95bFM Expert — Recent amendments to stalking legislation do not protect victims as well as they should
21 February, 2025
Interview by Oto Sequiera, adapted by Sara Mckoy
In December last year, the government introduced a new stalking and harassment bill, but the University of Auckland’s Carrie Leonetti believes the legislation is too weak to actually protect victims of stalking.
The Crimes Legislation Stalking and Harassment Amendment Bill was introduced and passed its first reading in December, in order to update the previous legislation which has been in effect since 1997.
Key changes to the legislation include judging, stalking, and harassment as a criminal act and including forms of harassment like cyber-stalking, which hadn’t been considered in the previous definition.
The legislation was introduced by Justice Minister, Paul Goldsmith, responding to public outcry following the murder of 21-year-old Farzana Yaqubi, who reported several instances of harassment by her killer in the lead up to her fatal stabbing.
While the new Bill addresses several issues with the outdated Harassment Act 1997, Associate Professor in the Faculty of Law at the University of Auckland, Carrie Leonetti, who helped draft the original legislation, told 95bFM's The Wire that certain changes have watered down the protection for victims of stalking and harassment.
One example she highlights is the change in requirement from two acts of stalking, to three, meaning under the new proposal, a victim who has been subjected to two specific criminal acts, even within a larger string of harassment, cannot seek police protection.
“All [this does] is allow a stalker to get away with more stalking before the police can intervene and do anything to protect the victim.”
As well as this, the new legislation requires all three instances of stalking to occur within a twelve-month period; a stipulation Leonetti believes is more harmful than beneficial for protecting victims.
“I am at a loss as to why if somebody waits thirteen months to commit a second act of stalking; we want to have a do-over … in fact, I think in practice, stalkers who maintain a fixation for a longer period of time are more dangerous.”
Leonetti commended the fact that the new legislation would update the previous Act in crucial ways, making stalking and harassment a crime, and offering a more modern definition of how these acts can occur.
However, while elements of the legislation were strengthened, others were removed or altered, with potentially significant consequences for victim protection.
Despite including cyber-stalking in the Bill, certain types of digital harassment were missing.
“It does not criminalise a perpetrator publishing information about the victim online as part of a campaign of stalking, and doxing; dumping personal information about victims, is actually a very common form of digital stalking..”
Furthermore, Leonetti is concerned about how specific acts of stalking and harassment are generalised in the legislation draft, despite the large list of conduct provided in earlier drafts of the Bill.
“There might be a creative way somebody would stalk somebody else that should not be excluded because it is not listed specifically in the statute.”
The Bill also replaces language surrounding the circumstances of stalking; from causing the victim distress ‘in their particular circumstance’, to more broadly allowing the defense of stalking given ‘a reasonable excuse’.
“A lot of stalking is between people who were formerly in an intimate relationship … I find it very hard to believe anybody who engages in the conduct that meets the definition of stalking would ever have a reasonable excuse for doing it.”
Overall, while Leonetti was looking forward to seeing the necessary update to legislation, she finds it a “tragedy” that the previous Harassment Act was more effective in parts than the reformed bill.
“If we're going to once every 30 years update our stalking laws, we need to take advantage of this moment in time to have an Act that actually protects victims.”
