Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill

I move, That the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill be now read a third time.

I would like to dedicate my speech today to every victim of domestic violence who ever felt trapped, and to every person who had an employee or workmate who was being abused and didn’t know how to help.

It’s a great honour for me to be able to stand here today and welcome in this new era in our response to domestic violence. I want to thank Labour and New Zealand First for their support. The debate on this bill has made me more grateful than ever to New Zealand First for their decision to change the Government. It’s really exciting to be part of a Government that wants to really get to the heart of the things that are holding us back as a country.

In this beautiful, gutsy, vibrant country of ours, police are called out to a family violence incident every four minutes, and that’s only about 20 to 25 percent of incidents. Around 230,000 adults and many more children currently live in fear of their partner or parent. We have a problem, and we will not solve this problem by continuing to focus all of our resources and efforts on what happens after the police have been called. The previous Government’s stocktake on Government spending found that only 1.5 percent of our efforts and budgets go to prevention. Only 6.6 percent go to early intervention. We wait until things get really bad or someone is killed, and then we wring our hands, squeeze in another hospital bed, and build another prison. No wonder gender-based violence has become entrenched. This bill is a commitment to early intervention and prevention.

The impact of every workplace in Aotearoa saying, “The safety and well-being of our staff experiencing domestic violence is our business”—this challenges the fundamental social dynamic that has allowed this violence to flourish. Tonight, we are changing social norms and making a commitment to a better future for all of us. Domestic violence isn’t restricted to the home; it reaches into workplaces all over our country. Stalking, constant emails, attacks or threats in and outside of the workplace, making her late or making her miss work altogether, punishing her for being late—these are common tactics of abuse. They can be directed at the victim or the victims’ workmates. They undermine the safety and productivity of our workplaces.

All too often, victims have to leave their jobs because of this, and it makes them more reliant on their abusive partner and means their employer has to recruit and train up new staff. It’s a lose-lose situation. Workmates or employers are often the only people who know about the violence, but too many don’t know how to help. It’s pretty hard to flee the violence when your abuser knows when and where you work and can easily find you. That is a real risk and means some victims return to their abusers because at least they know where they are and feel they can manage the violence there. Not knowing how to manage this risk in our workplaces puts lives at risk.

Then there’s the situation of a victim who does manage to leave. We’ve heard from victims, court staff, and survivors themselves that existing leave provisions are sometimes not enough to be able to deal with the courts, find a new house, go to counselling, or support their children dealing with trauma. It doesn’t make sense to tell victims that we want them to leave and then force them into poverty when they do. Again, employers lose great staff.

Women’s Refuge research showed that 60 percent of New Zealand women who’d been in a violent relationship were in full-time work before the relationship started, but fewer than half managed to stay in work. Those who stayed faced numerous hardships affecting their future employment prospects, and those who left found it difficult to re-enter the workforce. Respondents frequently spoke about being forced to quit or having their employment situations made untenable by the abuser.

The need for improved flexible working arrangements, additional leave, and protection from discrimination is well-established. So the problem definition is clear, and the appropriateness of this response has been tested in an ever-increasing number of businesses here and overseas. Yet we’ve been hearing from the Opposition that despite their commitment to tackling family violence, they couldn’t possibly support this bill because, they say, we’re ignoring children, it’s too much to extend leave to support people, businesses will fall over, every victim will take 10 days’ leave a year, and it’s a cost to business. It’s become clear to me through this debate that many of the National Party members speaking on this bill have not even bothered to read it, let alone the research that supports it.

For any employers out there who are watching this debate, I want you to know that the leave only applies to victims and people caring for children who are victims. It entitles victims to up to 10 days’ leave a year, and yet experience shows that most victims don’t take that full 10 days. On this side of the House, our debate has been founded on rigorous economic and social research from New Zealand and overseas, grounded in the experiences of workplaces who are doing this already. What this research has found is that the initial cost of implementing these policies right across the country would be less than an annual wage increase in a bad year. That is rapidly offset from returns from lower staff turnover and increased productivity. So don’t buy the lie that this will be a cost. This is a benefit. In Australia, one of the largest advocates of these policies is the Retailers Association who represents many small and medium sized businesses.

So we have a massive social problem, measured in lives lost, profound harm done, and significant lost productivity to business. This bill is a win for victims, a win for business, and, ultimately, a win for all of us.

It’s been seven years to get here to today, so I want to thank some of the individuals who have played a really important role in drafting, advising, and organising, who may not have been visible: Lisa Close, Eva Hartshorn-Sanders, Ludo McFerran, Jeff Sissons, Marie Retimanu-Pule, Jessie Dennis, Tara Ford, Whetū Kura-Bennett, Heather McDonald, Claire Lyons, and Stephanie Rodgers. Thank you for your work. And, of course, to acknowledge the New Zealand Public Service Association, who started championing this cause back in 2011, and all the other unions—FIRST Union, E tū, Post Primary Teachers’ Association, and New Zealand Nurses Organisation—who have been putting these policies on the bargaining table for years now.

It’s been wonderful to see Countdown, The Warehouse, Vodafone New Zealand Ltd, ANZ, and so many other businesses following that lead and doing this of their own will, and, of course, Shine and Women’s Refuge, who have been supporting these businesses to do this work. Suzanne Snively’s done the New Zealand economic modelling to show the benefits, National Council of Women of New Zealand, Zonta International, BPW, and of course our amazing champion the Equal Employment Opportunities Commissioner, Jackie Blue, for bringing businesses together to develop resources to make this easy for other businesses.

All of these groups, businesses, and people get that we are in this together, that domestic violence is something that we all have a stake in reducing. That is the context of this bill. That is the tide of history. Today, we will become the first country in the world to provide these protections as universal entitlements. Today, we stand for a future free of domestic violence.

Mā whero, mā pango, mā kākariki, ka oti ai te mahi.

[With red, black, and green, the work will be completed.]

The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call the Hon Judith Collins.

Waiata

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. I trust, Mr Assistant Speaker, that’s not coming off my time. Thank you very much.

We’ll start the clock again—I call the Hon Judith Collins.

Thank you very much, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s been interesting to listen to Ms Jan Logie’s speech to the House; a very impassioned speech, and I congratulate her on it. I’d also like to say—as I understand that she is a member of the executive—that I’m surprised that this hasn’t been advanced as a Government bill paid for by the taxpayer through the Budget process when it comes to this entitlement to leave. I would have thought that a Government who wanted to support this bill would want to say that this is something that employers should not be meeting the cost of but, rather, the whole of New Zealand should because it would be in the best interests of all of New Zealand, plus those who are clearly the victims of family violence.

The National Party has a very proud record in Government when it comes to tackling the issue of family violence. In 2016, we introduced a $132 million package of reforms which overhauled the whole family violence law and the way in which the system prevents and responds to family violence. In the 2017 Budget, we invested $37.2 million into targeted family violence services, including the Integrated Safety Response (ISR) pilot and the Gang Action Plan pilot. That ISR pilot has helped over 24,000 people, through the development of more than 8,000 family safety plans. I don’t believe that the current Government supports any of that.

The 2017 investment fund for mental health saw $4 million to pilot a culturally responsive therapy service for children aged five to 12 years that have experienced or been exposed to family and/or sexual violence. Budget 2016 provided $46 million of operating funding over four years, including $6.4 million of reprioritised funding to design and implement new sexual violence services and to develop and support existing services. We took an across-the-board approach to better protect victims of family violence. We brought in a new 24/7 national sexual violence helpline to provide nationally accessible information and to support people affected in any way by sexual harm. We established a ministerial group on family violence and sexual violence across 16 portfolios to oversee a work programme aiming to improve the current system and to deliver better results for all those affected by sexual violence.

We improved our investment in crisis support services for victims of sexual violence. The Ministry of Social Development and ACC worked together to ensure better coverage across prevention, crisis response, and long-term care and recovery. We increased the penalty for breaching protection orders. We kept up to 1,000 victims of family violence safe each year in their own homes by funding and promoting the National Home Safety Service. We provided judges access to information in family violence cases by improving information-sharing regulations. Alongside, police and judiciary programmes have been running in Porirua, Christchurch, Wellington, and Northland to give judges who are making bail decisions a family violence summary report on the defendant’s family violence history, and we brought in a new disclosure scheme, the police Family Violence Information Disclosure Scheme, which was created to make it easier for police to release a person’s violent criminal past to a concerned partner or friend. We did these things in Government, and we did not ask employers to pay for that. We asked the taxpayers to pay for it for the betterment of New Zealand.

What this bill lacks is something which shows that it wants to put all of the costs of this on to small employers in particular. I am very pleased that some very large employers can, in fact, and do offer a 10-day working leave for people who are the victims of family violence. That is a good thing, but most people in New Zealand are not employed in big business. Most people in New Zealand are employed by small businesses, many of whom have one, two, or three staff members, and it is simply not possible for many of these smaller businesses to take up this obligation when, if it is important—which we all agree—it should be met out of the general funds of the consolidated account of the Government.

The member whose bill this is, Jan Logie, is a Government member. We have heard today her espousing of what this Government wants to do. She is a member of the executive. If it is so important to her, and her parties that she is today speaking for, she needs to have it as a Government bill, funded out of the Budget—that is, the Budget of the New Zealand Government, not the budget of mum and dad who happen to have a dairy. That is not fair to them. That might, in fact, mean that they might make some hiring decisions that they would not make otherwise.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That’s right—do nothing. Do nothing.

So we voted for this—and it’s interesting to hear very rude and irresponsible interjections from the current Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, a man who wants to let free half these family violence perpetrators because they happen at the moment to be held on remand, after this party along with the Labour Party and New Zealand First voted to keep them in jail. He doesn’t want to have that; he wants them out on the streets, and instead of paying the cost of that, he wants mum and dad dairy owners to pay the cost of that, and that’s not fair. Small-business owners should not be meeting that cost unless they feel able to do so. It is something which is important for the Government.

Mr Little might think it’s a fun thing to do to shout out all the way through another member’s serious and considered contribution, but he is the man who wants to let these perpetrators of family violence out on bail where they will be free to continue their recidivist violent offending against their spouses and their family generally. He is the Minister of Justice who wants to do that, and we in the National Party will not support him in that, as we will not support a further burden on small business when the Government books clearly show that they have enough money to help fund Ms Logie’s idea, and they don’t want to do it.

I think, too, if we come back to our own Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, which is currently in the House right at the moment—and it’s been put on hold by this Government. They took it over from the Hon Amy Adams as the Minister of Justice, and it has now languished there for this last year. Instead we have this bill, which has been around for nine months. There is no funding attached to it—not a scrap of Government funding attached to it—and instead they are taking the cheap way out by asking mum and dad business owners to pay for it. That is not the responsibility of people in small business. It is great if big employers can help fund that, but actually it is the responsibility of the Government before it is the responsibility of small-business owners. It is simply not fair to add this burden yet again to them. And there may well be many who are already bearing this burden, but that is their choice. That is their choice as employers—it is their choice to be able to do that.

A Government that wants to use a member’s bill to take on and to put on to small employers the responsibilities of the Government—that is not fair to anybody, and this Government should not think that that is a responsible way in which to act. There is no doubt about it: this will add costs and responsibilities to small-business owners, the people who are already asked by us to collect wages, to collect student loan payments, and to collect all of the costs that we in Government expect them to collect. It’s not fair to them. It’s not fair to the victims. It is actually a cop-out by a Government that has the money and can’t be bothered using it.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. It’s a great pleasure to take a call in this, the third reading of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill, and to congratulate the sponsor of the bill, Jan Logie, for the incredible work that she’s done, not only on this bill, and indeed on the Government bill on domestic violence, but in the work she does as Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice on domestic violence. It’s not only, I think, a feather in the cap of this Government but actually a real testament to her, to her drive and energy and dedication and commitment to the cause of this issue that is one of the worst kind of black marks against this great country, that we have the level of advocacy that she provides and the determination to see these issues through.

You see, the real pity about the speaker who’s just resumed her seat, Judith Collins, is that she was a Minister of Justice once—a pretty hopeless one, sadly, and I don’t say that lightly. She’s probably the laziest Minister of Justice we’ve ever had. She didn’t achieve a great deal, apart from completely mucking up the Family Court—failed reforms of the Family Court that are now seeing victims of domestic violence required to enter mediation processes with the perpetrators of the violence against them. That is the depth of thinking of the member who has just spoken, and, indeed, the party from which she comes. Absolutely hopeless—don’t get the issue; never have.

💬 Chris Bishop: Why don’t you pass our family violence reforms? Why don’t you actually do something?

As for their spokesperson on police, he’s a complete disaster—never understood it, doesn’t understand it.

Actually, what this is is a civilising bill—a bill that does nothing other than require employers to do the basic civil thing of understanding when an employee they have is a victim of domestic violence, support them to get the very basic assistance that they need, and provide the flexibility to allow that to happen.

Look, it actually sets up a number of hoops for that to happen, which I think—it’s unfortunate that in this day and age we have to have legislation that assumes the employment relationship starts from a position of distrust. But I hold the National Party responsible for that because that’s the way they’ve allowed employment law and workplace relations law to go for the last 30-odd years. You see, they don’t trust workers. Here’s the bottom line: we have an Opposition—both when they are in Opposition and when they were in Government—whose starting point is that workers cannot be trusted, workers are a difficulty, workers are a barrier, and you’ve got to create all these hoops and constrain them and rein them in because workers can’t be trusted.

I’ve got news for members opposite, having spent 20 years of my life working with workers and their employers, to say that’s actually not how employers in New Zealand see their workers. That’s not how employers in New Zealand view their workforce. Employers value their workforce, value their workers, and I’ve seen some employers doing some amazing stuff, bending over backwards to deal with the specific needs of some employees because they know that’s the right thing to do. And there are so many employers for whom you negotiate the employment agreement and the first thing they do when the negotiations are done is they shove the agreement into the bottom drawer because they don’t ever expect to look at it again, because they know that the reality about good employment relationships and good workplace culture is actually building the relationship. You take your individual employees, their particular needs, and good quality management that is respectful and courteous of their workforce builds them together, builds a workplace culture, but respects the individual.

That’s actually the reality of most New Zealand workplaces. That is the aspiration of most New Zealand employers. There are rogues big and small, and we can pretty much name them but we’re not going to, because today’s a day of celebration and of courtesy and of respect—at least on this side of the House—because this is a measure that will afford support and, ultimately, protection for some of the most vulnerable in our workplaces: that is, those who are victims of domestic violence, those who are just looking for that break at work to go and get their affairs sorted out. It gives some flexible working arrangements to go and assist them through what is a difficult and traumatic time in their lives, not just for them but often for children who are involved, as well. It’s an opportunity, or chance, for time mandated by the employer to go and get the help that they need, and sometimes that help might be having to deal with the person who is the source of the violence against them, and to provide some additional leave.

And how miserable it is that the previous speaker from the Opposition, Judith Collins, should say that, no, this is all about the dairy owners having to take more cost. Look, I know dairy owners in my neighbourhood—fantastic people—and they look after the vulnerable. They are good people. They’re good and they believe in family—the dairy owners I know—and the strength of family, and they’d be the first to reach out and say, “You need a bit of time. Of course we’re going to let you have that time, because our small business is built on the strength of the relationships of the small number of us who are in it.” They don’t take that miserable, niggardly view that the members opposite take. And isn’t it a shame, because that is a party, as we know, stuck in the 1950s.

They can’t get their head around criminal justice reform. Their idea is “Look, we just bang more and more people into prisons and we’ll spend billions and billions more dollars on building prisons”, because that’s all they know. They don’t want to know the causes and they are definitely not interested in real solutions. They are the party of the past, they are the party of old, they have no idea, and they still don’t understand that that’s why it is they’re sitting on that side of the House. But, look, good luck to them. Good luck to them and long may their miserliness and miserableness last, because that’s not what New Zealanders want of a Government.

New Zealanders now are very clear. They expect compassion and caring from a Government, and they want some guidance and some rules and some protections for people. One thing is very clear, as well: for New Zealanders now, their expectation of what the Government will do to address the insidious problem of domestic violence is greater than it ever was before. More victims of domestic violence are coming forward, more reporting to the police. New Zealanders’ expectations about what this House will do and what this House will mandate be done are never higher than now. That is why it is right for this House to take every opportunity in fulfilling its mandate and its charter to the people to actually take some responsibility and provide for those means and those mechanisms that mean that the victims of this nasty, insidious type of offending can get the help that they need. And why would that not also include the help in the workplace?

It’s good that we have a police force that is increasingly more responsive and sensitive to the needs of the right interventions for domestic violence. It is good that we have other public institutions that have an increasing and improved—although Jan Logie would say, and I agree with her, still not there yet, still got a long way to go in terms of the understanding about the extent and depth and nature of the problem and how we respond to it. But, when we even get the public institutions sorted out and on board, why would it not extend to the workplaces and to the private workplaces, as well, to say, “Look, we’re all in this together.” Our small, little country at this end of the world with this dreadful problem that we’ve hidden and concealed for so long and never really been prepared to step up to, why wouldn’t we say, “We’re all in this. We’re all in this together.”?

We’ve got to fix domestic violence, because in my role as Minister of Justice and dealing with criminal justice issues, I know the impact that it’s having. I know the impact on young people and on children of repeated and recurring domestic violence—what it does to them, what it does to their little brains, and what it does to their life chances as well. And unless we get on top of domestic violence and do this stuff and do everything we can, we are just going to keep filling up our criminal justice facilities—whether the youth justice facilities or the big prisons—with more and more people. We’ve got to deal with domestic violence, and it is the responsibility of all of us, here in public institutions, here in this Parliament, and in every workplace across the land.

That’s what we must do. I congratulate Jan Logie for her terrific stewardship of this piece of legislation. This will have an amazing impact for so many victims of domestic violence, and I will stand with pride next to Jan Logie and say, “We’ve done our bit.” We’ve done our bit to support her leadership and her stewardship. This is going to make a big difference, and it’s going to make a big difference to me in my role as Minister of Justice, and future Ministers of Justice, whichever side of the House they come from; as long as they’re not as lazy as the last one. Thank you.

It’s a pity that the speaker before me, Andrew Little, really kind of diminished the serious issue that we are speaking about today. I think it, sort of, brought the House to a level that was rather unfortunate, in terms of politicising an issue that I’m sure each and every one of us in this House can share a story about of a family member or themselves or a friend.

I do want to start by acknowledging Jan Logie in drafting a member’s bill and bringing it to this House, and, given that the speaker before me didn’t really acknowledge it, I want to make clear for the House that National supports the intent of this legislation. It, of course, builds on the significant record that the National Government had, both in terms of supporting victims of crime but, more importantly, around tackling the very real challenges of family violence, and the substantial work and attention that were brought to this issue with the cross-ministerial group, of which I was a member, with 16 different portfolios involved.

One of the challenges with a complex issue such as family violence is really unpicking it and making sure that the efforts of all of the agencies involved do have the maximum gain for the very people that the agencies are intending to support. One example that my colleague the Hon Judith Collins raised was the Integrated Safety Response—

💬 Chris Bishop: Which they cut—they’ve cut it.

—and I do hope—yes. My colleague Chris Bishop refers to the fact that it’s only funded for one more year, and I do hope that members opposite realise the value of the Integrated Safety Response and listen to the very people that are working in the Integrated Safety Response team in Hamilton and in Christchurch. I’m sure Jan Logie has gone and visited them and met them and heard about the stories of the impact that that is having on the victims.

One of the examples that was given on my own very recent visit to the Integrated Safety Response was the ability for such a greater impact on the victims, on the perpetrators, and actually on the family members and wider community that they are involved with. One of those groups is the employers. One of the things that I think that we’ve seen a significant shift in recent years on is the number of employers who have come out with family violence policies. Countdown is a fantastic example of how they support people that work in their environment, and there are many, many others.

One of the points that I want to make is—it was made by my colleague the Hon Judith Collins—that when there is such a critical issue, such as family violence and ensuring greater access to support that victims need, where should that responsibility lie? I think if we were honest with one another, we would say the responsibility lies in many different areas—within families, within communities, and within government and government organisations. It’s important that that balance is struck in the right place. So, yes, in terms of public good, in our time we funded a number of initiatives—the Integrated Safety Response that I talked about, which included $46 million of operating funding that was very much around a new approach to the services but also front-line delivery.

One of the other things that hasn’t been raised today that I think has had a significant impact on the ability for victims of family violence to deal with the many and multiple challenges they have to face is the change to the Employment Relations Act that we passed, around flexible work. It meant that anyone and everyone could request flexible work, and it wasn’t just restricted to caring responsibilities. The number of conversations that flexible work has really transformed the relationship between employers and employees—Andrew Little was a bit, kind of, contradictory in his contribution. On the one hand, he was saying that the employers he knew, whether they were the small dairy owners or larger employers, had very trusted relationships in their workplaces, and that was fantastic. Well, if there were such trusted relationships in their workplaces, why don’t they trust the employers and the employees to navigate these and to use the existing legislative frameworks to be able to do that? So it was somewhat contradictory.

On that note of flexibility, I do hope that the Government, and Jan Logie in particular, is seriously examining any proposed changes to employment relations law to make sure that the unintended consequences don’t affect women, don’t affect the victims that Jan Logie has intended in this legislation. I say: we support the intent of it, but one of the key differences with our side of the House—and I know Mark Mitchell has worked hard to try and make improvements to this legislation with significantly thought-through Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs). It’s about being practical, it’s about being sensible, and it’s about looking at how you deliver a solution on the ground. That’s really the only reason that National’s not supporting this bill.

We support the intent, absolutely. As I said, I am concerned about potential other changes to employment relations law. I’m saddened that the SOP around a nationwide campaign so that employers understood what their choices and options were—so they understood how they could support victims of family violence. I recall an example where a workmate was a victim of family violence, and every time their work phone rang, they just went into a state of paralysis because the perpetrator of family violence would harass them at work. You’d just never know what time of day they would phone, and I know the very real impact it had on this person and the challenge of the employer in terms of understanding how to provide support.

So, coming back to Andrew Little’s comment, it is about that trusted relationship. It is about the ability of an employer and an employee to navigate a very challenging issue together. So we do support the intent but, unfortunately, don’t support the way that this bill has finally been drafted. I hope that the Government picks up our earlier work in legislation that’s currently before the House, and picks up our strong record of support, in a number of different practical and sensible ways, to support and reduce family violence.

I call Angie Warren-Clark.

💬 Hon Ruth Dyson: Oh, this will be better.

Thank you. On this momentous day, I am honoured to take a call on this very important member’s bill, the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill. I’ve spoken at both the second reading and the committee stage of the bill, and I’m humbled again to rise and add my voice to this kaupapa. This bill provides a fundamental shift to the domestic violence landscape, and it’s long overdue. I’d like to thank the Parliamentary Under-Secretary to the Minister of Justice, Jan Logie, for her successful shepherding of this bill through the House and for her ongoing commitment to the families affected by violence.

Today, I’m truly blessed to participate in this debate and to celebrate the hard work of many years of lobbying, conversations, harrowing stories, and determination to see a real significant change to the plight of victims of violence. So I thank you, Jan Logie, for the voiceless, for the hurt, for the courageous, for the wild and wilful who stand up and say “No more.” to family violence, but who needed a champion in this House to take action. Thank you for being our champion. I thank the good members across this House who have stood shoulder to shoulder with Jan Logie to support this bill. In particular, I would like to acknowledge the Hon Andrew Little, Minister of Justice, for his solid support of this bill, because violence is not just an issue for us women or the sisterhood. Domestic violence is a problem, and it’s all of our problem, and men need to walk in partnership to support the change we need in this country. We cannot make change without good men standing up and saying violence is not OK.

Gee, I feel sorry for the Opposition today—all you good women who I know, in your hearts, want to support this bill. I can feel it. I can see it, and it must be really hard to toe the line—the party line. It must be heart-breaking for those of you who stood in this House a year ago and supported this bill. I feel for you. We’re still sisters in arms, and I feel for you.

I’d like to thank the members of the Justice Committee in both the 51st and 52nd Parliaments, the 167 submitters, the oral evidence of 35 submitters, and the officials across many areas of the Government who addressed matters asked of them. Very quickly, I acknowledge the gallery today, filled with colleagues here to see the passing of this bill. Tēnā koutou.

I now turn to the bill, the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill, which amends the Employment Relations Act, the Holidays Act, and the Human Rights Act. This bill, fundamentally, addresses the needs of victims of violence who are working in paid employment to have domestic violence leave of up to 10 days. This is the amendment to the Holidays Act, and this entitlement becomes available after six months, but it doesn’t accumulate or carry over annually. So it is quite limited in its entitlement. This leave is similar to bereavement leave provisions in that it’s an additional entitlement to be used if needed. However, just like bereavement leave, we hope we never have to use this leave, because in order to get this entitlement a person needs to be a victim of domestic violence, and who wants that?

One in three women in this country is a victim of domestic violence—who wants the entitlement to this leave? Approximately 41 percent of domestic violence victims are in paid employment, and the Snively/Public Service Association report noted that domestic violence costs us millions in lost productivity per year. The cost of replacement of staff is prohibitive. The loss of productivity to a small or medium sized business is actually more expensive than paying leave to help an employee seek help.

I quote from that report: “Employment is a key pathway out of domestic violence. The body of research about domestic violence over the past 30 years finds conclusively that staying in employment is critical to reducing the effects of violence. Security of employment enables those affected by domestic violence to maintain domestic and economic stability, in this way assisting them to find a pathway out of violence and to successfully re-build their lives. Employers have the potential of productivity gains from implementing workplace protections … There is a growing body of evidence that suggests that as well as the potential for breaking the cycle of domestic violence, the introduction of workplace protections for people affected by domestic violence both saves employers costs (recruitment, retention, re-training, health and safety) and increases productivity.”

So when I hear the Opposition say that this bill will adversely affect small and medium businesses, I say, “Read the research, read the submissions.” Having a staff member who is a victim of violence already affects the business’s bottom line. This bill actually supports employers to keep good staff, to help those staff live without violence, and to come back to work able to focus on work and not the constant terror, shame, and the walking on eggshells that victims of violence feel. This bill enables business to help support their valuable employees, and thus help the bottom line.

This bill also addresses the option of flexible work arrangements, which means that a victim is able to negotiate—or someone on their behalf can negotiate—flexibility in the workplace. This is important because sometimes it’s dangerous to be in the workplace. It’s important because, as the member Jan Logie has said, the perpetrator is likely to know the routine of that person, and he is likely to use that opportunity to further abuse the victim. So it’s incredibly useful to have some flexibility available for victims.

We in the House and across all of Aotearoa know what massive numbers of victims and perpetrators of violence we have in this community. We know that New Zealand has the highest rate of violence in the OECD. We know that people, mainly women and children, die every year from that violence. Actually, they don’t die; they are murdered. We know 50 percent of the workload of New Zealand police is spent responding to family harm. I personally know what it is like to live with the effects of domestic violence. All of us here in this House of Representatives acknowledge the damage done to our population. We need to act and support change within our society. We need to support these women to get to a place of safety. We need to support the victims of domestic violence. I commend this bill to the House.

Mr Assistant Speaker, it is Cook Islands Language Week, so if I may indulge in a brief introduction in Te Reo Kuki Airani [the Cook Islands language].

Kia Orana tatou katoatoa i te aroa maata o te Atua no tei uru mai ia tatou i teia po nei. Tangi ke tangi ke. Kia Ora tatou katoatoa.

[Greetings to all of us in the almighty name of God, who has guided us here tonight. Greetings, greetings, greetings to all of us.]

Those were brief greetings. It is Cook Islands Language Week, so I just wanted to acknowledge that in my first speech in the House this week.

I want to acknowledge the intent of this bill. Jan Logie and I came into Parliament at the same time, in 2011, and we were both on the Social Services Committee, and we actually went together to maraes and community places. We travelled to hear the responses of those who were victims and those who were NGOs, providers of services, much-needed counsellors, and social workers at the forefront. We heard their concerns. The concerns were not only that there was a need for more resources to support them in the work they were doing but also that there was a need for better provision in legislation and also, too, in some of the policies that allowed all Government departments to acknowledge the importance of holding to account the issues of domestic violence and family violence in our country.

I go back a long way in regards to the work around domestic violence. In the early 2000s, when Steve Maharey was the Minister for Social Development and Employment, there was some work done by Judge Mick Brown around the baseline review which looked at the whole of the social services, but, more importantly, family violence was included in that. I can remember when we came together to talk at Te Rito, which was the first effort to put together a policy platform to deal with family violence. So the Te Rito strategy was born out of that work. So I come from a place where I absolutely am a big supporter of both work that is done legislatively and work in policy development to address the issues of family violence in our country.

I am also, like a number of members across the House, a White Ribbon ambassador, and I’ve been on marches and bike rides and I have gone up and down the country and I’ve spoken and taken the pledge—

💬 Angie Warren-Clark: Then vote for the bill.

If Mrs Warren-Clark would just listen for a bit. We sat and listened to you, so just be respectful. I didn’t say anything; I just allowed you to have your voice, so I just ask for the same, that’s all. OK? That’s all. I’m just asking for the same respect that we afforded you.

The fact is that I’m a White Ribbon ambassador, along with a number of others right across the House who have stood side by side to ensure that domestic violence—and as you’ve said, Mrs Warren-Clark, in your speech, the fact is that we have one of highest rates. In fact, there are 110,000 incidents of domestic violence, of intimate partner violence, in this country, and in the developed world it’s the highest of its kind. It’s an issue that we’re not proud of as a country, and when I say “we”, it’s all of us who have to be held responsible and held to account.

I just want to say that the issues that have been championed have been championed by many. The work that has gone on has gone on over a long period of time, over successive Governments, in order to get to where we are here today. So while I applaud my colleague Jan Logie for this bill and her intent—and she has been consistent all the way through, so I will acknowledge the fact that, all the way through, Jan has stood up in this House and has constantly talked about the issues of family violence and sexual violence that we need to address, as well. So I want to acknowledge her work and her commitment and her pledge to that as well.

I suppose one of the interesting issues then is: where do we differ? Now, where we differ, in a sense, is not in intent. We don’t differ in the sense that, even under nine years of a National Government, what is it that we put in place? We’re not going to talk about that, because it looks like we’re defending what we’ve done, but, you know, we have played our part in regards to addressing that.

Mrs Warren-Clark, I just want to speak to one of the comments you made in regards to flexible working arrangements. That was actually put in place in 2014, which allowed for employees to then negotiate with employers in regards to flexible working arrangements if there was an issue that they needed to mitigate, if there was an issue on which they needed to seek some counselling and some support. So that was there. And I know that Jan, now, is actually then taking this through and wanting to include that in parts of the bill that she’s put in place as well.

But this issue then, I suppose, is, where do we have the concern, and, from our point of view here, where do we draw the line and say it’s just a step too far for us? There are a number of things that we have put in place: flexible working arrangements; the 24/7 family violence line that was initiated under the National Government to ensure they were there; the Integrated Safety Response, the integrated response services forum that we had actually initiated and a pilot was put in place. So it was a multi-systemic approach to ensure that the Government departments who had a role of responsibility, a duty of care, made sure that they were accountable. And so that was critically important.

I want to acknowledge that the fact is that those on the front line—our social workers, our counsellors, and our police force—are out there. I’ve been out, even on the front line, with police. In fact, I went out in West Auckland—went out in the graveyard shift; so started at 11, finished in the earliest hours of the morning. And in West Auckland, when we went out, over the period of about nine to 10 hours that I was on that shift, we stopped only once—to go to Lincoln Road McDonald’s to get a Filet-o-Fish—and that’s about it. Throughout that whole time, 40 percent of the incidents that we went to were all about domestic violence. So you’re absolutely right—I saw first-hand just the carelessness to which anger had allowed them to take away, I suppose, the loving care and aroha that should have been afforded to children and also to women in those particular incidents, as well.

The part on which we do differ, then—the part in which we say that we have come as much as we have to all the parts that we think are important, and the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that was put together, as well. We have other businesses, like Countdown and The Warehouse and others, and it’s good for them because they can consume, I suppose, in a sense, the cost factor of what it means to be able to put in place the cover and the expense in regards to be able to mitigate the concerns, and also, too, for those women in this case—and I imagine there could be men as well, because there are men who are victims of violence as well—who can then apply for the 10 days that’s actually in this bill.

The concern I have is when I think about the people—even in my community of Te Atatū—who are in the local small businesses, who are running small cafes and running small restaurants and so forth, whom I spoke to just last week. I asked them how they’re going, and at the moment they’re struggling—they’re just making ends meet. Over 50 percent of what they generate in revenue goes on wages and salaries. So even when people take off annual leave, yes, they comply, but they did say to me that any extra burden will be really difficult for them. So what we were asking here, I believe, under SOP 41 under the Hon Mark Mitchell, was not unreasonable.

It was a rational response to say that if we could have the opportunity—number one—to be able to transition those in small to medium sized enterprises—which, by the way, are 80 percent of our growth of our economy. Why could we not work with them to transition, to see if this would work in a way, in a response with them as well? If we think, the fact is that if we accumulate them, with the opportunity that we have now, we’re now going to impose another 10 new days of annual domestic violence leave upon four weeks of annual leave, 11 days of holiday leave, five days of sick leave, and, on top of that, three days of bereavement leave. Now, those are entitlements—we understand that, because we were part of actually putting those through. What we were asking for was not unreasonable.

So I stand here today with those of this party, who are not saying that we don’t agree with the intent of dealing with issues of family violence but we cannot say that we’ll put another burden upon those in small to medium sized enterprises—small businesses. Many of us in our electorates will know them by name—the people who work there day in and day out to try and make ends meet. When you go to them and you sit down with them, as I have done, they have said to me first-hand that this will impose another burden upon them. We asked in the SOP for a transition to actually go and work through this—that wasn’t accepted either. We asked if they could use that—Mark Mitchell did in his SOP—if it could be included in the annual leave. That wasn’t accepted, as well.

I have to say that, while the intent is applauded and we agree on this side, what we can’t agree with in this bill is the imposition that it will have and, at the end of the day, the burden that that will have on small businesses, who are all genuinely trying to do the best that they can. But if we do this, then we’ll have those who will be victims of another sort, who then, in some cases, as they have said to me, may have to find themselves closing their doors because they’re no longer able to operate.

We, on this side, don’t support that part of the bill that we don’t believe works in a way that benefits our communities. We cannot support this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. First of all, can I acknowledge the Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie. This is a big moment, actually. Can I also acknowledge the members on the other side of the House, because I think the Hon Alfred Ngaro was quite correct that while we cannot agree at this moment in time, it cannot be forgotten that at the first reading we all did. At the first reading we all did agree that there needed to be a circuit-breaker to what is a terrible, unfortunate situation that happens in our country—that we lead the world in something that we should all be ashamed of.

As the Minister for Children, we know that when children are inside homes where domestic violence takes place, they themselves are then victims of domestic violence. We have tried, and I want to acknowledge the Hon Alfred Ngaro and how he said for years we have been grappling with this—and he himself on the front line, with others on the front lines, has been grappling with this. It hasn’t worked to date, so whatever we’ve been doing to date hasn’t been enough, and there needs to be a circuit-breaker.

I think to be that circuit-breaker we need to be brave enough to take this step, because in my view—in our view—this is not only about acknowledging and providing the space for victims of domestic violence to leave, to gain assistance, and to find themselves a way out, but it sends a message to them from this Parliament that we know you are there. We know it exists, we know it’s not sick leave, and we know it’s not annual leave; we know that this is violence against you, and we want to stand with you and allow you the time to get out and get your children out. Please, for the well-being of our nation, please hear us—that we know it exists, we know you are there, and we’re asking you through this message of leave that we have provided, to take it up.

I do want to acknowledge, again, the Hon Alfred Ngaro and the message that he sends around concerns they have around small and medium sized business. New Zealand First shares that concern. There were two Supplementary Order Papers that we were able to negotiate with our coalition partners and with the author of the bill. One of them was to shorten the period of time in which a sort of retrospective complaint, I suppose—or if an employee asks their employer for leave under this piece of legislation, there are many opportunities for the employer to decline because their business cannot manage the cost of it. That’s very real. We acknowledge that, and so does Ms Logie, because it’s inside this piece of legislation. New Zealand First doesn’t want to put employers in that spot—and I’ll talk about that in just a minute. But what we have said was that instead of having a period of 12 months whereby somebody who was declined for this leave could then take mediation or a complaint against the employer, we think that only six months is reasonable in that case. There shouldn’t be a year that that can carry over.

The other thing we did was we listened to the submission from Rural Women around the 10-day period when a request is made for a change to the working environment for the protection of the victim—that that actually should go from five days to 10 days. We appreciate the fact that Ms Logie was able to accommodate us with that.

But I think the biggest and the most pleasing conversation that we had was with the Minister of Finance. We share the Opposition’s concerns around a financial burden, to small and medium sized businesses particularly. So that is why we have a commitment from the Minister of Finance that the Tax Working Group will, as part of the work they are doing, be looking at the tax deductibility of any leave taken under this piece of legislation.

I will signal here that New Zealand First will be continuing to push, once that work is done. We will wait for the Tax Working Group to come back with their recommendations around that. But we do feel that not only is this a way to make sure that we understand as a country that we must all take responsibility for what is a curse on our nation, quite frankly, but a side effect of that will actually be the tracking of this leave, because we don’t have any data collection on this. One way to make sure we have data collection about the numbers of days that are applied for under this piece of legislation is to actually give the capacity for small and medium sized businesses, big businesses—whoever—to apply for tax relief for the number of days taken, so it can serve two purposes.

I want to give that assurance out to the businesses out there in New Zealand that New Zealand First also agrees with the Opposition. We just came to a more constructive outcome with our coalition partners, and we will continue to push for that constructive outcome to make sure that we balance what is the message we need to send to victims here, but the balance is that we need to also be able to support our businesses, who, I believe, and I articulated in my previous contribution on this piece of legislation—we believe they are not disconnected from their communities. They want to participate in this, but there are times when they are going to have to say no, and we want to minimise those times because we know that those businesses want to support their employees. They want to see domestic violence in this country lessened. We think this is a step in the right direction.

Before I complete my contribution, I want acknowledge Jackie Blue. So I’d just like to acknowledge Jackie Blue. I’m not supposed to do so, but I am because the presiding officers are not listening! But there have been strong women in this Parliament. Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie is one, Jackie Blue was another, and there’s going to be another bill that will go through this House that the spirit of Ms Blue actually comes into the place with it. So can I acknowledge her as another woman of such strong character and strong commitment who has made a change in the world that is a positive one. So kia ora to you.

Again, can I acknowledge Parliamentary Under-Secretary Jan Logie. Thank you for the constructive way you worked with New Zealand First. We’re pleased that we were able to come to a place to support this because there must be a circuit-breaker here, not just for the direct victims of domestic violence but for the children that are in the homes where this violence is perpetrated. We must make a change. Kia ora. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I stand to take a call on the third reading of the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill in the name of Jan Logie, and I want to add my congratulations to you, Jan. It must be an amazing feeling to have a bill go down in the history of this Parliament, now and into the future, with your name on it. So congratulations.

What many of my colleagues have said in previous contributions—and even the Hon Tracey Martin has also said it—is that National does support the intent of this bill. A lot of the discussion of the impact around businesses has been and will be our concern—and I just want to reiterate the sentiments that my colleague the Hon Alfred Ngaro shared in this House. I think that domestic violence is one of those things that cannot just be wiped out through one bill. We need multiple approaches to actually reduce domestic violence in whānau, and I think that this particular bill, with its narrow focus, starts to do that.

I think the contribution from the member Angie Warren-Clark, who was saying that it will stop family violence, domestic violence—it won’t. It’s that narrow focus—it’s focused on businesses. It’s focused on employment and leave entitlements, and that’s what it does. I was really pleased to hear from the Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little, applauding the many businesses that already have the flexible entitlements for leave that they support in their workplaces, and I also say that there are a number of ratbag operators out there, which I think this bill is really targeted at. So my contribution will be very small because a lot of the sentiment that has actually been spoken on this side of the House—I share in that, and in the words of the Hon Tracey Martin as well.

So I just want to say that, yes, the National-led Government had a number of approaches to reducing family violence and that I was a little bit disappointed, and continue to be, because the Government has not picked up some of those policies that we have had and that I think have done well to protect victims of family violence. It would be great, and I’m pleased to hear that the sponsor of the bill, Jan Logie, has been and met with Integrated Safety Response in Christchurch, as well. So I think that a lot of the groundwork that you’ve done, Jan, has been really good, and I also share the sentiments as to why your bill wasn’t actually picked up by the Government and really taken forward.

So, without any further ado, I cannot support this bill. But I want to congratulate Jan again, so kia ora.

I understand this is a split call. I call Golriz Ghahraman—you have five minutes.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is an honour to rise in support of this bill, and it is such an honour to do so with Jan Logie beside me. She has been a champion and a booming voice for victims and survivors of domestic violence for so many years in this House and out there, through this sector, on the grassroots, sitting on the shoulders of such great activists and lifting up others, bringing her lived experience. This is Jan’s life’s work.

So, as this House celebrates the passing of this bill, we must celebrate Jan, and as we celebrate Jan, it’s important to note that good lawmaking, the kind of lawmaking that really pinpoints the problems we’re here to solve and then really pinpoints the solutions that are going to make a difference to people’s lives out there, comes from people like Jan getting to sit in this House. It comes from representation.

This bill does two important things. It, first, gives due recognition to the physical and emotional cost of abuse, a cost that can only be truly recognised if we as a society are willing to share in it. So then it does just that. Today, we say that victims and survivors of abuse have a right to remain in the workforce and still get a little bit of time and space—time to leave, time to regroup. It’s actually a small gesture, but without it, so many have been stuck for so many years.

Generations ago, New Zealand recognised the necessity of financial emancipation for victims of domestic violence when we adopted the domestic purposes benefit. The DPB was meant to recognise that victims of abuse shouldn’t have to choose between their own physical safety and being able to take care of their kids—let’s remember that the next time we attack and sanction solo mums on the benefit.

Today, Jan’s bill recognises that for those in the workforce, leaving an abusive relationship often means losing their livelihood, losing their important connection with the outside world, and losing themselves, and becoming even more dependent on their abusers. Survivors need time off to get mental health care and to find a place to live, but one of the things that struck me as I listened to Jan’s speeches on this bill has been the recognition that, actually, the time immediately after leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time. She needs to be able to change her routine, otherwise her abuser knows where to find her, and today, as a society, we’re going to support her to do that, because being violence-free is actually a fundamental human right.

Having to choose between being in employment and being violence-free is discrimination. It’s just one of the many, many ways that we blindly discriminate against victims of abuse. The solution does seem very simple, now that we see it. It seems like someone should have already thought of it, but they didn’t—not in here. Jan did, because she’s got those connections with the grassroots, with the activist movements, with the survivors. She’s not just another politician, and it shows in this bill.

This year is the 125th anniversary of women getting the vote in New Zealand, but we did have to wait 26 more years before we could sit in this House, and, as we’re learning at this moment in global history, the one-vote-per-person democracy model doesn’t actually guarantee all of our rights. It doesn’t guarantee our right to be heard, to have bodily integrity, or to be free from harassment. We need to be at the decision-making table—like Jan was—in order to highlight the real problems faced by women and by minorities because, actually, as women, our race, our religion, and our disabilities do also define our experiences out there. We are far from true representative democracy yet at the decision-making tables out there, but we need to celebrate lawmaking like this.

Today, we promise lawmaking by the affected communities for the affected communities, through this bill. We are saying to victims of domestic violence that that’s a problem we care enough about to solve because their lives matter. So it’s with great pleasure that I commend this bill to the House.

It is my opinion, and the opinion of our side, on this side of the House, that this is well-intentioned but the scope is misplaced in this particular bill. I do join in wishing Jan Logie and the team well. I echo the words of my colleague Alfred Ngaro when he said that we don’t differ in intent; it’s about mechanisms, and this bill unfairly places a significant burden on small business when it comes to the scourge and the reality—the cold, stark, and awful reality—that is family violence. It’s not a sustainable way, though, to keep addressing and resolving the massive issue that we face.

If we want to make a real difference, what we’re contending here, on this side, is that we should be progressing the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. It’s waiting in the wings. It is huge in scope and intent—actually, more than intent; it is addressing root problems and root causes. And I would contend that for the Government, this is about Government priorities. I realise that this is a member’s bill, but the Government has a chance to figure out its priorities in this particular space. That Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill has been sitting on the Order Paper for over nine months now.

I would really caution, incredibly strongly caution—and I said this when I spoke previously on this bill—anyone on that side of the House against reducing this to saying that our side, our team, are pro-business above pro-victims. That is absolutely not the case. If that was the case, then there wouldn’t be the Integrated Safety Response pilot that we came up with. There wouldn’t be social investment blood, sweat and tears that we’ve gone through. There wouldn’t be the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. Those are actions, not just—and, in fact, someone on the other side of the House was heckling and saying, “Words, words, words.” Well, no, those were actions, actions, actions. So that’s where we come from, and where we find ourselves here tonight. Just because this is a sensitive issue, it doesn’t mean that we should have misplaced targeted legislation going through this House. It’s about the right mechanisms for what will make a difference. There is a massive issue. Yes, it does need addressing, and we’ve had ideas that are ready to go.

I’d just point out two things in closing. I guess I’m kind of interested and curious as to why, if this is a member’s bill that members of the Government are hugely behind, they didn’t pick this up as a Government bill. That’s of interest to me. And the other is—and I guess this is a gripe. I wasn’t here as an MP at the time, but I’m told that when we consulted extensively on the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, there was no call from anyone for special paid leave for family violence victims then. That’s of interest to me. No one called for that then.

I’ll just finish by echoing what it was that we were calling for in terms of a moderate position on this bill, and that was that we extend the definition of existing leave entitlements to more explicitly include those affected by domestic violence. That wasn’t accepted, and we find ourselves here tonight and, with reluctance, we can’t support the bill.

Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. I’m actually going to start with a waiata, and I think it will outline why I have chosen to sing this waiata.

Ko te taonga o taku ngākau, ko taku mokopuna e

He mokopuna korikori, hei aha, hei aha rā

Ko te mea nui ko te aroha

Kaua e patu taku mokopuna

Me awhiawhi mai taku mokopuna korikori e

Me awhiawhi mai taku mokopuna korikori e.

[My heart’s greatest treasure is my grandchild

He is a mischievous grandchild, but that really doesn’t matter

The most important thing is love

Please don’t smack my grandchild

Just cuddle him.]

This bill, for me, is about our children. We actually have 280 family violence incidents reported to the police every day. We, unfortunately, however, have 1,167 incidents, because 76 percent of family violence incidents in New Zealand are not reported. Children are present in 778 of those incidents.

So what happens to our children who grow up witnessing family violence? Actually, they’re three times more likely to commit suicide; 57 percent of them have no qualifications; they have physical and mental health, poorer education, and poorer employment outcomes; they become drug- and alcohol-dependent; they become homeless. They’re twice as likely to be victims of sexual violence, and they’re four times more likely to commit sexual violence against a partner. So what we know is that early intervention and prevention is essential if we are to break the patterns of behaviour and reduce harm.

And you might ask where this wonderful advice came from. It’s from Reform of Family Violence Law. Paper One: Context and supporting integrated responses, that I credit the previous Government for. That previous Government Ministerial Group on Family Violence and Sexual Violence estimated that the direct cost to Government of family violence every year was $1.4 billion, and it was women and children who paid the cost. The cost to business they estimated at $368 million per annum because of the lost productivity, the stress, and the staff turnover. So the reality of this situation is that our businesses are affected, and they’re affected to the tune of $368 million every year.

I want to highlight a point made by the Hon Amy Adams in the first reading of Jan Logie’s bill—and I quote—“The point I made when I made the commitment on behalf of the National Government to support the bill—certainly through the first reading and through to a select committee—was that [what] we do know, and what we must know, is that whatever the answer is, business has to be a part of it, and that is the absolute agreement I am in with the member.” So business is part of the solution; the Hon Amy Adams says so. We agree with her 100 percent.

I’ve found a piece of research called Factors Associated with Disclosure of Domestic Violence at the Workplace. The reality is 40 percent of people who are abused disclose to somebody that they work with. But the interesting thing that I’ve found out through this piece of research—and it’s from the University of Western Ontario, by a young woman called Laura Olszowy—was that the reason women also disclose in the workplace is because they suffer from workplace sexual harassment.

So there’s a correlation between people disclosing their family and domestic violence, which happens privately, and what happens to them in their workplace. I find that incredibly interesting, because there is a growing global movement around this concept called Me Too, where we’re starting to call out the sexual harassment that we all experience as women in the workplace, and what we know, through some recent research, is that a third of New Zealand’s female lawyers are sexually harassed in the workplace. So sexual harassment, violence, and issues to do with women are not just a private matter; in fact, they are also a public matter, and it is true that Parliament is incredibly interested when it is a public matter.

People may not know, but the Inter-Parliamentary Union did a survey and released a report. The Inter-Parliamentary Union—most of us, as parliamentarians, belong to the Inter-Parliamentary Union—released a report in October 2016: Sexism, harassment and violence against women parliamentarians, in parliaments. So for all of our knowledge, 44.4 percent of the women who were surveyed said that they had received threats of death, rape, beatings, or abduction as parliamentarians. So this whole concept of domestic violence being this private matter that happens somewhere over here and it’s got no relevance to the workplace is absolutely false. I know that the Minister Iain Lees-Galloway, with my colleague Jan Logie—who also happens to be the architect of this bill—is looking at the responsibility of workplaces to ensure that sexual harassment and violence does not happen.

So what does this piece of research also say about the responsibility of workplaces? It actually says that they have a responsibility to provide a responsive workplace and ensure that that workplace is safe, not only for the woman who suffers domestic and family violence but because we know that sometimes the perpetrators of family and domestic violence will follow the victims into the workplace—it actually is a workplace issue because of that person’s colleague. And this—guess what—happens in big businesses, medium-sized business, and small businesses, and I’m quite sure that health and safety legislation in New Zealand does not have an exemption because of the size of the business. We also know from research that, on average, if you do have an employee who suffers from family and domestic violence, it’s about a $3,500 cost per year with them not turning up for work or leaving, and you have retention issues and you have to retrain, and all that sort of thing.

So there’s this fallacy that businesses currently are not having to pay for the burden of family and domestic violence. So to say that 10 days’ domestic violence leave is too expensive is actually an incredibly—I was going to say naive thing to say, because businesses are already paying the price, but let’s help them pay the price in a positive way. And what is that positive way? By actually having a workplace that allows people to disclose. What happens when you disclose? You get help. You get help for yourself, you get help for your family, and, as I highlighted earlier, you get help for the children, who have no choice.

Too many of our babies are growing up thinking violence is normal. We have to do everything we can to change that culture, and we need to work with business, all business, because—guess what? Business people employ ordinary people, mums and dads with children. I talked to Kiri from Countdown the other day, and they’re incredibly committed. They have 19,000 employees—10,000 women. Why did they change? Because one of their employees was murdered—murdered—and they said, “What can we do? What could we have done to have helped that woman, her family and children, so that we could have prevented that death?”

So this is an incredibly important piece of legislation, and I want to thank Jan, a lot of the people here, and all the women who are speaking out and saying “Me too”. What happens to us in our workplaces, in our families, needs to be public, because the only way we will stop it is to name it and to shame it and to change it, which this bill is attempting to do, so I support it 100 percent. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. Look, it’s hard to add a lot more when you get to the point of giving the 11th speech on a bill like this, and it is a very highly charged and emotional topic. Right across this House, we all feel for those victims of domestic violence, whether they be male or female. It’s men and women equally. It’s often seen as something that is more directed towards women, but there are men who are exposed to this, as well.

I’ve got a question in my mind, really, because a few things have come out today—we’ve heard about naivety and we’ve heard about a few things like that. We did vote for this bill at the first reading, but as feedback came in through the public process, and with MPs conducting their outreach into their constituencies, coupled with Supplementary Order Papers, we are unable to support the bill, because we just feel that if Government was really intent on this, Government would be paying the cost.

I’m at a loss from everything I’ve heard from the other side today. We had Andrew Little actually standing up before, saying “Look, good businesses will want to do this stuff.”, and I’ve got no doubt that good businesses are out there doing some of this stuff already. So what was so wrong with Supplementary Order Paper 42, which was put up by Mark Mitchell and which was defeated, that said in the explanatory note that this Supplementary Order Paper requires the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment “to undertake a [national] educational campaign in order to assist small and medium businesses to comply with the changes … within the Act, including additional leave requirements … Small and medium businesses may find these changes hard to understand and … require guidance in how to implement them correctly …”. So if the intent was there—we don’t like to be looking like this is actually a business versus employers thing. Everybody wants to help on the domestic violence thing, and it is going to be hard for some businesses to be able to undertake this. So I just think that wouldn’t have been a very hard thing to put in place.

I do think that if the Government—like others have said—wants to make a real difference, it would progress the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill that we introduced last year, which would be the most significant reform to family violence laws in a generation. So while there are a lot of parts, I would like to commend Jan Logie on the intent of the bill—and none of us have disputed the intent of the bill; it’s just the working part that we are unable to support this bill on. We all need to work together on the domestic violence front, because there are a whole lot of things that need to be put together. There’s a lot of playing parts to this, and we need to work together on that, but we just don’t feel that it’s appropriate that the Government is actually putting an unfair burden of cost on small businesses.

So I just want to thank those groups in my community who I have worked with: the champions of family violence—those that are out there in the community to help people. We don’t disagree that all of us need to play a part, but, unfortunately, with the way this bill is constructed we are unable to support it today. Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It is with great pleasure, absolute privilege, and, indeed, goose bumps that I rise to speak to the Domestic Violence—Victims’ Protection Bill at its third reading. I’ll do a quick summary as to what this bill does, because it’s so very important.

Many of us in this House—indeed, we come to this place to make changes like this one, changes that will protect lives. This bill supports victim/survivors through paid leave and flexible working arrangements, to have the stability and, indeed, the freedom to escape violence. This bill is one that benefits us all: victim/survivors, members of the community, our employers—it keeps us all safe. Why is this bill important? Why are we on this side of the House so adamant in our support of it? Firstly, we’ve heard members before me who have spoken about the horrific rates of domestic violence in New Zealand and the fact that it’s incumbent upon all of us to do everything we can to eliminate it.

Domestic violence is a scourge. It takes many forms. It can be physical, sexual, emotional, or financial. It affects us across ethnicities and socio-economic status, regardless of education levels, where we are, who we might be, and where we might have come from. It’s not just isolated incidents of violence, as some members have said. It’s actually a pattern of power and control, and that’s an incredibly important point when we look at the context within which this bill sits. Typically, women, and definitely women I’ve worked with over the course of my working life—many don’t actually want to leave, necessarily. Many just want the violence to stop but are forced to leave because, in many cases, leaving is the only option available to them to keep themselves and their children safe.

This bill plays an incredibly important role in taking away one of the barriers that prevents women from leaving, and that’s the financial barrier. This bill enables them to stay in paid employment. It also does something else that’s incredibly important: it provides safeguards for them at work. It allows them to request flexible work arrangements and leave to deal with some of the consequences of the violence that women have to deal with—and I say “women”, because unlike the previous member who spoke, Barbara Kuriger, I absolutely believe the stats that tell us that this is a gendered issue; that, predominantly, women are victim/survivors of violence. It doesn’t mean that we don’t stand against all forms of violence, but that’s what the statistics tell us. If we don’t acknowledge that, we will never fully acknowledge the drivers of domestic violence in this country.

Now, women I’ve worked with over the course of many years, when it gets to that point that they’ve got to leave the abusive relationship and break the cycle of domestic violence, perhaps go to a refuge, and there are a number of concerns at that point. One, of course, is to deal with the fact that this is actually happening—that they’ve actually got to leave to keep themselves safe—and that’s massive. The other is some of the practical concerns—children’s schooling, getting the medical or the legal help that they need—and that takes time.

At this point, I want to bring in some of the voices of the women who have been victim/survivors of violence. I want to thank Ann Simmons, who was a nurse and who spoke about losing her job after being subjected to violence, including rape, at the hands of her partner. She spoke to members of the Justice and Electoral Committee, as it was then in the previous Parliament, on behalf of the New Zealand Nurses Organisation.

She recalled the experience of a woman with two young children who came home from an afternoon shift as a nurse an hour later than expected. The busy shift was not an excuse her partner would accept. He punched her in the face and in the stomach, threw her across the room, and raped her. Soon after, he passed out as he was extremely drunk, she told the committee. The woman’s partner was arrested and charged, but was released once he sobered up and he was still incredibly dangerous, she said.

She needed to tell her boss she couldn’t go to work. A white university graduate woman with two children needed to say, “I am the victim of domestic violence and I cannot come to work.” That is so hard to do. She had no annual leave. She had used most of her sick leave due to previous assaults and staying at home to protect her children.

Her work suggested she resign. If there had been any leave available to her, she may have been able to hold on to her job and not become yet another solo mum on the DPB. She says, “This story is me.”, and that is typical of the stories of women who need this bill to stay safe and, indeed, in many cases, not to be killed.

The time when a woman leaves the abusive relationship is often the most dangerous for her. I recall the faces of two women, specifically, who I worked with, both of whom had come to Shakti’s refuge, where I worked. Because of the horrific violence that they had gone through, they needed some time to deal with the consequences, and asked if I would speak to their employers on their behalf to get them that leave that they needed—some compassionate leave for them to have that space and that time. One worked with a rather large employer, a hotel chain, and another with a small business. Both employers understood the positions that they were in and said yes. They were lucky. But it shouldn’t be the luck of the draw. I acknowledge the many businesses in New Zealand like Countdown, The Warehouse, ANZ, and others who already make provisions to support victims of domestic violence, but it shouldn’t be the luck of the draw.

At this point I just want to counter some of the many myths that members opposite have raised or touched upon in their speeches tonight. The first is Alfred Ngaro, who talked about the fact that they on that side of the House support flexible working hours or arrangements. The member might have had a memory lapse, because back in 2009, when former Green MP Sue Kedgley had her flexible working arrangements bill, which helped to break down some of those rigid and inflexible working hours to allow employees to balance paid work and caring responsibilities, what did National MPs do? They voted against. What was their rationale for voting against? They opposed the bill, saying that legislation was unnecessary and working conditions were best sorted out in negotiations between the employer and the employee. National MPs argued that many workplaces and sectors were not suitable for flexible working arrangements and that employers would be placed in an impossible position. That seems to be the standard response from that side of the House any time we talk about flexible working arrangements. So if any National MP lauds the fact and claims the credit that they championed flexible working arrangements, I say maybe have a think about their memory loss.

Some of the more common concerns raised from members opposite were the fact that there are already leave provisions that women can avail themselves of. But there’s only sick leave, bereavement leave, and annual leave and none of those apply. Why should a woman who has been subjected to violence, and who has probably—in the case of Ann Simmons, for example—already used sick leave and annual leave—what is she supposed to do? What leave does she have left to use?

Before I end, there are many people to thank. But I want to thank many who are in the gallery today, and many who are not, for the work that they have done in championing this bill: the unions; the domestic violence prevention sector; the NGOs that have supported; businesses that support; all those who submitted to the select committee; Dr Jackie Blue for her work in pushing this bill through, as well; officials who’ve worked on this; the Minister of Justice, Andrew Little, for his support; and, absolutely, last but not least, the member Jan Logie. For your bravery, for the courage that it takes to stand time and again and push for this, for the work that you’ve done tirelessly across both select committees, and for seeing this bill through to this day—I am incredibly proud to be a member of Parliament on this side of the House, to stand alongside you and all of those who have worked to get this bill to where we are today, to stand on the correct side of history, and to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.