teams, who are specialists in dealing with young people and sexual issues—it is absolutely critical that they are working together cohesively.

But, more important, I think the thing that worries me the most, with my current Child, Youth and Family Minister hat on, is who is responsible at the end of the day for the well-being of those young, vulnerable people if a prosecution cannot take place because there is not sufficient evidence. I pick up the point that it is he-said she-said. That is the justice system. People are innocent until they are proven guilty, and we change that at our peril, but in the meantime there are young, vulnerable New Zealanders, both girls and boys, who are involved in really dangerous activity. Someone somewhere has to take responsibility for dealing with that and for protecting them and working with their families to keep them safe. And if there is one thing that we all learn out of this, from the police perspective, from the Child, Youth and Family perspective, and from us as politicians, it is that we have to give credence to that thought that someone has to take responsibility, even if a prosecution cannot take place. Thank you.

I want to pick up where the Minister who just resumed her seat, Minister Tolley, has left off, because the reason we are debating the Independent Police Conduct Authority report into the teenage rape case released today in the House at all today is that the Speaker has deemed that there is ministerial responsibility for what has occurred. And you would never know it, listening to the speeches from the National Party members, that, actually, there is ministerial responsibility on this issue. They need to take it an awful lot more seriously because, so far, their contributions have all been about what the police should have done, and the police this and the police that, and Child, Youth and Family this and Child, Youth and Family that. Ministers, take some responsibility, because until that happens we will not crack this one. We will not crack this one.

This was the case that shocked the nation. Why did it shock the nation? Actually, sadly, not because people did not believe it was happening. People know that in their communities this type of thing is happening. It shocked the nation because people thought: “How could this have happened? How could this group of young men have been subjecting a large group of young women to sexual abuse, to rape, had been so confident about their right to do that that they gloated on social media about it, and the young women had sought justice from the police and nothing happened—nothing happened. For 2 years this went on, and nothing happened. How could that be?”. That is what shocked the nation, sadly. Sadly, the nation was shocked about that rather than about the fact that it happened at all. Why is that? Because what this case exposed was an underbelly of sexism that we all know in our hearts exists in this country, and we have not addressed it. We have not addressed it because we want to blame someone else. We want to blame the police; or Ministers want to talk about what Child, Youth and Family did wrong. Yes, those agencies did let those young women down, but there is ministerial responsibility. How could it be that at the height of the Bazley review, after everything that was exposed in the Louise Nicholas case and how her issues were ignored by police, and the implementation of that review, it happens all over again?

I want to stand up on behalf of New Zealand women and say that we have had enough. We have had enough of our issues not being taken seriously. We have had enough of the duck-shoving that goes on around this. No more. We must address it now. The Minister who just resumed her seat has done a little bit of rewriting of history, and I think that is a great shame. I think it is a great shame that that has occurred in this debate, because one of the fundamental things at the base of this case is what the law says about sexual assault. What the law says and what the police policies uphold is that the police actually do not need a complaint in order to prosecute for sexual assault. And yet there have been two Ministers already on their feet today in this House making the same mistake all over again. The Minister of Police at question time said that the only way these victims could get their issue addressed is to raise yet another complaint or to add some more detail to their complaints that have already been placed before the police. But that is wrong, because the policy policies say that they can pursue a prosecution for sexual assault without a complaint having actually been lodged. So it seems that the Ministers have not learnt a thing through this exercise. They have not learnt a thing. We had the Minister who has just resumed her seat, Anne Tolley, who was the Minister of Police at the time, saying the day the issue, I guess, exploded on to the media that the police had done a full investigation, and she said that the reason they could not prosecute or they had not prosecuted those young men involved was that they had had no formal complaint. Well, it turns out that she had been advised wrongly, but imagine for a minute that that was the case. Even if that was the case, that there had been no formal complaint, the police’s own policies say that they did not need a complaint in order to pursue those charges of rape, or what these days the law calls sexual assault. That should have happened.

I really want the House to understand that even the Ministers’ responses today, after all of the reviews and decisions and all of the debate and discussion, are still not understanding what is required to happen here. I will not feel that we have done our job until these issues are addressed. Because, yes, I want to make sure it never happens again. But I also want to make sure that what has already occurred gets addressed, that justice is done for these young women, because these young women have already been subjected to enough. Do they really, Minister, need to make yet another complaint in order to have their issues addressed? Because that is not what the law says, and it is not what the police policy says, and it is not, in fact, what the Minister of Police himself told me in answers to written questions in November last year. That is why I was asking the Minister questions today. In November last year you gave me answers to questions that clearly outlined that the police had not done their homework, investigated this properly, and pursued all the options. Why has he sat on his hands and done nothing, and waited, and waited, and waited for many more months, until today’s report came out? And even then, he says that the young women have to do something more, still, to get their issues addressed. Minister, stand up for victims, stand up for the women in New Zealand, because we really have had enough.

In the Minister’s response in this debate, he talked about the Loves-Me-Not programme, which is being rolled out by Lesley Elliot. It is a fantastic programme. I think we all agree on that. And I am not going to shy away—I am not going to shy away—from saying: “Where is the funding to support this programme?”, because if we cannot ask that question in this debate, then what on earth are we doing having this discussion at all? I am going to ask about the funding because we need to—by our actions, by the prioritisation that we give to funding, by everything that we do—denounce what has happened in this case. I want to say, again, that there is something in our society that made these young men feel so confident about their right to abuse those young women in that way. They did not feel guilty about it. They did not feel upset about it. They did not feel any contrition about it. They gloated about it. They gloated about it, and that is the sort of thing that we have got to stop.

I do not think that anything that occurred in the 2 years before the media had to expose this case—I, by the way, will not dignify it with the name that it has become known by, because that is the name that those young men chose to make themselves feel heroic and to denigrate, once again, the young women whom they were abusing. I refuse to actually dignify it by giving it that name. This was teenage rape that was occurring. That is what we should call it. I am not going to use that other phrase to refer to it. I do not feel any comfort from anything that I have heard from the Government today on this issue. I do not believe it has learnt a thing and I want to see a much stronger response.

Unlike the member Sue Moroney, who has just spoken, I actually do not think there is too much disagreement in this House this afternoon. The fact is that we are standing here discussing an issue when there is a group of girls who deserved better than they got. But they deserved better than they got from a wide range of people and organisations. And I do agree with the member who just resumed her seat that it was the boys who actually took these actions in the first place who deserve the greatest criticism. I have not heard that enough in this House. Every New Zealand girl deserves to be safe. The fact that we have boys who think that that kind of behaviour is acceptable is exactly what we as a Parliament, as a country, as a society, and as families need to deal with first.

This debate today, however, is about the report that the Independent Police Conduct Authority has delivered. There is no disagreement in this House that that report is tragic reading, because those girls were failed. There is no disputing that. But I do dispute the fact that, actually, for the first time in this Parliament’s history, it was the Minister of Police who requested that the Independent Police Conduct Authority investigate. I think that says it all. And the comments in the House from the former Minister of Police and the current Minister of Police, I think, say it all in terms of how frustrating and how disappointing it is to read a report like we have today.

But I think in the wider context of this, it is important that we do not go so far with this as to leave the New Zealand public with a view that the New Zealand Police are failing us, because I do not believe that that is the case. There have been some significant findings in this case that absolutely must be addressed. There have also been some learnings that have already started to be addressed by this Government.

As the person who stood out in the forecourt here in Parliament to receive the petition that Jessie Hume had organised with over 110,000 signatures, I can say that, actually, the behaviour of those boys and their view that they could get away with it was why there was that level of outrage and disgust from one end of the country to the other. That is what we as a Parliament have to address. I am not going to speak specifically about the actions that will come out of this for the police to address, but I have absolutely no doubt that the commissioner is very clear about the views of how important that is.

The previous speaker said that this Government has done nothing. Well, that is absolute rot. That is absolute rot, and I want to take a minute to go through some of the things that we have actually done as a result, because I do not want that misstatement to be left in this space.

💬 Sue Moroney: Who said that? Whoever said that?

You did. The previous speaker Sue Moroney did say that we had not taken action. There has been additional funding into rape prevention. The Minister for Social Development put $10.4 million into specialist sexual violence services. ACC launched their Mates and Dates programme. A New Zealand sexual violence primary prevention strategy is being developed. The Minister of Justice has pressed the button to make the Law Commission’s work on proposals to improve the victims’ court experience a high priority. There are specialist restorative justice services for sexual violence cases. There is an endless list of work that has taken place because of the concerns around making sure we protect victims of sexual violence. It is unacceptable. It is unacceptable for girls in this country to be valued any less than anyone else. The fact that this action has taken place has demonstrated some of that, and it is intolerable.

What do victims need to obtain justice in the New Zealand police system? What do victims need? They need timeliness, they need compassion, they need to feel like they have been heard, they need not to be revictimised, and, once they have told their story to the police, they need the police to take action on their behalf. Did the victims in this case receive justice?

The police received reports of concern about four separate incidents of the alleged sexual conduct involving the group between late 2011 and 2013. The police were aware of the group at least 2 years before the media attention broke. Later, in November of 2013, the police and Child, Youth and Family commissioned a joint investigation project, Operation Clover, and the initial analysis of the various social media comments showed that there were at least 30 girls suspected to have been involved with this group and that seven of them had made formal complaints. How is that timely? In December 2013 the Independent Police Conduct Authority was notified by the police of the complaint made by a young woman regarding the police handling of a sexual assault complaint that she had already made to the police back in November 2011—and the authority was already aware of the incident. Where was the compassion in that? In late October 2014 the police conducted Operation Clover. None of the police investigations resulted in criminal charges being laid by police against members of the group. Did the victims feel that they had been heard?

The victims of this were children—they were children. Every time the media shows a story or replays any of the action, it is evident that the police were handling this badly. Does that mean that the victims were heard? Does that mean that the police took action, as they were required to do? Some of the victims did not feel comfortable with continuing with the investigation. Again, I reiterate that these were children and it was not a requirement of the police to investigate—it was not a requirement. Why did they not actually adhere to police policy and investigate, even when the victims said they did not want to continue? Let us face it, when you are a victim of sexual abuse it takes you a long time to have the courage to go to the police, and the expectation you have is that they will act and they will give you justice.

I was involved in some research conducted in the family violence sector that showed categorically that up to 85 percent of victims of family violence are also victims of sexual violence—85 percent. If we look at the number of victims of family violence in this country, it is an epidemic beyond proportion. If 85 percent of those victims have also been sexually violated, we have an epidemic on our hands. The Minister stood in this Chamber tonight and challenged Jacinda Ardern’s claim that the situation indicated a lack of police resource. Well, I say to you that Jacinda was being generous, because if it is not a lack of resource, then it is about attitude and culture—an attitude that sexual predation is OK and an attitude that the police do not care, and a culture of indifference—and I for one will not stand for that. Thank you, and I wish not to have to speak on this ever again.

The report into Operation Clover and the subsequent report today of the Independent Police Conduct Authority are undoubtedly sober reading for us all. As the Minister of Police and others have said, it is extremely disappointing to hear from the authority of these serious inadequacies in the police investigation. I think it is quite right that this House would be concerned about that and would want to take the time out of its schedule to register, in the strongest terms, its concern.

It is fundamental to our system of law and order that the police have the respect of all New Zealand and that New Zealanders see them as being above reproach and always operating to the highest standards of ethics and good practice. Although I have absolutely no doubt that for most of the time for most police officers that would be true, the reality is that it takes the actions of only one or two officers in one or two cases to seriously damage that trust and reputation. Although it is an incredibly tough and high standard to hold our police to, I think we can and must hold them to that standard.

Sexual violence in New Zealand, as it is in other countries, is a matter of shame for this country. It is not a problem that is unique to New Zealand but it is a problem that New Zealand absolutely can and must face up to. In my view, the incredibly high incidence of sexual violence—and, actually, even more concerning, the extent to which some women expect to be treated in that way, or accept that they will be treated in that way, and do not feel that it is their place to stand up—is an absolute criticism of our country. The attitude that prevails amongst some is one of hostility and aggression towards women and that cannot be allowed to carry on.

We have a situation—and we saw it, actually, in this Roast Busters case when we read the report into Operation Clover—where the young women concerned were very reluctant to come forward and very reluctant, in many cases, to make a complaint. It was very interesting to read the reports as to why that was. The women gave three reasons, in the main. The first—and what is noted, overwhelmingly, as the biggest concern for them—was actually the ramifications and the fallout that they would have had from their peers and their families. They feared that they would be looked down on in the eyes of their families, and that they would face criticism from their peers. If we have a culture where a woman feels reluctant to come forward because of how society will treat her, then we have an issue not just in the police, in this instance, but across our society.

The other really concerning aspect that the report mentions—well, there are two more, but the first of those—was that the women themselves felt somehow culpable. That really upset me—that they felt that somehow, because of the way they were dressed, the way they were acting, the fact that they had had a few drinks, they might have been flirting, they had lost the right to complain about what subsequently happened to them. I am horrified to think that young women in New Zealand are being led to believe—and I do not think it is necessarily a sort of formal training; but the way they are growing up is encouraging them to believe—that somehow, if you wear a certain type of clothes, or act in a certain way, or have a few drinks, then you get what is coming to you. You absolutely do not. A woman can wear what she likes, she can say what she likes, and she can act as she will—she never ever can be held responsible for sexual violence that happens to her.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Well said, Amy—well said.

Thank you. I do not know what more we need to do to teach our young women this, but as a mother, as an aunt, and as a member of our society, and I am sure every woman in this House would agree, I say we have to do better in teaching our young women that they do not have to feel that they are responsible.

The final reason that the women gave—and I certainly do not want to shy away from this—was that they were concerned about what coming forward would mean for them in terms of having to go through the system. This is an area that is absolutely on my plate and I am happy to reflect that this is an area in which I have to take leadership, and I am happy to try to do that.

We know that coming forward and going through the court system can be incredibly destroying for victims. Many of them describe it as a process of revictimisation. Again, that cannot be a way forward. We cannot hope to make a difference if victims are being told: “I wouldn’t come forward if I were you because the process is so awful.” Although I understand the rationale for people to make those comments, we simply cannot send the message not to come forward. We have to support the women who come forward—those who have the courage to stand up in the face of all of those issues and doubts and concerns that I have mentioned—and we have to support them through a system that is more supportive.

My own view is that I do not think that it will ever be easy, and we should not kid ourselves that we can design a court system where it is easy for victims to have to go forward, retell their story, and go through a process of questioning. But what we absolutely can do is make it better than it is. That is why I have committed to doing a number of things in my time as Minister of Justice. Let me say first off that I am absolutely open to working with anyone in this House who has suggestions as to how we can make it better. I do not believe this is a political issue. I do not believe that there is any party in this House that would not recognise that we need to make it better. Anyone who wants to step forward with good ideas and good advice, I certainly want to hear from.

The House will know that I have asked the Law Commission to urgently recommence its work on pre-trial and trial practices in sexual violence cases for this very reason. There is a lot of good work in its initial issues paper and I think we can make some changes. Let me just say, though, that change is always difficult. I get a lot of feedback that people are excited to hear that we are looking at it, but when you actually come to make the change it is incredible how often you then get all these reasons why you should not possibly do it. So I will need the support of this House when it comes time to say that if we want different outcomes, we have to do things differently.

I am also in the process of creating the role of chief victims advisers to Ministers, in order to make sure right across Government and across all ministries we ensure that we have independent and contestable advice coming to us about the impact on victims.

There is one other thing that I did really want to spend a bit of time on in this last contribution in this urgent debate, and that is the absolutely abhorrent attitude of these young men. Any perpetrator of sexual violence is obviously the lowest of the low, but the particular attitude of the young men involved in this case was gobsmackingly appalling. Not only did they demean, assault, and invade these young women, they laughed about it, they demeaned it, and they publicised it through social media because they wanted to make themselves look like the big guys and one-up themselves.

We have to recognise that in the modern digital world—and I apologise to the House in advance for my language—the behaviour commonly known as “slut shaming” or “revenge porn” has become increasingly prevalent and it is a serious threat to our young women and young people. We have to understand that in a digital world the ability to revictimise and re-traumatise these victims is real and can often be more damaging in some events than the original case.

In front of the House is the Harmful Digital Communications Bill, which is making an effort to at least allow us to stop these women being revictimised through explosive, viral, fast-disseminated means, and I hope we will have the support of this entire House, so that should a situation like this ever arise again, not only do we absolutely expect a better standard of performance from our police but we absolutely should expect that as a society—we might not have been able to prevent the initial attack, but we absolutely can prevent these women from being revictimised through social media.

The last speaker before me in the debate, Ms Williams, spoke about the link between sexual violence and domestic violence, and I want to reiterate that. There is a very clear link often between the dramatically high rates of family violence and sexual violence, and in many of the issues we face, particularly in designing a system response, the investigation, the handling of the cases, many of the same issues arise.

In New Zealand we have one domestic violence notification every 6 minutes. Half of all our homicides are related to domestic violence. We lose, on average, 14 women, seven men, and eight children a year. I know that the particular case in front of us is not a domestic violence situation but, actually, some of the underlying attitudes, approaches, and outlook, the intergenerational normalisation of this behaviour, is underlying both of them. This cannot ever be allowed to be repeated.

The debate having concluded, the motion lapsed.