\u201cRather, the Crimes Act provides a non-exhaustive list of what consent is not.\u201d<\/p>\n
The party would change the law to specify consent had to be \u201cactively given\u201d, communicated through \u201cwords or actions\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe change would align the law with what we\u2019ve been telling our kids for a long time: that you need positive consent before sex, each and every time, rather than presuming it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat means silence is not consent. A person who doesn\u2019t say no has not said yes. And consent given once is not consent forever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goldsmith said the change would reset \u201csocial expectations\u201d, reinforcing that sex was understood to be actively chosen by both people involved.<\/p>\n
He said the change wouldn\u2019t shift the burden of proof in sexual cases.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe prosecution will still need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that consent wasn\u2019t given, and that the defendant didn\u2019t believe on reasonable grounds that it was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labour MP Camilla Belich quickly responded to the announcement by pointing to a bill, drafted this year in her name on behalf of the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians committee which is a group of all female MPs, that proposed to make similar changes. <\/p>\n
However, she claimed National decided not to support progressing that bill in this term of government, alleging the party wanted to campaign on it ahead of this year\u2019s election. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis reform is ready to go, National can choose to act now or continue to delay,\u201d Belich said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis should never have become a political issue. MPs from across Parliament worked together to develop this Bill because New Zealanders deserve consent laws that are clear, modern and fit for purpose.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s deeply disappointing National walked away from those bipartisan discussions. If they are serious on reform, why wait?\u201d <\/p>\n
Responding to Belich\u2019s criticism, Goldsmith insisted he was not playing politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a serious matter and of course Labour had six years in government and they didn\u2019t get around to dealing with this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Goldsmith, who had argued the Government\u2019s justice workload had been large, wouldn\u2019t be drawn on whether he had any concerns about Belich\u2019s bill but he indicated he felt it important to involve justice officials in a \u201cfull policy process\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an important area of law that we need to get right.\u201d<\/p>\n
Adam Pearse is the Deputy Political Editor and part of the NZ Herald\u2019s Press Gallery team based at Parliament in Wellington. He has worked for NZME since 2018, reporting for the Northern Advocate in Whang\u0101rei and the Herald in Auckland.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cRather, the Crimes Act provides a non-exhaustive list of what consent is not.\u201d The party would change the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":533036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2246,31389,4995,43700,1738,10712,2562,8996,124,3989,5903,71,702,6721,12472,230003,3556,111,43,139,69,90,4762,16860,17703,61,11744,55857],"class_list":["post-533035","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-2246","tag-abandoned","tag-away","tag-bipartisan","tag-campaign","tag-claiming","tag-claims","tag-consent","tag-could","tag-effort","tag-election","tag-from","tag-it","tag-labour","tag-laws","tag-modernise","tag-national","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-on","tag-party","tag-reform","tag-sexual","tag-to","tag-upcoming","tag-walked"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533035","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=533035"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/533035\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/533036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=533035"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=533035"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=533035"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}