Blaming specific groups will not help to stop family violence

Arena Williams (Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki, Ngāi Tahu, Ngāi Tūhoe) is the Labour MP for the Auckland electorate of Manurewa. She is a lawyer and mother of two. Stuart Smith is the National MP for the South Island electorate of Kaikōura. He is a former grape grower, winemaker and inducted as a Fellow of the New Zealand Winegrowers Board for services to the wine industry.

OPINION: Family violence prevention minister Marama Davidson blamed “white cis men” for the majority of violence in the world, later walking that back to include all men and saying the controversy over her comments “distract from a broader conversation about the causes of violence in Aotearoa.”

Domestic violence by men against women has long been a blight on the country. So what are the solutions MPs should be focused on?

An MP from each side of the House gives their views.

Stuart Smith, National MP Kaikōura

The comments made by Minister Marama Davidson were nothing short of outrageous. To group people into a category the way she did is not what we would expect from a Minister of the Crown, and the fact she failed to apologise for those comments shows she is unfit for office.

Family violence has long been a problem that New Zealanders often fail to talk about. We have shocking rates of family violence, with 1 in 3 women in New Zealand having experienced some kind of it. And it is certainly not true to say that “white cis-men” (men at birth) are responsible for these acts as Minister Davidson suggested.

READ MORE:
* Marama Davidson right about prevalence of white male violence says academic
* Labels like ‘soft’ and ‘tough’ on crime are meaningless
* Fact checking Marama Davidson’s ‘white cis men’ claims (and follow-up statement)

Unfortunately for obvious reasons, family violence in homes is underreported. Many women are afraid to come forward for the risk of being abused further, or having their children abused as a result of trying to either leave the relationship or let authorities know.

Campaigns from the likes of Women’s Refuge have been incredibly useful to highlight the problem we have in this country, and the support which they and other groups provide to women who need a safe night’s sleep away from abuse is remarkable.

But when people come forward about being abused, they need the justice system behind them to ensure that the abuser gets the full treatment of the law. Under this Government, we have seen the prison population decrease dramatically, and all the while, crime is up.

Just recently we saw that in 2018, bail was granted despite police opposition 2,061 times, but by 2022, that number had skyrocketed to 5,084 – an increase of 147%. The longer that type of approach continues, the more likely we are to see tragic stories of people released from custody on bail only to go and re-offend against their partners or others in the community.

Following on from that, in March Police figures showed a 46% increase in the total number of victimisations since 2017.

New Zealanders are becoming increasingly worried about safety in their community, due to this soft-on-crime approach, and then a Minister has the audacity to blame a particular race for various crimes, which is not only factually incorrect – it is downright racist.

Blaming specific groups will not help to stop family violence. What will, is tougher sentencing, identifying repeat offenders and charging them accordingly, and listening to police advice on bail conditions to stop re-offending and breaking the cycle.

Family violence is a blight on this country. Encouraging people to come forward and then ensuring that perpetrators face the consequences of their actions will go a long way to changing the statistics.

Arena Williams, Labour MP Manurewa

The majority of sexual violence – even the majority of domestic and family violence – is committed by men and we should continue to acknowledge, and talk about, that fact.

By absolutely no means are we talking about the majority of men here. It’s the majority of violence being committed by men which is the identified fact.

What the Government and I want to reinforce is that all women and all people should be able to live free from the fear of violence and access the support they need, when they need it. Ending violence against women and all New Zealanders is a priority for this Government.

The work we are undertaking is seeing higher rates of reporting, which means we are able to provide greater support to victims and intervene with offenders to break the cycle of violence.

Changes we’ve made through the Sexual Violence Legislation Act include; allowing sexual violence complainants to use alternative ways of giving evidence, making sure evidence about a complainant’s previous sexual interactions with the defendant is off limits, and further limiting the defendant’s right to cross-examine witnesses.

Budget 2020 invested $202.9m over four years to address the historic underfunding of the sector. This includes; $142 million so specialist services have the capability to support victims and survivors to be safe and recover when family violence does occur, $16 million for services that help people to stop using violence and $25 million in support for seniors who have experienced elder abuse. Alongside this work, the Minister has been driving progress in the longer term through Te Aorerekura.

Te Aorerekura is Aotearoa’s first ever National Strategy to Eliminate Family Violence and Sexual Violence. Since its launch in 2021, all 40 actions we announced are underway. We have cross-agency support and Ministers taking collective action to identify opportunities for minimising harm, improving the safety of responses, and strengthening violence prevention and intervention.

Last month, we launched the Love Better campaign in a world-leading approach to family harm prevention, and we have launched a suite of new digital tools for those affected by family violence.

Any form of violence is unacceptable, which makes the prevention of future violence and harm so important. Clearly we have a lot of work still to do, but I am really proud of the direction we are heading in. Every one of the actions we have taken, both big and small, will add up to a better, safer future for Aotearoa.