Paul Goldsmith: Justice Minister on the Government's bid to strengthen anti-stalking laws

Proposed anti-stalking laws are being strengthened - following recommendations from Parliament's Justice Select Committee. 

Originally the proposed offence, with a maximum penalty of five years in prison, captured three specified acts within a one year period. 

It'll now be triggered after two acts within two years, which Justice Minister Paul Goldsmith says better recognises patterns of behaviour and the time that can pass between incidents.

He explained they took feedback on board - and agreed to make some changes.

"What we've seen is plenty of evidence that, in certain circumstances, these sorts of stalking behaviours can lead to more serious outcomes - and we're all aware of terrible examples of that."

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Nine two ninety two is the text number. Standard text
fees apply. Now. The Government is tightening its new anti
stalking law as a result of feedback from the Select
Committee process. The stalking law can now be triggered after
two specified stalking acts within two years. Initially, the bill
required three acts within one year. Paul Goldsmith is the
Justice Minister. Hey Paul, hi, heither?

Speaker 2 (00:24):
How are you your house? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (00:27):
I was going to say, was that the sadness of
an Auckland are just there that we heard? How much
has yours gone back.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
By thirteen percent?

Speaker 1 (00:37):
Of the jeeze some electric? Yeah, we've all had a
looking and there's there's the lone person looking in from Wellington.
We've identified you. Paul. Listen, why have you changed how
many stalking acts you need?

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Well, look, we listened to the very strong feedback through
the Select Committee process and we originally introduced the bill.
As you say, we're three offenses in twelve months, and
the strong feedback was that actually that's too high a
burden and higher than the existing sort of harassment. I

(01:12):
think you probably asked me questions about that when we
introduced it, and so we've taken stock, thought about and
agreed to the change fair enough?

Speaker 1 (01:20):
What is stalking though? I mean because because what I
want to I just I looked at your definition of
stalking and I thought just a little broad, isn't it?
Like your annoying boyfriend who you're trying to break up
with could could basically be accused of stalking if they
send you two texts.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
Well, yes, but it's got to be with an intention
element to cause distress. And look, we've got legislation in
place at the moment around harassment, and that the strong
argument put forward was from the particular campaigners on this
billboard that didn't capture all elements of the stalking that
goes on. And what we've seen is plenty of evidence

(01:58):
that certain circumstances, these sort of stalking behaviors lead to
more serious or can lead to more serious outcomes. And
so and we're all aware of, you know, terrible examples
of that. And so the purpose of this new provision
is to broaden that net and provide opportunities for the police.
Of course, every prosecution has to you know, the police

(02:22):
have a discretion about how to whether to prosecute particular cases,
and so it's about getting that threshold right and then
providing more opportunities to keep people safe, which is what.

Speaker 1 (02:32):
We're all So, as you say, it has to be
with the intention to cause distress. But let's say you're
breaking up with your boyfriend, you've had a terrible breakup
or something like that, and they seen you two texts
within the space of two weeks telling you that you're
a terrible person and you know, hopefully hopefully someone will
break your heart, blah blah blah whatever, you know, the
usual stuff. Wouldn't that be then classified as stalking because

(02:53):
it's intended to cause distress?

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Well, I mean, as we said, if that's saying three
texts before, it might have been as well. And so,
but the broad sort of defenses in the act still remain.
And also that's a you know, that's something.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I'm trying to get. Yeah, the point I'm trying to
get to isn't this like sort of famously hard to
pin down? Stalking hard to define.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
It is, And so you can't design any law that's
perfect in that sense, and everything relies on the discretions
of the of the prosecutors and then ultimately the court
to bring a common sense sort of approach to it.
But what we're providing with this legislation and responding to
is a very real sense that the seriousness of the
Act wasn't being properly captured by the laws that we

(03:39):
had in place up to this point. And what we're
doing is providing another sort of legislative tool to be
able to deal with situations. And so that's that's the approach.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Is there a way I'm I'm just thinking about this
Michael Forbes case which you guys are dealing with at
the moment. Is there a way to make it unlawful
for somebody? And do we want to make it unlawful
for somebody need to take photographs of women, you know,
with their butts in the air in the gym?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Well, I mean, I hesitate to sort of comment on
a particular sort of case in the public mind, but
I think you know what we're talking about there in
the broader senses, you know, very difficult areas to set
hard and fast rules about. And so what this legislation
has focused on things that are clearly intended to injure

(04:29):
or cause real distress to people. And what we're worried
about is those extreme examples where we're seeing a pattern
develop which ultimately leads to a violent act and we're
trying to create a men the legislation so we're able
to catch those circumstances earlier and to avoid victims. I mean,
if you strip it back away, what are we trying

(04:50):
to do in justice? We want to have fewer victims
of serious violent crimes and this is one tool. It's
not going to fix every situation, but it may save
some lives and that would be a very good thing. Cool.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
Hey, Paul, thank you as always appreciated. That's Paul Goldsmith,
Justice Minister.

Speaker 2 (05:06):
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