Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill

Thank you, Madam Chair. This bill and the Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) that has been tabled in my name as the Minister—

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): Would the Minister care to come to the Table?

Yes, I need to be in that chair, ideally, but I’m happy to speak anywhere.

CHAIRPERSON (Poto Williams): That would be great, thank you.

As I was saying before we had the little musical chairs number, what SOP 116 that has been tabled in my name in relation to the bill does is consolidate where the bill got to as a consequence of the select committee process but also reflects some changes that the new Government wanted to have in the bill.

I acknowledge the work done by the previous Minister of Justice under the previous Government, the Hon Amy Adams, who worked with all parties in Parliament to bring the legislation to the House, but as a consequence of the select committee process and, indeed, of policies of the new Government, we wish to see some changes in it.

Those changes can be summarised as follows. Firstly, there is a change of name to the legislation so it would now become the Family Violence Act, as opposed to the Family and Whānau Violence Act. It is about the violence in the family, and recognises that, of course, violence in the family—that there is a public interest in ensuring that we do everything we can to minimise that form of violence and recognises that it is seldom ever an isolated act or a short-term problem inside families, but it’s an issue that requires ongoing and sometimes intensive attention.

The second change is to acknowledge coercive and controlling behaviour as a form of family violence, and that is reflected in definitions and some of the aspects around, for example, dowry abuse—that it is not just yelling and physical violence.

The third change is to reflect the fact that a relationship in which family violence can take place includes the relationship between a carer and the person being cared for in the home. Sometimes, a carer relationship between the carer and the person being cared for, when it happens in the home, can be an employment relationship, effectively, but, actually, the carer has intimate knowledge and intimate connection with the person being cared for, and, usually, the relationship is akin to the kind of relationship you’d expect with a family member. So that is reflected in the legislation so that abuse by a carer can be seen as an act of domestic violence.

Then, finally, there is the ability for codes of practice to be released by the Governor-General on advice from the Minister of Justice to assist those in the field of dealing with domestic or family violence issues.

So those are the principal changes in the main SOP. There is another amendment, also in my name, that deals with some drafting issues, and that is there as well. It is totally technical; there is no policy change in the other amendment. So, on that basis, I look forward to the debate from the committee.

Thank you, Mr Chair, and it is a real pleasure to stand and take a call on this, the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill. Firstly, can I acknowledge the Hon Amy Adams, who did put an extraordinary amount of work into this bill in the last term. I want to acknowledge the Minister in the chair, because we’ve had several meetings and I’ve certainly indicated to him that should he bring what we feel is good legislation around the reforms that he wants to achieve, then we would look at those, and if we felt they were good for the country, we would support them and there’d be a bipartisan approach to that. I think that he has applied that rule in bringing this Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill to the House, because this was, in fact, in large part a National Party bill that was developed under the leadership of the Hon Amy Adams. So could I acknowledge him in bringing this bill to the House and making sure that he continues to steward it through.

We did have some consultation around the changes. I did go back last week after a meeting with our caucus to see whether or not we could break them out into the 11 separate amendments just so that we could debate them. Most of them we do in principle actually support. A few of them we oppose, and we’ve had a discussion around that. I guess there were a couple there that we were a bit uncomfortable with.

One was the extension of the police safety order from five days to 10 days. I know that when the Minister discussed this at length with advisers, the advice that she got was that even five days, we thought, was an extraordinarily big power to give the police when, effectively, they can apply it. They can go into a home where there’s been some family violence. If there’s not actually enough evidence there to progress towards charges being laid, then they can apply the police safety order. It’s very, very good in principle. What it does is it removes the offending party and it gives the other party the ability to be able to have some time and space, and also, if they want to go to the courts and apply for a protection order or something like that, then they can do that.

We did some stakeholder engagement. Largely, stakeholders were in support of it. It allows a little bit more time. We’ll be watching it closely, because it is a big power and to extend it—to double it from five to 10 days—we felt was a big step, and we will be watching closely to make sure that it’s not abused. We’ve got a high level of confidence that it won’t be, but removing someone arbitrarily from their home without any formal charges actually being laid, in our mind, is a big power and a very big step. There was a lot of debate around that and we’re still quite cautious. We’d like to see how that works.

The other one was around the fact that that relationship was going to change between a carer in the care industry, and the person they care for. This is around the people that will often go and stay the night, or might even stay a week, at the home of someone who might be suffering from dementia or cancer or some type of illness. In our meeting it became apparent that there’d actually been no stakeholder engagement. We were concerned about this and we worried about this because, fundamentally, we were concerned that there could be a second or third order effect. There could be an unintended consequence in the terms of the fact that we are changing that relationship. There may be some carers that actually want to have a very professional relationship with an arm’s length status attached to that, and what we’re, effectively, saying is that now they can be treated and seen as a family member. What does that actually mean for them? If we could get some clarity around that, it would be good.

Fundamentally, we of course support the bill. We think that it is a very important one, and so I’m going to take only a short call, but maybe in a later call I might just address very quickly the change in the name, because although that may seem insignificant, there was actually a lot of consultation that went on between the National Party and the Māori Party in terms of the development of this bill, and there’s actually quite a bit of meaning that sits behind the title of it as well. But I am very happy to commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity to speak to the Family and Whānau Violence Legislation Bill, as it will become known, noting, of course, that change to the name, as alluded to previously by the Hon Mark Mitchell and, indeed, the Minister in the chair, Andrew Little, as well.

Mr Mitchell has alluded to the fact that we do support the intent and, indeed, overall, the bill itself. There are a couple of different items he’s raised that we’ve made something of a subject of discussion. I think it’s worth looking at the various substantive changes that have been highlighted in the new Act, as it will become, and just giving some context to those for anyone who’s watching and is interested, as no doubt many will be in this very important aspect of our lawmaking.

It probably goes without saying that in this country, we can and should, and no doubt all do, abhor domestic violence—or family and whānau violence, as it’s variously known. None the less, a sensible approach to lawmaking is required such that we have pragmatic and realistic provisions in that legislation and seek balance at all times.

First looking at that aspect that the Minister touched upon in relation to behaviour that might seem minor or trivial when it’s viewed in isolation but that none the less can form a pattern of behaviour that constitutes violence—the cumulative effect of that being a significant thing and, indeed, the new test under the Act. That seems to me an act of policy making that’s grounded very much upon the real experience of people who are suffering this type of violence and those advocates in the area who have pointed that out to the Parliament and, indeed, the Ministers, plural—from Amy Adams, who led it initially, and then, again, as I say, Andrew Little—and that’s the advice that they provided, that domestic violence should be viewed in that holistic way, so to speak. So that seems a positive and a useful way to include that perspective in the way that we will deal with what we consider to be violence going forward.

So too the approach of considering coercive or controlling behaviour as family violence—again, it seems to us appropriate that we would have a scenario where behaviour that might not be overtly violent in the traditional, physical way of conceiving that concept, but none the less, it is very much adverse in its consequences and no less so than those other modes of violence.

I’d like to touch on the time frame of the orders that Mark Mitchell has referred to recently: increasing a police safety order from a duration of five to 10 days is a serious step. It’s one that we have considered carefully on this side of the House. No doubt others have considered it carefully, too—I wouldn’t suggest otherwise—but I think, if anything, it highlights the fact that we need to be very vigilant about other aspects of the justice process, such that if we are going to, effectively, detain and keep separate those who are accused of perpetrating domestic violence, we have perhaps an even higher duty than before to ensure that that case—that scenario—is worked through, whether that’s in front of the courts or by some other means, so that the situation is not left unresolved.

The issue of delays and a lack of timeliness in our court system is one that has been with this country for some time now, and I just take a moment to reiterate the fact that in relation to other legislation that will come before this House during the term, on this side of the House, we’ll work constructively to do what we can, along with the Government, to improve the situation as far as that is concerned as well.

Touching briefly, in my remaining time, I’d just like to note further to those comments about the abuse situations, that it’s particularly by setting out quite detailed definitions in Part 1 of the bill, the meaning of “abuse”, for example, and the meaning of “psychological abuse”—setting out that that’s actually a separate but related phenomenon in itself seems to me a pretty useful feature of this legislation. So for that and other reasons that I’ve outlined and that Mr Mitchell has outlined as well, we’re pleased to support the broad intent and, indeed, the bill itself, notwithstanding that caution is, I think, needed on all parts just to check those unintended consequences.

Thank you very much, Mr Chair. It’s a pleasure to take a call on this very important piece of legislation that National, of course, did a lot of the grunt work on in Government. Sadly, we were defeated, but it’s good to see—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Woohay!

“Woohay!”, he says, my breakfast club partner Kieran McAnulty. You’ll keep, my friend! And it’s good to see the new Government—well, we say “new”, but we’re a year in, so I don’t think they’re new any more—

💬 Chris Penk: We’re getting over it.

—so let’s say “the Government”—yeah, “We’re getting over it.”, says Chris Penk. It’s good to see the Labour-led Government continuing it.

Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 116 that the Minister has laid before the House is an interesting one, and I’ve got to say that I have some concern around the change to extend the maximum duration of public safety orders from five days to 10 days—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Police.

Sorry, police safety orders. What did I say—“public”? I meant “police”, sorry. These are orders that are quite rights-limiting and they are quite a wide-ranging power, allowing the police to enforce orders against people without warrants or without charge, and I think we just need to be pretty cautious in our democracy that we give the police those powers. Five days to 10 days is a doubling of the time that they’re allowed to be issued for, and I just want to place on the record, I suppose, my uncomfortableness. I realise and recognise absolutely that they are very useful and can provide a real mechanism of breaking the cycle of offending, but I think it would be remiss of me not to place on the House’s record my sense of caution or scepticism that the five days’ to 10 days’ extension is justified. I’m prepared to hear arguments one way or the other. So that’s one very important change we need to note.

The other change that I want to note, which I think is a good idea, is also within the Government SOP that has been issued, which is around including dowry-related violence in the definition of “family violence”. Now, it would be fair to say that awareness of dowry abuse is very low, but I think it is very important that we signal to decision makers and the public that dowry abuse is a form of family violence. We did hear some submissions during the select committee process—particularly from our Indian community—that the bill wasn’t explicit enough that dowry-related violence was covered. The select committee that I sat on decided not to recommend a specific change in that regard. Perhaps we were remiss as a committee in doing so, but that’s the way that the select committee process went.

I think it’d be fair to say that this is a good change—arguably, unnecessary—but this is such a tricky issue we’re dealing with and something that is really important, actually, as well as that you can certainly mount a case to say that some clarificatory definitional changes can be included. So this is a very important piece of legislation.

Just in the closing amount of time, I do want to place on the record my view that the SOP should have been sent back to the select committee to consider. This is quite a substantive SOP. Some of the changes are minor—we’ve talked about the dowry-related change—but some of them are quite substantive. I think the police safety order extension of time from five to 10 days is quite large. It is really important that we get this bill right. The National Party is supportive of the bill, but I think it wouldn’t have hurt the Justice Committee to have another go round on it for a month or two.

I know we are a very, very busy committee, and perhaps that’s why Minister Little’s nodding. Perhaps that’s why the Minister didn’t support sending the SOP back to the committee. But—[Bell rung] I’ll just briefly finish off. Perhaps that’s why the Minister didn’t support sending it back. We’re an extremely busy committee with the End of Life Choice Bill, which seems to be interminably going on, and also other related legislation. I see we’re now going to get the Criminal Cases Review Commission as well. That’s undoubtedly going to be sent to us as well.

Tim van de Molen: A very hard-working committee.

But yes, my colleague says, “A very hard-working committee.” I think it’s fair to say we’ve gone beyond the bounds of hard-working, which is the usual kind of clichéd epithet approximated to select committees in the Parliament. We’ve gone beyond hard-working; we are extremely hard-working. But that’s OK, because justice matters are very important. But maybe that’s why the Minister didn’t do that. But I do just want to place on the record that I think it is poor process. There are quite large changes in this SOP that the select committee and submitters to the select committee have not had a chance to consider. But, overall, we do support it.

Just finally—it is interesting—we had a discussion in the second reading debate around the name of the bill, and I won’t traverse the arguments that were mounted then around the name: do you include “Whānau”; do you include “Family and Whānau”? But I just want to place on the record that I am supportive of the removal of the phrase “Domestic Violence”, and we’re now going to have the Family Violence Act, for the reason that I outlined previously, which is domestic violence is redolent of the idea that abuse that occurs in the home is something that is only limited to the domestic sphere and is something that is off limits to the criminal law or, indeed, neighbours and wider society.

The idea of referring to arguments or abuse or violence between a husband and wife or family members as a “domestic” and something that could just be ignored is wrong, and I think replacing the Domestic Violence Act with Family Violence Act better captures not only the sort of behaviour that we want to condemn but also the behaviour we want to sort out to make sure it never happens again. So I’m very supportive of that change. Thank you, Mr Chair.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in his name to Part 1 be agreed to:

in new clause 8, in paragraph (a) of the definition of dwellinghouse, replace “section 121A of the Land Transfer Act 1952” with “section 122 of the Land Transfer Act 2017”;

in new clause 45(1), replace “43(3)” with “43(2)”; and

in new clause 249(d)(i), before “the Senior Courts Act 2016”, insert “of”.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Amendments to other enactments

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 1

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to schedule 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Schedule 1 as amended agreed to.

Schedule 2

The question was put that the following amendments in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to the proposed amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in his name to schedule 2 be agreed to:

delete the item relating to the Land Transfer Act 1952; and

delete the items relating to Schedule 2 of the Land Transfer Act 2017.

Amendments to the amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments as amended set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to schedule 2 be agreed to.

Amendments as amended agreed to.

Schedule 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to clause 1 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Clause 1 as amended agreed to.

Clause 2

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 116 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little to clause 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Clause 2 as amended agreed to.

The committee divided the bill into the Family Violence Bill and the Family Violence (Amendments) Bill, as set out on Supplementary Order Paper 117 in the name of the Hon Andrew Little.

Bill to be reported with amendment presently.