Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH: I move, That the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill be now read a second time.

This bill will strengthen the courts’ statutory powers to protect victims of litigation abuse in family proceedings. The bill was introduced by the previous Government in August 2023, and this Government, in the spirit of bipartisanship, has adopted it. The bill has been considered by the Justice Committee and it recommends that it be passed with amendments to a number of clauses, which I support in full. I thank the members of the committee for their thorough consideration; a committee led by my colleague James Meager who’s done a great job. I understand that the Justice Committee received 21 written submissions on the bill and heard seven oral submissions. These submissions were from people and organisations with valuable and varied experience related to family violence and the court system. I thank them for their insights and for taking the time to submit to the committee. The resulting changes have, I believe, strengthened the bill in line with its purpose.

I’d like to briefly talk about what litigation abuse is, the harm it causes, and the objectives of the bill. Litigation abuse is where someone uses the court system to harass, contact, and control their victim rather than to resolve legitimate disputes. This can include making false allegations and filing excessive documents with the intention to hurt their victim in some way. For example, they may seek to control their victim’s time through responding to court applications or cause financial harm through incurring legal costs. They may intend to humiliate, to hurt, or to continue to force contact with them.

The Government is committed to ensuring the proper and effective use of the court system. The courts are there to resolve disputes when parties are unable to, and to uphold the rule of law. The misuse of the courts process to deliberately prolong a dispute, to harass, to harm or to otherwise abuse somebody is the absolute antithesis of this purpose. This misuse is even more disturbing when it impacts children, which is often the case in the context of family proceedings. I think everybody in the House in their interactions with their constituents and their community will be aware of cases such as this where it’s happened, where our families have been torn asunder and proceedings have been dragged out to the detriment of one party and those close to them.

The purpose of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill is to strengthen the courts’ ability to respond to litigation abuse. It does this by amending the Family Court Act, District Court Act, and Senior Courts Act to include new provisions targeting litigant abuse in family proceedings. The new provisions will allow the court to make an order where a broad view of the conduct both in and out of court proceedings shows someone is engaging in litigant abuse in a family proceeding. If an order is made, the court will require a party to obtain leave of the court to take any further steps in existing or, indeed, in new family proceedings. This will give the courts a tool to protect victims from being abused through the court process. An order will last for a period of up to three years and may last for up to five years in extraordinary circumstances.

I’ll come now to the recommendations of the select committee. The select committee has recommended refinements to the bill to ensure the new provision better recognises the impact of litigation abuse on victims. In response to submitters’ comments, the revised bill focuses on the harm to the targeted party rather than focusing on this behaviour for being an abuse of the court’s process. I just want to reiterate that: the bill focuses on the harm to the targeted party rather than focusing on the behaviour being an abuse of the court’s process. While litigation abuse will often amount to an abuse of the court, the focus on the victim better reflects the intention of the bill: to protect people from abuse in the context of court proceedings.

The revised bill provides protections that are accessible to victims while also signalling the serious nature of litigation abuse. Submitters told the committee that requiring the behaviour in court to be intended to “harass and annoy” the party may trivialise the serious nature of litigation abuse experienced by victims. The benefits of defining the behaviour narrowly to indicate the serious nature needs to be balanced against the risk that it will become more difficult for the victim to assess the new protection. The changes recommended by the committee respond to this by (1) expanding the definition of litigant abuse to include behaviour intended to harass, annoy, or to harm another party to the proceeding or that amounts to psychological abuse; and (2) including further clarification that conduct is intended to capture situations where a pattern of behaviour amounts to litigant abuse. Together these changes better reflect the intention of the bill. The amended language allows for a broad range of behaviour to be captured while also recognising the seriousness of the abuse experienced by victims. They also clarify that the wellbeing and best interests of the child are paramount where they may be affected.

Finally, technical changes make it clear the bill provides an additional process in cases of litigation abuse, but other processes that relate to vexatious litigation remain. A party may engage in conduct that is vexatious—for example, because they are a self-represented litigant with limited knowledge of the process—without intending to abuse another party to the proceedings. Subsequent to the select committee reporting back, a minor and technical amendment has been made to be clear of that to clarify the policy intent and simplify the references used throughout the bill. This is contained in an Amendment Paper that was tabled on 9 August.

I want to come finally to protections in the bill. I want to address the concerns the select committee heard about the provisions in the bill being used to limit access to the courts by victims. To ensure access to justice and natural justice rights are preserved and that the new provision is used properly, there are a number of safeguards in the bill. These are (1) for an order to be made, the judge must be satisfied that conduct within the proceedings is litigant abuse; (2) a judge retains discretion about whether to make an order; (3) an order does not prevent a party from taking further steps and proceedings, it requires that the courts review any further steps that person takes in the family proceeding or any new family proceedings they initiate to ensure that they are appropriate before allowing them to proceed; and (4) the decision to grant an order is itself able to be appealed.

I want to thank the organisations and people who took the time to share their experiences with litigant abuse. Their insights informed the changes made to this bill which have improved it considerably. I acknowledge that many submissions related to substantial or general changes to the family justice system were beyond this bill’s scope. The Ministry of Justice has a multi-year work programme under way that aims to ensure people affected by family violence and sexual violence feel safe, supported, and are well-informed in their interactions with the ministry. To protect the core purpose and prevent misuse, our courts need appropriate statutory powers to prevent victims being forced into ongoing relationship with their abuser through court proceedings and this bill supports that. Thank you, Mr Speaker. I recommend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Labour supports this bill because it was ours, and we’re pleased that the Government is continuing to support this bill.

It’s been an interesting process to hear the submissions on this bill and it’s really important that we’ve made some changes in relation to some of the views that we heard. The idea behind the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill is really to prevent someone who is the victim of ongoing abuse—whether that be stalking, physical violence, psychological pressure, so that the court system is not used as an additional tool to continually make their life insufferable; it can be quite debilitating. We saw some instances of that through Justice Committee submissions where partners had made their former partner’s life, and their children as well, a misery through prolonged litigation, prolonged court processes.

This bill, which was actually one of the issues initially raised by a former member of Parliament: Emily Henderson—it was one of her views, after being a Family Court lawyer and working in this space, seeing how specifically women are often targeted through the court system and had various types of different processes through the courts laid upon them to make life almost intolerable.

It’s really good to see under the new provisions that the court must take a broad view of conduct both in and out of court proceedings to determine whether someone is in fact abusing the court’s processes in a family proceeding. If an order is made, any further attempts by the abuser to engage the victim in family proceedings will be reviewed by the court before it can progress. Of course, there needs to be some careful weighing up of instances such as these. We know that the Family Court is a problematic place. When people reach the Family Court, it is usually a pretty traumatic experience all round.

This bill is one of the many changes that Labour made in order to strengthen the rights of victims and also strengthen the courts process for victims, particularly for family violence, for sexual violence, and to give victims of family or sexual violence more of a voice through our court process, which is typically quite an adversarial process in general.

The committee heard through the process that stalkers are increasingly using litigation abuse to target their victims. It’s also encouraging to see that the Government’s made a commitment just this year to pass legislation specifically making stalking a criminal offence. I know that the sector of advocates in this space—for women’s rights and who work in the family violence space—are particularly pleased to have that, and we’re eagerly awaiting that on this side of the House. The Minister does know that there’s a bill in my name in the ballot ready to go—if you just wanted to pull that one out and vote for that, we could do that one even quicker than his own Government bill.

We are satisfied that the amended bill would minimise some of the risks that were raised by submitters. Several submitters expressed concern that the bill would provide abusers with a tool to engage intimate partner violence in using the courts to prevent victims from raising safety concerns. We see that that is a possibility and we think that we’ve got the balance about right for the judge to be able to make those determinations, given the evidence that comes before them. It’s really encouraging to see that the Government is taking a positive stance on this and voting for a bill that does good things for family violence, particularly in the face of the fact that the family violence track record under this Government has, to date, not been fantastic. It’s good to see some progress.

We have seen, as we all know, in New Zealand, around about 20 percent of family violence is currently reported to police. Research from the Ministry of Justice and from NGOs, such as The Backbone Collective, showed that the reason why people in New Zealand don’t report family violence is that they’ve previously either called police and had no response or called police and had a poor response or reached out for help and not had a positive experience. That’s the main reason why people don’t report family violence.

If, now, we’re in a position where a decision is being taken by this Government to only send police if it’s a threat to life, that that doesn’t meet that threshold of high-level family violence, all of those people who are ringing up and calling up and asking for help and not receiving it because it doesn’t meet the threshold—my question is: what does that do for the reporting rate of family violence in New Zealand? It would be great if we did have teams that were able to go out and take up that work, I agree, if we want to get on top of family violence. Police aren’t specifically trained in that space, but there is no additional funding for Women’s Refuges or other counselling services or those family support providers to go and take up that work and to fill that space that has been left. That is a real concern for the reporting rate of family violence.

This bill is really a drop in the bucket in terms of getting on top of the issues of family violence that New Zealand faces right now. The big problem is not just reporting rates but it’s the next generation of young people in New Zealand who grow up in homes where violence is normalised as part of their daily lives. This contributes, we know, to negative factors in their development, their ability to be whole, cooperating, happy, functioning members of society and to live full lives. We have, I think, an obligation to make sure we’re doing everything we can.

It’s for that reason, if we’re serious about family violence, that the roles of a lot of the Oranga Tamariki providers who have now had funding cut because the Minister will only fund kids in State care—nothing more, nothing less. That’s her words: nothing more, nothing less. If they’re in State care, they get funded, but if they’re not in State care, there’s no help and there’s no prevention services now going on. North Shore Women’s Centre is closing, and Kōkiri services in the Hutt. We can list some more. They’re all services that go into those homes and that support whānau who are going through tough times. Through counselling, through support, and through budgeting advice, they enable whānau who are experiencing family violence to deal with their own problems and to keep their children within the family and to have a home that has a hope of living without violence.

My concern is that, with a police service that is stepping back, with front-line NGOs that have been cut, and family who are calling out for help and are not receiving it—it’s great the Government is voting for this bill—long term, it’s a bleak future for New Zealand families if we’re going to try and have a violence-free Aotearoa.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Today, I rise in support of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. I want to mihi to the mahi of many across both sides of this House to ensure we are collectively centred on the real issue at hand. Our shared vision is clear: we can prevent family violence and sexual violence. We shouldn’t accept these issues as inevitable. Our mokopuna and future generations deserve our commitment to this goal. Together, we can and must create a world where everyone can live free from violence, with dignity and peace and respect.

This bill amends the Family Court Act 1980, the District Court Act 2016, and the Senior Courts Act 2016, which will strengthen the courts’ statutory powers to protect victims of litigation abuse in family proceedings. It specifically addresses the needs of victims of family violence, enhancing their protection within our legal system. I want to acknowledge that this bill will take significant steps to address the issue of using the court system to harass victims and survivors of abuse, which has been a persistent problem for far too long.

In the first reading of this bill, the Hon Marama Davidson spoke of the need to balance the rights of victims to be free from abuse in our justice system with maintaining fair process and, as such, strongly recommended the scrutiny of the select committee on this bill. When we speak on behalf of victims and survivors, our goal is to uphold justice and fairness, not to undermine them, as victims and survivors are the ones who truly benefit from these principles. It’s clear that there have been instances where the court has been misused in a disruptive way without any real intervention of seeking justice. I want to thank the work of the Justice Committee, along with those who submitted on this bill to ensure we struck that balance and that the justice system would be safe for those who have experienced domestic and sexual assault in their family.

Whilst the select committee report reads “and unanimously recommends all amendments”, I want to draw attention to key amendments. Firstly, the committee heard a common theme by submitters that the phrasing and definition of “abuse of the court” did not appropriately reflect the serious nature of the harm suffered by abuse victims. As such, it is vital that the House introduce proposed new section 12B(8) to change the definition from “abuse of the court” to “litigant abuse”, which more precisely describes this behaviour. This amendment ensures that we place the survivors at the centre of a strengths-based system, which is in line with Te Aorerekura. I cannot stand here without highlighting and holding Te Aorerekura, the first ever nationwide intergenerational strategy to eliminate family violence and sexual violence.

These legislative efforts alone won’t completely reform the system. There is widespread acknowledgment that they represent a deliberate shift towards centring the voices, expertise, and experience of victim survivors, validating them as they rightfully should be. As highlighted by the Chief Victims Advisor, our current adversarial system often leaves victims and survivors without true justice, perpetuating a cycle of winners and losers. We must reform the system while concurrently striving to establish a more accountable justice framework, one that prioritises victims and survivors and offers effective support and intervention to perpetrators to change their behaviour and take responsibility for the harm they’ve caused.

I also want to draw attention to the themes of some submitters, including that of Community Law and The Backbone Collective. Whilst they spoke in favour of the intent of the bill, they did raise a valid concern that some victims often need to make multiple applications to the Family Court before their case is heard. Their concern was that the introduction of this legislation would prevent victims from being able to use the court systems to bring proceedings. Whilst the committee notes the amendment specifically to clause 5 and around new section 12B, the committee is satisfied that it would protect these circumstances.

I also want to acknowledge the point of monitoring and reporting, which was brought up by many members in the first speech of this bill. Tragically, we know that in Aotearoa, most violence is not reported. Nearly all sexual violence is not reported at all, and it takes an average of seven times for someone to leave an abusive relationship for good. We aim to increase reporting while reducing the prevalence of violence. Decreasing the occurrence of violence is harder, gruntier work, but it’s worth having that goal and is essential—and I’m pleased we have our pathway forward provided by Te Aorerekura, which the Hon Marama Davidson worked so hard to champion.

Whilst we are talking about this bill in the House today—which is directly related to our collective shared vision of preventing family violence and sexual violence present for our future mokopuna—I can’t help but put this into context of what this very House received with heavy hearts just last month: the royal commission of inquiry into abuse in care. Words cannot adequately convey the systemic failures and injustices continually perpetuated for decades by the State.

If we do not confront the systemic injustice and recognise that the State continues to be the largest perpetrator of violence and abuse towards tamariki, the stain on our national character will be permanent. As such, I take this opportunity in the House, whilst we are debating family and sexual violence legislation, to implore the Government in the strongest terms possible to fully implement all 138 recommendations of the royal inquiry into abuse in care in full.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I recommend this bill to the House and look forward to working across the aisle to continue its progress.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of ACT to speak tonight in the second reading of the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. I do want to acknowledge that this bill has traversed two Parliaments, the 53rd and the 54th. I was lucky enough to be on the Justice Committee who actually looked at this bill and did the commentary and the report, which I’ll talk about in a few moments.

I do also want to acknowledge the Hon Marama Davidson—her Green colleagues did just talk about her, but Marama Davidson actually did come along to the Justice Committee and make a very valuable contribution. In fact, it was one of the last times she was actually active in a select committee or in a parliamentary process before she took leave for her cancer treatment. I wish her all the best on that journey and I hope she is back soon. I do want to acknowledge her great contribution.

What I want to say about litigation abuse—and we’ve heard a little bit already, but this is where the court system or litigation is being used by the perpetrator of family violence to really harass, kind of control, their victim. Really, they’re not trying to resolve the conflicts or the issues they’re having between parties; they’re actually just using the court system to cause further harm and damage. That really is quite upsetting and despicable. I actually had a brief legal career and have been to court a number of times, and going to court is actually quite a stressful process in itself, particularly in the family court. It can be resource-intensive, time-intensive—and that’s just if you’re actually trying to resolve your dispute. Imagine when the court system is actually being used to punish you or harass and further victimise you—that’s just adding another level of stress to your life.

What we see with litigation abuse is multiple filings, and, of course, courts, and lawyers in particular—we love to file motions and put things before the courts. I mean, there’s always avenues to do that, but if that’s being done inappropriately, to just continue to victimise and control and harm the other person, the other party to that proceeding, that actually is not a proper use of the court’s time. That’s what we see, you know: excessive filings, making people respond to those filings, file affidavits, have to turn up to court sessions. Again, if you’re actually having to take time off work, disrupt your life, instruct lawyers—this is all actually very emotionally draining but also resource-draining, and can cause a lot of additional harms to victims.

I do want to acknowledge the Hon Ginny Andersen for bringing this bill forward. What we saw there is a bit of a gap in the law. Look, judges do have considerable powers at the moment to actually deal with proceedings, but some of those powers may not have been sufficient to actually stop this type of abuse, particularly in these family proceedings and when we’re seeing violence. We wanted to make sure—well, what this bill does try to make sure—is that there are additional provisions for judges to be able to actually deal with this abuse

We did, here—and I think it’s already been touched on. We had 21 submissions, and I do want to thank all the submitters to the select committee. Again, I’ll talk a little bit about what some of the submitters said, but we were, by listening to those submitters, actually able, I think, to make some improvements to this bill. Five key themes came through from the submissions we heard. One was that this kind of litigation abuse occurs more frequently in these family violence and family court settings, and maybe a bit more frequently than we had actually anticipated. It was good to hear that firsthand.

There were several, obviously, comments making sure that while we were making these changes, there was still a right to justice, and, again, I think this bill has struck the right balance. We’re trying to stop this abuse but also making sure that the right to justice and actually being heard is retained. We want to make sure that all parties continue to have that, but make sure that both parties to proceedings and the court’s resources were not being used inappropriately.

Again, about a quarter of the submitters raised various concerns about the bill’s impacts on children, and, again, we made a specific recommendation around applicability to the Care of Children Act—I can come back to that in a little minute. Submitters expressed concerns that victims could still be harmed and wanted to make sure that this bill does actually minimise that risk. I think, again, I want to thank the Green member Kahurangi Carter. Really, this issue is about systemic change, and we actually need to make sure that we’re actually changing the justice system, particularly in the Family Court setting, I should say—particularly in the Family Court setting—to actually make that process deliver results and not be detrimental to the parties involved, particularly when you’ve got children involved in those Family Court cases.

I know the Minister has already outlined some of the changes that the select committee made, but I will just touch on those again briefly. There was, again, this definition around “abuse” which was changed, while, again, not wanting to minimise it by using terms like just “harass” and “annoy”, because “annoy” doesn’t really sound that serious. What we are actually talking about is things that are far more than an annoyance; they’re abusive and re-harming people. That was kind of dealt with.

Again, there was a lot of discussion in the select committee around conduct outside of proceedings and just wanting to make sure we’re actually reflecting that. We wanted the judge to be able to consider what a party might be doing outside of the proceedings but also how that interplayed with the proceedings that were before that judge or before the courts.

Another couple of quick things I did want to mention was, really, that ACT sees this—and the Government’s been very happy to pick up this bill—as adding to the suite of policies that we’re putting forward as a Government, actually, to strengthen the overall criminal justice system. I know we’ve, tonight, heard some criticism about what we might be doing in various areas, including Oranga Tamariki, but I can assure you that we are actually doing those changes with the best of intentions. Minister Chhour has said, many times in this House, that her focus is actually on the care and protection of children and she actually wants Oranga Tamariki to focus on that and deliver results, which it hasn’t been doing.

We see the opportunity to support this as going alongside a lot of the other changes we’re making in the criminal justice area—whether that’s to strengthen gang legislation to strengthen a punishment for gang members and whether, earlier tonight, we were talking about firearms and prevention orders around them. We’d see this as complementing a whole bunch of things that we are doing in this space.

I appreciate it was introduced by the last Labour Government, and, as I said, I think we should pick up good ideas where we see them. I very much think that this is going to add to the overall strength of our criminal justice system by really dealing with an area we heard that submitters were very keen for us to address.

I do note in the commentary from the select committee that we did raise this issue of stalking. Again, as the Hon Ginny Andersen said, it was outside the scope of this bill, but it was important that it was noted that people still saw that as an area where more could be done. I do believe Minister Goldsmith has committed to doing that. So I really just want to leave it there and say, obviously, ACT is very happy to support this bill, and I commend it to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill. Like many things in the Justice Committee, being a first-time member being exposed to some of the stuff that does go on in our legal system, this has been quite a learning for me actually going through this bill and actually learning some of the difficulties people face in our court system.

It’s important, if we just go to the purpose around the bill, and it gave some examples around filing excess documents with the courts that requires a response from a party to a proceeding and how that can become intense for someone—a victim who is trying to get justice and having to go through that process, and also forcing victims to attend multiple court sessions to respond to an application. For many of us, probably the last place we want to find ourselves is in a courtroom. Unfortunately, some people force people multiple times under duress into the courts.

What I would like to say is we did hear from 21 submitters; seven of them were oral submitters. Some of those submissions that we did hear from were quite powerful and I’ve got a few of them here that I’m just going to touch on briefly. One was from the Victim Support, and they talked about the number of cases that they deal with, but they made a very powerful statement in their submission that courts become playgrounds. That is something that we do not want to see in our courts, where they become playgrounds and people become further victims because of the use of the court.

Ruth Money was another submitter we heard from. She said the court is often used against victims, and that is, again, something here we don’t want to be seen repeated. We heard from other submitters—the Federation of Business and Professional Women New Zealand—and they talked about a number of different examples, and especially the abuse in the wider community, but also going through the court system. Anna Baxter had a very well-sought-out submission where she talked about family violence having devastating impacts on the physical, mental, and emotional wellbeing of victims and their children as well as the wider society. She also talked around filing with further steps if they have to file two or more proceedings under the current legislation where you would have to actually go through multiple stages of this. She was actually saying—Anna Baxter in her submission—that under this bill the judge would be able to make an order a lot more quickly.

Those submissions really helped the committee as we knuckled down. New Zealand First finds that the Victims of Family Violence (Strengthening Legal Protections) Legislation Bill was designed to combat the misuse of the legal system by abusers to further victimise individuals involved in family proceedings. Litigation abuse involves tactics such as filing those excess documents or forcing multiple court appearances; thereby harassing, annoying, or harming another party. The bill aims to provide the courts with the statutory powers needed to address and prevent such misuse, ensuring that the legal process cannot be weaponised against victims of family violence.

Now, New Zealand First’s position and our principles around this bill are New Zealand First is committed to protecting victims of family violence and ensuring that the legal system is not used as a tool for further abuse. We believe in upholding the integrity of the judicial process and safeguarding the welfare of individuals, especially the vulnerable. Our principles emphasise justice, fairness, and the protection of those who are most at risk. By supporting this bill—and it’s great that all parties across this House will be supporting this bill—we reaffirm our dedication to creating a safer and more just society for New Zealanders.

When we looked at this bill, we picked out three major areas: the protection for the victims, the judicial efficiency, and alignments with our values. I’m just going to go through each one of those. The protection for victims. The bill provides essential protections for victims of family violence, preventing abuse and misusing the court system; empowers judges to identify and stop litigation abuse, ensuring that the legal process cannot be exploited to inflict further harm on victims. This protection is crucial for reducing the emotional and financial burdens placed on victims, allowing them to navigate the legal system without fear of additional harassment or intimidation.

Around judicial efficiency, by addressing litigation abuse, the bill enhances the efficiency and the fairness of Family Court proceedings. It helps streamline the judicial process by reducing unnecessary and malicious legal actions, allowing the courts to focus on the genuine cases—and we know that there are many of those cases that are genuine that require attention. This not only benefits the victims but also improves the overall functioning of the legal system, making it more responsive and effective.

The alignment with the New Zealand First values. This bill aligns with New Zealand First’s values of justice, fairness, and protection of the vulnerable. It ensures that the legal system serves its intended purpose of delivering justice and upholding the rights of individuals without being manipulated by the malicious intent. By supporting this bill, New Zealand First demonstrates its commitment to maintaining a just and equitable society where the rights and wellbeing of victims of family violence are prioritised and protected.

Going through the bill, we did make those changes—and there was a major change that we did make around litigation abuse of a party to the proceedings rather than the court. That was a major change from when the bill was first introduced—that it is about the victim rather than the abuse or things happening in the court, but it’s actually to the party or the victim that the litigation abuse is happening to.

Around the definitions, we replaced “abuse of court” and changed it to “a litigation abuse”. Importantly, section 12B(4)(b) was around the outside things happening outside the court. Often we know of the attempts inside a court, but it’s also what’s happening on the outside and it’s around that harassment or being annoying or harm. What the committee did do after hearing submissions, we wanted to keep that term from being on the outside—litigation abuse—keep that quite broad, and we have done that.

Our last member from ACT who spoke, we also talked about the protections of children and how this Act interacts with the section 4 of the Children’s Act. Importantly, we did hear submissions about stalking, and this bill does not deal with stalking issues, but there is a bill in the member’s tin that will deal with that, so, hopefully, that gets pulled out soon. That is a major concern for a number of the submitters who did submit to the bill.

On that, New Zealand First supports the bill. It is common sense, and it is good that all parties across the House support this. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

This debate is interrupted and set down for resumption next sitting day. The House stands adjourned until 2 p.m. tomorrow. Good night.

Debate interrupted.

The House adjourned at 10 p.m.