Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill

I move, That the Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider the bill.

The Family Court now sees a large number of parties alleging family harm and domestic violence, including sexual violence. This harm and this violence are seen, for example, in protection order hearings and in Care of Children Act hearings.

This bill is a straightforward yet important means by which to achieve two fundamental aims. The first aim is to protect vulnerable people who appear in the Family Court, and the second aim is to improve the quality of evidence given at the Family Court. It does so by adding a presumption in favour of using alternative ways of giving evidence in the Family Court—for instance, using an audiovisual link or CCTV to avoid an open courtroom, which means evidence-in-chief and cross-examination could be recorded beforehand, or the ability to use screens to prevent direct visual contact.

I note for members that these alternative ways are automatically available for witnesses in criminal proceedings, but there is no statutory presumption in the Family Court. The alternative ways exist in criminal proceedings, as they should in the Family Court, fundamentally to reduce the stress on victims and to reduce the stress on witnesses.

I’d like to take a step back and provide some background to show why these measures are important. In doing so, I’d like to acknowledge and reference Dr Emily Henderson, who is the author of this bill, a passionate academic, advocate for improvements in the justice and Family Court settings, and an experienced practitioner with many years’ service to the Family Court. When I spoke to Dr Henderson and asked her more about the impetus of this bill, she said, as a starting point, “Trying to get lawyers to use alternatives in the Family Court isn’t always easy. People don’t know what they don’t know, but creating a presumption should make things easier.”, and this is what this bill does.

We then went on to talk about how New Zealand had become one of the first countries in 1989, if I remember correctly, to enact some, or at least a couple, of the innovations from what was a large international conference the year before. Since then, the dial hasn’t really moved much to protect vulnerable people.

Courtrooms in the Family Court are typically smaller. They are less formal by design. They often are in a room with one long set of benches on the same level, and they are like that specifically to remove formality. They typically have less physical distancing between parties and between witnesses. I think it’s fair to say that Family Court courtrooms are designed for people who are at loggerheads. While that might be the case for some proceedings, the majority of cases that make it to the Family Court are about interpersonal violence, not dispute resolution. In reality, it is the top tier of intractable issues being heard, often involving violence of all sorts, and parties are there because all else has failed.

The civil parties, as seen in the Family Court, are often doubly vulnerable because they not only give evidence but they also must take the lead role in prosecuting or defending their cases and instructing their own counsel, rather than having the protection of a prosecutor leading the case. In this setting, in this physical environment, and under these circumstances, that very informality found in the Family Court can actually be very intimidating, and protections are needed to help alleviate fear and stress and to help remove barriers to ensure that witnesses simply don’t fold, because they were too scared to tell their stories, and are able to give their evidence.

This bill amends section 107 of the Evidence Act 2006 to extend the range of possible protections for parties and witnesses giving evidence of sexual assault or family harm in the Family Court to mirror those available to similarly vulnerable complainants and witnesses in criminal proceedings. Existing protections in criminal proceedings include automatic entitlement for children witnesses to give evidence in alternative ways instead of more stressful, normal methods. Sections 15 and section 16 of the Sexual Violence Legislation Act 2021 will also amend the Evidence Act 2006, extending that presumption as found in criminal proceedings to sexual-case complainants, to sexual-case propensity witnesses, and to adult family-harm complainants.

It should also be noted that in certain narrow circumstances, the witnesses can choose to, or the judge can order the witness to, give the evidence in an ordinary way, but the presumption in favour of alternative ways of giving evidence is an important protection for this particular very vulnerable group. It prompts judges and lawyers to actually use the tools that we know work well to level the playing field, to limit the intimidation that we know happens on a daily basis, and to protect these parties while they are giving evidence.

In conclusion, this bill represents a simple legislative change but an important one. I thank Dr Emily Henderson for being so passionate about this issue and for drafting this bill. I, in her stead, will look forward hopefully to progressing this through the House. I invite members across the House to support these protections and to vote for this bill.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I begin tonight’s contribution just by acknowledging Dr McLellan for her work and good fortune in having this bill drawn from the ballot. I know it’s taken a while to get here. We’ve been through many members’ days where the member has probably sat waiting, hoping that it would pop up, and finally it’s arrived—so, congratulations. I know that you had a member’s bill go through earlier this year and didn’t quite get that one across the line, but we’re hopeful for this one. I know the member has nominated the Justice Committee for consideration of this bill, and we gladfully accept that nomination and look forward to considering bill No. 24 for this committee. I understand Greg Fleming may be tempted to seek leave to rush through the rest of the bills tonight to get his bill to the Justice Committee as well, but I’m sure that there’ll be objections to that across the House.

I won’t leave the member hanging. The National Party will be supporting this bill through to select committee so that it can have some robust discussion and consideration. While we do broadly support the policy intentions behind the bill, there are some fish-hooks that we do want to carefully consider when it comes to looking at the traditional way that we uphold rights in the justice system in New Zealand and in the Westminster system of justice and how this bill may impact them. But this legislation does represent a potential step forward in protecting our most vulnerable New Zealanders. We just had the passage of the second reading of a bill focused on protecting victims, and that’s exactly what this bill intends to do as well. It intends to ensure our justice system better serves those affected by family violence.

This bill does affect the giving of evidence in the Family Court, and the Family Court, of course, deals with some of the most sensitive and challenging cases in our justice system. Every day in that court, New Zealanders—everyday New Zealanders—must stand before the court to recount traumatic experiences of family violence, and not only do they do so as witnesses but often as parties who must take an active role in their own cases, instructing counsel and prosecuting or defending their positions. This double burden places immense stress on those who have already endured significant trauma, and currently, while the Family Court technically has access to these alternative ways of giving evidence, the protections—we have found—are very rarely used. This bill seeks to change that by creating a presumption in favour of the alternative evidence-giving methods, mirroring those protections already available in the criminal courts in the wider justice system.

I wanted to talk about a number of reasons why we believe the bill should proceed through to select committee for consideration. First of all, one of those issues is the current challenges that we have in the Family Court. The physical environment of our Family Court does present some challenges. Typically, those courtrooms are smaller and less formal than criminal courts, with minimal physical distance between parties, often parties who are intimately connected with one another. For someone who has experienced family violence, being in proximity to their alleged abuser can be quite traumatic and overwhelming in those settings. There is, of course, a possibility that those environments can significantly impact the quality of evidence being given when you are confronted with someone so close to you.

The second thing is that this legislation will hopefully align practice with what happens currently in the criminal courts as well. Under section 107, I believe, of the Evidence Act, child witnesses in criminal proceedings are automatically entitled to give evidence in alternative ways. This is a logical and perhaps necessary step to extend these same protections to the Family Court, where those victims of family violence are often required to give evidence in even more challenging circumstances. I understand the bill includes several procedural safeguards: parties must give 28 days’ notice of their intention to use alternative ways of giving evidence, other parties can apply for a direction that evidence be given in an ordinary way, and judges always retain the discretion to make appropriate directions based on the interests of justice.

We believe that the legislation will deliver four key benefits overall to the justice system. First, we believe it will improve the quality of evidence provided to the court. As I mentioned before, the stress of giving evidence before those in close proximity who you are very, very intimately related to can affect things like memory recall and how you express yourself in court, and so alternative methods can help those witnesses provide clearer, more effective evidence. Secondly, we believe it will increase access to justice. Many victims currently hesitate to seek Family Court intervention out of fear of facing their abusers. These provisions providing extra protections may encourage more people to seek the court’s protection and to come forward. Thirdly, we understand and believe there will be efficiency gains for the courts. Where witnesses are less traumatised, proceedings go more smoothly, and there are fewer interruptions and fewer issues, benefiting all court users. Fourthly, as mentioned by the previous speaker, Tracey McLellan, we understand there will be better outcomes for children in this case; for all cases involving children, these provisions can help ensure their voices are heard while minimising the potential trauma.

At the top of my speech, I indicated that there were some potential negative consequences that we are aware of, on this side, and that we’ll be interested in looking into in the select committee. First of all, one of those is around administrative and resource requirements. This does add an additional element, technology-wise, into the court system. The 28-day notice requirement for alternative methods could delay proceedings, the courts will need to invest in the appropriate technical equipment and training, additional staff may be needed, and remote testimony and small courthouses may struggle to provide the appropriate facilities. Those are things during the select committee process that we hope to be able to tease out and to try and mitigate and minimise any impact. Secondly, there may be some additional procedural complexities as we introduce new ways of operating in the Family Courts. The process of applying for, and contesting, these alternative evidence methods could lengthen proceedings, managing the technical equipment during hearings could disrupt the court flow, and remote testimony may complicate cross-examination and the assessment of witness credibility.

Thirdly, the bill does impact the rights of respondents under our justice system—and before Duncan Webb quite rudely interrupts my speech and accuses me of reading—

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Point of order, Mr Speaker. I don’t mean to rudely interrupt Mr Meager’s speech, but you seem to have mistaken the time clock, Mr Speaker, because under Appendix A, members’ bills have five minutes for the second speech. That’s what I’m reading in Appendix A of the Standing Orders.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): No, the first two are 10 minutes.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: Oh, we’ve got some advice then.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): Sorry, we’ll take the clock back a minute.

💬 Hon Dr Duncan Webb: I apologise to the member.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): We’ll give the member another minute, thanks.

I’ll just regather my thoughts and find where I was, Mr Speaker. No, look, I—

💬 Hon Scott Simpson: Start at the beginning.

I’ll start right from the top. It’s a pleasure to be speaking on Tracey McLellan’s member’s bill.

No, look, there are some important rights and issues to be considered in this. The bill does change and amend some of the procedures around giving evidence, which may impact on a respondent’s right to be heard and to face their accuser. So changing the way we practise in the courts will result in a reduced ability to directly confront accusations. It could affect the defence rights. Video evidence might not capture some of those important non-verbal cues that judges and counsel pick up on. You’ve got technical issues which could impact the ability and the effectiveness of cross-examination of defence counsel. And, of course, remote testimony might of course affect the respondent’s ability to instruct counsel during proceedings. Those are some of the potential issues that we will be looking into in the select committee in terms of affecting the rights of the respondents, but, of course, our focus in this bill and in supporting this bill is to maintain concentration at all times on victims of crime and on the ability for victims to access justice, not only the respondents.

Finally, in the two-odd minutes I have remaining, unless there are further suggestions from members as to how I should deliver this speech, there are some practical implementation challenges. As someone who comes from a rural and regional electorate, I can envisage some challenges for people giving testimony remotely, whether that’s access to the technology, whether that’s access to the connectivity, and whether that’s the need to travel somewhere that has those facilities. The ability to roll this out across the country will be something that we’ll look into in the committee, as well as some of the resource constraints. Also, what do you do when those technical failures do exist for some of those areas? What are the back-up options available for victims of crime in rural and regional New Zealand? I know many of my colleagues will be interested in that, given how many rural and regional electorates they do take charge over.

Mr Speaker, the clock appears to be increasing in time the longer I speak, so I’m not entirely sure what happens here.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Greg O’Connor): A moment has been added on.

Very good. OK, I’ve had the moment. Well, then I will go to—some of the other challenges that may well exist in this bill are some of the professional practice requirements. Of course, lawyers who practise in the Family Court will need to adjust their practice. If you practise predominantly in the Family Court, you may not be as familiar with the cross-examination of remote testimony and remote cross-examination. New skills may need to be required for managing client interactions, and, of course, different approaches may need to be taken in order to prepare witnesses. There are some potential challenges in that area. Then, of course, you’ve got issues around client confidentiality and how the court can be assured that those giving testimony remotely are doing so without coercion and without undue influence in the room as well. That is something that you can control when you are in person in court, but something which is a little bit harder to control when you are doing so remotely.

Finally, just in terms of our friends in the judiciary, the Family Court judges, there may need to be some increased training for managing the technology. There may be increased complexity in managing hearings when doing things remotely. As chair of a committee which manages a number of hearings mixed by Zoom and in-person, I can imagine some of the issues that might face some judges when faced with technological issues. And, of course, there is the potential for misuse of these processes by nefarious actors, in particular people who are upset about being brought before the Family Court and want to use some of these processes as a way to harass or as leverage against their victims. Of course, we have other legislation that’s been seen to deal with litigant abuse, which may go some way to dealing with those issues too.

In conclusion, this side of the House—and I think all members in the House—are committed to protecting vulnerable New Zealanders. This bill acknowledges that the way we gather evidence can be improved in a way which balances the rights of victims and access to justice with those rights of the defendants or the respondents, the rights to fair trial. Family violence casts a long shadow over our society, and I’m hopeful that many members in this House will support the bill, at least through to select committee, so we can give it a thorough, thorough examination. I congratulate the member, and I commend the bill to the House.

As you are such an infrequent speaker in the House, I thought you might appreciate that extra minute, Mr Meager.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Can I begin by congratulating and acknowledging the member Tracey McLellan, to my right, for her work and for bringing this bill to the House. I think a debate on this issue is really long overdue, and I just want to acknowledge that I think everybody here will stand up and acknowledge that we want to prevent family and sexual violence from happening. But I think, at the core, it’s about the actions that we take to protect survivors and to work to address the drivers that lead to family and sexual violence in the first place. To me, members’ bills that have practical effect and improve the ability for survivors to be able to go through the justice system in a way that honours their experiences are a really good and practical way we can take those visions and values on board.

I also want to acknowledge that this bill aims to support the use of alternative methods for presenting evidence, such as video recordings or other accommodations in the Family Court. I think it’s worth noting, and I know others have acknowledged, that these provisions in theory exist, but they’re so infrequently used that that, in and of itself, acts as a deterrent. By establishing this presumption, we’re basically breaking down barriers for survivors to be able to have other means of presenting evidence in a way that also acknowledges their own experiences and, I think, in a way that also acknowledges diversity that exists in our communities—for example, for people for whom English is a second language, or for disabled people. Having these alternative methods is a really important way of breaking down the barrier to really fulsome participation through the Family Court, a way that decreases the risk of harm to them, and a way that doesn’t deter people from participating in these proceedings.

I want to acknowledge that this bill doesn’t exist within a vacuum. I want to mihi to the Hon Marama Davidson, our co-leader, for her work in establishing Te Aorerekura, and that Te Aorerekura, in and of itself, will exist as part of an ecosystem that aims to eliminate sexual and family violence and to put the means of preventing it across all Government agencies. It was highlighted by the Chief Victims Advisor that our current adversarial system often leaves victims/survivors without true justice, perpetuating a cycle of winners and losers. To me, this bill will help address some of that in terms of breaking down the adversarial nature of our justice system so it ends up being one about healing and ensuring that we don’t perpetuate cycles of violence, as our carceral system often tends to do.

I also want to touch on some of the remarks from the National Party, particularly the concerns that they noted around the admin requirements and resource requirements that they presented as, I guess, issues of concern and needing further evaluation. I want to remind those members that, at the end of the day, they hold the power to resource those entities adequately so that those things do not actually become barriers to having this bill becoming law and functioning, and that resourcing the courts to ensure that we can address these potential concerns is a worthwhile investment to make. I don’t want their austerity politics to be barriers to actually having these alternative methods of presenting evidence from working in practice. We should not set this bill up to fail by pre-empting potential resource constraints when, actually, we’ve got a Government that is very much choosing to give millions and millions of dollars in tax breaks to landlords and to tobacco companies. Therefore, when they speak of these resource constraints, we’ve got to put it in the context of the broader Government objectives.

We look forward to evaluating this bill at the select committee stage. No doubt, our members on the Justice Committee will do due diligence and receive the voices of submitters with care. I do expect that we will be hearing from people who will have really, really delicate stories to tell, and I just want to uphold the mana of future submitters because those voices will be critical when it comes to ensuring that we have something that works for survivors and honours those experiences in a system that, so far, hasn’t uplifted them. Once again, I commend the member for bringing this bill to the House for us to debate, and I hope that it goes through all stages in a way that honours the voices of our broader communities.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Dr Webb will be happy to know I only get five minutes—I was hoping it would be longer, but it won’t be—but, again, I also rise to speak, on behalf of ACT, on the Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill, brought to the House by Dr Tracey McLellan. I do want to also add my congratulations on having this bill drawn, Dr McLellan, and having it, hopefully, considered by the Justice Committee. Well, ACT is going to support it, so I think there’s a good chance it’s going to be supported by the Justice Committee.

I’m going to talk about the bill in a second, but I just also—you know, we’re talking a lot about victims tonight, and it’s actually very timely that during the dinner break, myself and my colleague the Minister Karen Chhour and my other colleague Laura Trask popped down to the opening of Men and Trauma New Zealand’s new office here in Wellington. They’re a specialty service that actually deals, really, with men, who are often victims of sexual assault, and they’re also dealing with suicide prevention. It was really a timely reminder that we do need to do more to protect victims and to also address people who are victims and help them actually get on with their lives and heal.

I think this bill—we carefully considered it, the ACT caucus, we looked at it, and we do think it’s worthy of going to select committee and having a discussion, because it does actually put in place a presumption that does support victims. Dr McLellan mentioned the actual author of the bill, Emily Henderson, and, again, I want to just acknowledge her work, as I know Dr McLellan would, in actually getting this bill into shape and bringing it before the House.

On this side of the House and in ACT, we actually do think about victims’ rights and how vulnerable people are going to have to give evidence within our justice system. As has been spoken about tonight, the Family Court does try to be a bit more informal, but it is still a court, there are still formal processes, and it can actually still be quite intimidating. It is set up in a particular way. I think—again, as Dr McLellan talked about—when things get to the Family Court, they are usually very difficult and intractable issues. I know from my own short experience of practising at the bar that the Family Court cases I was involved in were extremely difficult ones, where the parties had been going at it for years and years. In fact, in the case I was involved in, the mother had gone on the run and refused to come to court. These are the kinds of very difficult situations we’re dealing with.

Dr McLellan, tonight, pointed out that you are then adding in the process and the drama and the set-up of a court. I think putting in place the types of measures that this bill does around being able to give evidence in different ways, through audiovisual links, video—and changing the presumption, I think, is a sensible one, definitely worthy of discussion. I think it does align with some of the things that this Government is trying to do. I want to assure Mr Menéndez March that, obviously, we are investing in new things in the court. Again, recently, the Justice Committee looked at audiovisual links and how we’re going to use new technology. While there have been some concerns raised, those are things that the Government is actively working on, and, hopefully, that new technology and new way of doing things will be able to be utilised by the changes that Dr McLellan’s talking about here in this bill. I think there are some things that can be tied together.

I also want to say that I think we work very constructively in the Justice Committee on members’ bills. We have some tensions around some of the many, many pieces of legislation that are coming through our committee, but I do think that on members’ bills we are a very constructive committee. We’re willing to have a constructive discussion, and I think we can get this bill into a shape that will be worthy of further discussion in this House. I do want to thank the member for getting this in front of us, for actually thinking about victims and how we can actually accommodate their needs in the Family Court in these extremely difficult situations, and for moving this forward. ACT will be supporting this, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Evidence (Giving Evidence of Family Violence) Amendment Bill. I would like to acknowledge Dr Tracey McLellan for her work in bringing this bill to the House. New Zealand First will also be supporting this bill through the first reading, but we do so with some considerations that have already been reflected on in the House today.

The process of the Family Court is often very sensitive and volatile, and we acknowledge that there are sensitivities that need to be addressed, but I think we also need to consider the basic fundamentals of a system that requires us to be able to test the veracity of information and to be able to understand the nuances of the information that’s being provided. The concern is that we are rushing too quickly to create these additional steps without looking at the ways in which we can fix and modify the existing systems to afford the protections.

The fact is that the Family Court is not always victim and offender. The fact is that we are dealing with broken families and bad situations on all sides, and so when we enter into a court process it’s very hard to say that there is cleanly and clearly one victim and one offender in those situations. Yes, there are vulnerable people, and we absolutely need to ensure there are some protections, but I still think that we need to be careful that we’re not rushing down a path to put systems in place when we’re just not fixing the existing environment.

We’ve talked a lot about the courtroom environment, particularly for the Family Court, being smaller, more intimate, but that is for a purpose, and that purpose is to have a less formal environment so that we can have very full and frank discussions, that we can open up and look each other in the eye and talk about things and hopefully come to some fair resolutions. This is the part that New Zealand First has some considerations on. We want to ensure that we’re balancing protection with justice and that we’re not overruling the fact that perhaps sometimes the information exchanged needs to be tested and needs to be challenged.

I think that there is opportunity to look at alternative solutions. We talked a lot about these things and how we need to ensure there are protections, but if the system is failing and not protecting people who are vulnerable, then perhaps we need to look at the way we’re allowing these situations. We’ve talked already about how that criteria to allow alternative evidence exists but isn’t being applied, and how rushing to legislation sometimes seems to be a quick fix which doesn’t necessarily end up being the quick fix we hoped it would be.

We’ve touched on the idea that when you have these 28-day notification periods and we have these extra technologies, we’ve got to consider all of the courtrooms around this country, and we’ve got to consider the resources available in all those courtrooms. Contrary to public opinion, there isn’t a magic money bucket with from we can just start throwing money at every new initiative that we have, so we have to really be careful about what we’re putting in place and the expectations we’re creating. It may be that sometimes we need to work with the resources we’ve got and make sure the courts are applying what already exists and doing it well before we rush to legislation.

By no means are we saying that there isn’t perhaps a necessity for some further protections to be put in place, but I hope that through the select committee process, we will fully test the expectations of what we’re putting in place here, and that we fully test that we’re not allowing a broken system to remain broken and putting in additional steps, because we haven’t got the energy or motivation or understanding to fix a broken system. I hope that we don’t end up with an unintended consequence of having a less fair system, that we recognise that the Family Courts have delicate situations, that there isn’t always the offender and the victim, that there isn’t always a good guy and a bad guy, and that sometimes it’s just a broken family who needs to sit in a room together and work out how they’re going to move forward and how they’re going to put systems in place to protect everyone. I do commend the bill to the House, and I hope that the talented Justice Committee will work through all of those issues. Thank you.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. Kia ora tātou e te katoa. E tautoko ana mātou te pāti ki tēnei whakaaro [Thank you, Mr Speaker. Hello to everyone. We, the party, support this idea], and in saying that, supporting this bill and this idea, the idea behind it, so e mihi atu ana ki a koe [I acknowledge you], Dr Tracey McLellan. E mihi atu ana ki a Dr Emily Henderson. So e mōhio ana ahau ki tērā wahine, ka mahi tahi māua ki Whangārei, me wōna whānau katoa, so e mihi atu ana ki a ia. [I acknowledge Dr Emily Henderson. So now that woman, we work together in Whangārei, and all of her whānau, so I acknowledge her.] It doesn’t surprise me at all, her work with you to bring this to this point, so I’ll mention that to her when I see her next.

I’m taking this call on behalf of the party to speak in support of the bill. The sad reality, though, is that 58 percent of wāhine Māori are affected by family violence over a lifetime. That’s kind of what I mean. There are a lot of reasons why those sorts of things happen, but I want to make that comment because as well, as being the victims of harm, there is also a number growing that are the solutions of their own liberation. Too many have been in harm’s way and have been affected and find themselves in front of Family Courts.

Unfortunately, we know that that does not work well, generally, for all, particularly for wāhine Māori. Wāhine Māori are more likely to experience these forms of assault than anyone else in Aotearoa. We are also the least likely to seek justice. This is not just due to inherent discrimination in our justice system but because of how difficult it can be to navigate it. Currently, people who experience family violence in Aotearoa are treated differently by our justice system, depending on where they turn for help.

The same special protections that are guaranteed to victims in the criminal justice system are not guaranteed in the Family Court. These protections include being able to pre-record evidence and testify remotely. While the Family Court can apply these protections, the actual rate that they do is not great. This makes seeking justice an intimidating prospect for a lot of wāhine and their families and for other victims of domestic abuse—whether it is from the fear of repercussion, not wanting to go through the criminal system, not wanting to see the perpetrator or the abuser sitting in front of you, or not knowing how to deal with all of that emotion when you’re sitting in such a place like a courtroom.

We need to eliminate all barriers to justice and extend protections to everyone who needs them. It shouldn’t matter which door you knock on to seek help. You should be entitled to safe and consistent support wherever you are and wherever you need it from. Whānau Ora is one of those places that is for Māori, by Māori, designed with kaupapa Māori beginnings and ends and everything in the middle of it. Unfortunately, that’s not getting the support that it needs, but that’s a very, very good—and evidenced so—way to support wāhine Māori that are in situations where they’re having to be in court. Unfortunately, that’s not going to be the case in the next 12 months.

This bill is a good step towards improving the system and the problems that I’ve outlined, but I recognise that a lot more needs to be done to protect our whānau from violence, from whakamā, and from repercussions when seeking justice. Māori didn’t sign the Treaty so we could end up in this state. There’s a lot of work to do, and I look forward to 19 November when this whole place will be receiving many, many Māori—wāhine Māori, children, whānau, hapū, iwi—to come and show their disappointment at what’s going on in the House. But, Tracey, to you and this bill: good for you. We tautoko. Kia ora tātou.

Debate interrupted.