Nicola Willis: National Finance Spokesperson on the party's new right to silence policy

And with us now we have Nicola Willis, the National Party Finance Spokesperson. Hi Nicola.

Hi Heather.

Now are you sure this right to silence policy is a good idea?

Absolutely. It will put perpetrators of murderous acts against children and their accomplices into a corner where they will have to eventually call each other out because if they don't they will face the consequence of a prison sentence.

Do you think it might lead to false, false testimony?

Well, no, I think that's unlikely. It is always the case that the justice system has to sift through the testimony of witnesses and perpetrators and judge the veracity of people's statements. That's what the justice system deals with day in, day out and I have faith in prosecutors and courts to sift through that.

What happens in the case of, let's say, a cot death? And neither parent will be able to explain what's happened and they will look guilty as a result. Would we send parents to jail for being unable to explain what's happened to a child when even doctors can't explain what's happened?

Well, I don't think that's the case because I think both parents would willingly in that situation provide testimony about what they experienced and what happened. What we're talking about are situations where people have been in a home, a child has been killed by an adult, and none of the people who were witnessing that are prepared to speak out. And that is what this is about. And actually, unfortunately, in New Zealand, we have had cases in pretty recent history where adults who have been present in a home where a child has died have not been prepared to comment on that. I'm thinking about the Kahui twins. I'm thinking about baby Roo. who died three years ago on Thursday. And it just seems to me that in a good society and a good community, we all need to stand against child abuse and that sort of behaviour. And part of how we do that as good citizens is when things like that happen, we talk about them.

The problem is this will expand, right? You guys will start with the intention of limiting it to child murders, but already Ruth Money, who's a victim's advocate, is talking about extending it to all murders.

Well, no, we think this is very specific to children and that's what we are proposing to change the law about. That's our policy.

Now, I see Chris Bishop has admitted that he's quite worried that he might not make it back into Parliament. Do you feel the same?

Well, no, because my job every day, and I read Chris's comments, he said the same thing. We're confident we can grow our party vote. That is the key thing for reforming a government, which is our focus. I also happen to think that Bush is a really good local MP and has every chance of beating out Ginny Anderson. But of course, every MP, when they go through an election campaign, is thinking about what's at stake. And at this election, there's a huge amount at stake. It's a real fork in the road. Do we want to keep making economic progress or do we want to whack this economy with multiple new taxes?

What polling level do you reckon National needs to get to to save you?

Well, that obviously depends greatly on which electorates we win. And picking that is