Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Amendment Bill

Part 2 is very small and I shall concentrate on two areas. The first is clause 43, which amends a schedule of an Act.

We note the importance of New Zealand’s requirement to comply with its international obligations under the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. The bill includes provisions that deal with extraterritorial jurisdiction regarding New Zealand citizens, extradition, and mutual assistance in criminal matters, to ensure our compliance with the optional protocol. It is important that we do play our part in the international scene. As is mentioned in the bill, the optional protocol was adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York on 25 May 2000.

What does that actually mean? Well, it provides for jurisdiction for certain offences that relate to child pornography, as defined in the optional protocol. It requires the Attorney-General’s consent to be obtained where jurisdiction is claimed under that provision. And it deems certain offences, where they relate to child pornography, to be included in extradition treaties. That is a significant international treaty that we have signed up to, and it is included under clause 43.

The other area I want to bring the Committee’s attention to, and it has been mentioned before, is the penalties that are associated with the offences. Before I go specifically into the offences as per the protocol, I want to say the Department of Internal Affairs has provided information on the prosecutions it has been involved in. I note in its memo to the select committee that since 1996 it has successfully prosecuted 139 cases involving objectionable material, and currently 125 cases are pending in the District Court. Those figures may be out of date now, but the point I make is that the Department of Internal Affairs has a proud reputation. It is internationally recognised for its work and we should be applauding its efforts, as it is at the forefront in being able to make prosecutions, in being able to use its expertise in monitoring. As I have mentioned in a previous debate, I have seen its operations in practice.

We also have other information from the department that relates to Customs Service and police prosecutions for objectionable material in the period 2000-03. If we look at the 2003 category, we see that the Department of Internal Affairs had 26 prosecutions, the Customs Service had 12, and the police had 33, bringing the total to 71. My point in the second reading debate was that the Customs Service also has a major part to play, it being right at the forefront, at our airports, ports, and seaports where material can come in. It has the ability to seize that material, and prosecuting the offences of making, distributing, copying, supplying, and possessing such material is part of the work it is involved in. It is able to operate under section 209 of the Customs and Excise Act. So it is at the forefront of providing the protection and the safeguards that we expect, and those provisions are included in Part 2.

The other significant area, and it has been mentioned, is the penalty regimes that now come in. The penalties for offences under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act have been strengthened. The Minister of Justice mentioned that they had been increased tenfold. If we look at what other countries are doing, we see that the United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, the United States, and Japan have 5 years’ imprisonment for possession.

It is with some sadness that we rise to speak on this part, because nothing would please the ACT party more than to vote for this bill. It is time that we got tough on those who would exploit young children sexually and it is time that we toughened up on the penalties. In fact, one of our MPs, Deborah Coddington, has been most strident on those issues and we are pleased that the Minister has seen the sense of the Supplementary Order Paper Deborah Coddington was going to move and has adopted it as a Government Supplementary Order Paper, and the legislation has been improved as a consequence.

But the ACT party finds that it cannot support this legislation, overall. Because buried inside this legislation is an attack on free speech, and the understandable care and concern we have for young people is being used to do something quite different. I draw the Committee’s attention to new section (1B) in clause 40(3), which talks about “objectionable publication”, and that is the difficulty we have with this bill. I ask the Committee to consider this. We might not agree with a video that suggests to young people that homosexual behaviour is not a good idea. I do not agree with such a video. However, I do not believe that the chief censor should be in a position to ban that video. Under this legislation he will be able to. Marc Alexander can shake his head. Clearly, he has not read the legislation, because that is precisely what will happen under this legislation. I draw his attention to the bits that will do it. A new provision in Part 1—new section 3B(4)(c) in clause 4A—states that it will be able to ban anything that encourages persons to treat or regard themselves, others, or both, as degraded, or dehumanised, or demeaned. I tell Mr Alexander that that is precisely the point. I draw his attention to clause 4B, “Transitional provision”, where subclause (3) makes it retrospective for the precise purpose of banning the Living Word Distributors Ltd video. That is exactly what that clause is for.

💬 Marc Alexander: Rubbish!

Oh well, he can shake his head, but I tell him that that is exactly right. I draw the attention of the Minister, the Hon Phil Goff, to new section 3D in clause 4A. When he was attacking Mr Franks he talked a lot about the gateway provisions. That clause actually overwhelms the gateway provisions. I know that I should be talking about Part 2, but we did not get any opportunity on this side of the Committee to talk about Part 1, and when I see “objectionable publication” I am drawn back to that. I say this: just because we disagree with something, and just because we find something objectionable, that is no reason to ban it. There is a lot of speech that I hear in this Chamber that I find objectionable. I hear a lot of speech in this Chamber that I find highly offensive for being ignorant, for failing to understand economics, and for failing to grasp wider world realities. I do not want that speech banned.

So there is a lot of material that we find highly offensive. I say to Marc Alexander that he is voting for a bill that will actually undermine free speech in this Chamber.

💬 Marc Alexander: No it won’t, that’s fiction.

He is so confident that it will not. I am telling him. Does he remember—

💬 Marc Alexander: I do not believe you, Mr Hide.

Oh, he does not believe me. Well, he does not need to believe me, actually, he should just watch it happen. Just remember what the chief censor tried to do to the Living Word video. I did not agree with that video.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Could the member come back to Part 2, please.

Yes, I am talking about Part 2 exactly. I am talking about offensive publications. What one person sees as offensive is another person’s educational material. I tell Mr Alexander that I am not talking about child porn, and that member can blind himself to that and Government members can blind themselves to that. We heard from Dianne Yates exactly what this bill was about. We say it is a shame that the Minister allowed himself to take the genuine concern of those in this Committee who want to clamp down on the child pornographers and use it to ban offensive publications and offensive language—things that we might consider dehumanise people—and therefore overturn free speech.

I do not want to speak for long, because that speech was about Part 1, and we are now dealing with Part 2.

💬 Rodney Hide: I never got a chance to speak to Part 1.

Well, the member’s colleague, of course, did get a chance. He took two calls. There were some 15 speakers on that part, but that is not a matter for me; it is a matter for the Chair. I want to tell that member that he has totally misrepresented what is in this bill.

💬 Rodney Hide: Rubbish!

He says: “Rubbish!”, but I doubt that he had read the bill before tonight. I doubt that he knows what he is talking about, because he displayed his ignorance in what he said. This bill maintains the strict limits of the gateway subjects that can be classified as objectionable.

💬 Stephen Franks: What’s the expression?

Mr Franks misrepresents the term “offensive language”, which, as is clear to every member who was on the Government Administration Committee, refers to bad language, swear words, and relates only to those under the age of 18. This bill additionally says that things such as teaching people how to commit suicide should not be put in front of under-18-year-olds, and, therefore, there is a restriction on that. Is Mr Franks so libertarian that he believes that our under-18-year-old children should be subject to that sort of demeaning, degrading, and dangerous literature? If Mr Franks believes that, yes, he is entitled to say that in the Chamber. But for him to claim that this is about expression of opinion and not the use of language is totally misleading and totally wrong. There is no foundation to his comments whatsoever.

I would like to acknowledge Marc Alexander’s contribution, which was very emotionally sincere about supporting this bill. I am sure that that is the reason why we are all supporting this bill. However, I was a little bit disappointed that, on behalf of United Future, he did not support the amendments that were put forward. It would have been nice to see that happen.

Part 2, “Amendments to other Acts”, deals with the exportation and importation of objectionable material. Section 2(1) in clause 37 defines “Electronic publication” as “a thing (including, but not limited to, a disc, or an electronic or computer file) on which is recorded or stored information that, by the use of a computer or other electronic device, is capable of being reproduced or shown as 1 or more (or a combination of 1 or more) images, representations, signs, statements, or words”. I presume that a mobile phone comes into that context. I wondered whether perhaps the Minister could clarify that for me, because he did not actually clarify the retrospectivity of Part 1. Maybe the Minister would like to include that in his explanation along with the—

💬 Hon Phil Goff: Did the member say “retrospectivity”?

Yes, of clause 4B, which I mentioned earlier. I am wondering whether the Minister could clarify whether a mobile phone comes into this. I would presume it does, but perhaps the Minister would like to clarify that.

It is interesting to consider electronic publications and to consider, as Lindsay Tisch has done in his contribution, the relationships and protocols we now have, as outlined in clause 43, with regard to conventions overseas. We can expect that materials will come to New Zealand from overseas, and it is interesting to see the number of people being charged in crack-downs in Australia. More than 200 people have been charged and another 500 individuals may yet end up in court in relation to 2,000 child-porn offences following raids across Australia.

Of course, that is the sort of material that they will be exporting to New Zealand, and we have people in New Zealand who are picking up on that type of material. It is sad to see that approximately 20 percent of those possessing that material, or accessing that material, are actually between 14 and 18 years-of-age. It is an absolute tragedy, in my view, that that is the case. A letter came from Parentline urgently requesting that some provision be made for counselling or treatment for those young people to ensure that they did not reoffend in accessing these images—and many of these images, no doubt, come from overseas.

In another instance, a gentleman accessing images was prosecuted. He had 106 images. It was interesting to note that of those 106 images, 61 were found to be objectionable in that they featured children as young as 6 engaged in sexual acts or posing in a sexual manner. That was the case with 61 out of 106 pictures, and it makes one wonder what the situation was with regard to the remaining 45. One would think that they would have been in the same context. That gentleman downloaded those pictures only for his own use. He did not pass them on to others. So his sentence took into account the fact that he was not a distributor. He just used them for his own purposes. It is good that we do have the arrangements outlined in clause 43 with regard to how we deal with overseas situations.

It is to be hoped that we will not be in the same situation as Australia, where the number of individuals being caught is exploding and more is to come. It just goes to show that we may be underestimating the number of people in New Zealand who also indulge in looking at pornographic images of children. Part 2 looks at prohibited imports and exports, which is pretty straightforward, and offences in relation to importation or exportation of prohibited goods. My colleague Lindsay Tisch expounded on that substantially, and I am very pleased to see that we have strengthened the penalties for offences.

In Part 2, a very small part, the term “objectionable publication” is used, and it has the meaning that we will get after the application of the changes in Part 1. In each of the places it is used in Part 2, except one, the term is defined as being an objectionable publication that has been banned or prohibited. In other words, it seems deliberately intended to exclude those that are simply restricted. Mr Alexander of United Future seems to think that that is a big difference. He muttered: “Don’t you know the difference between censorship and restriction?”. Well, yes we do. At what point does it cease to be censorship, when the bill states that anyone under 60 cannot look at it? Is that just a restriction? Does that mean anyone who is under 21, when it is intended to be used in an educational institution? That is not restriction? In looking at this term, Mr Alexander and Mr Goff have tried to hitch-hike on the unanimous disgust there is with child pornography, in order to ensure that the censor gets the power that the Court of Appeal denied him. That is what this does.

I would have expected, and wanted, Mr Goff to answer four questions instead of just screaming assertions and making vein-popping claims that we are wrong. He could have referred to the words of the bill, which is what the Committee stage is for. He could have said exactly why it is that a blatant, retrospective provision does not seem to be designed to allow the censor to go back and do what he could not do before. Why is it that the Government Administration Committee seems to have been gulled into thinking that it was preserving the gateway effect of section 3 when the new section 3D expressly states that defining “objectionable” for the purposes of these new restrictions does not take into account section 3? In other words, there is an express provision that I would have thought Mr Goff could explain the intent of—a provision that negates exactly what the select committee seems to think it was doing. As a lawyer, I would have to ask why a Minister of Justice would confine himself to shouting out personal abuse instead of addressing the bill. If it is so simple and so obvious, why did the Minister not explain why section 3D states that the censor will not have to worry about the purpose provision or about what has been elevated by the Court of Appeal and by the select committee as the gateway?

These are serious matters. We all want to see child pornographers and child pornography get the highest sanctions Parliament can give them. What we do not want to see is the people we disagree with ruled by the censor as being unable to communicate even with their own children because the censor has decided that is objectionable. United Future has colluded with the Government to enable the censor to go back to look at the Living Word Distributors Ltd video and other documents, but nothing Mr Goff said in the time the Committee gave him to explain was about these provisions not being designed for precisely that purpose. This is a part where the unadorned word “objectionable” seems to have been put into something called “the schedule of Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act”. I have to ask whether the Chinese Government could not use that to ask us to arrest Falun Gong practitioners. It is possible.

Looking at the term “objectionable publication”, I can see the likelihood of the censor being asked to decide that anything politically incorrect is potentially demeaning to someone. That is what the definitions allow. If the publication is merely demeaning, and if it makes people feel bad about themselves, the censor can ban it in the hands of young people. In fact, it does not even state young people; it refers to an age restriction. It does not state what age. It does not state that the censor cannot say it is to be banned in the hands of anyone under 60. Is that the sort of law United Future likes—just hand it over to the censor, trust the censor? I do not think many of us have good reason to trust the censor. The censor ignored the Court of Appeal. It needed two court cases, and the censor simply ignored them. Mr Alexander and his party say: “We can trust the censor.”

💬 Marc Alexander: It protects the kids.

Protects the kids! I say to Mr Alexander that this bill has nothing to do with kids; it has to do with political correctness. It would be a help if the Minister would try to address these—

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. For the whole time I have been in the Chamber, whenever an ACT member has been speaking Mr Alexander has been carrying on a barrage of interjections. The interjections were not even reasonable. He was just giving a barrage of interjections, and I think you should invite him to make a speech rather than allow him to behave in such a disorderly way and deliberately break up ACT members’ speeches, even though this bill is all about censorship. I guess he is practising.

That is a well-raised point of order. I ask Marc Alexander to desist from what he has been doing. I have noticed the interjecting too, but obviously it is louder at the back of the Chamber than from where I am sitting. I ask the member to desist from making those types of interjections.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. It is grossly disorderly for Mr Alexander, who is in his seat, to make a sarcastic remark to the effect that he now considers himself censored. It is completely out of order for any member to make a comment on a ruling made by the Chair, and I think you should ask him to withdraw and apologise.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): Mr Alexander.

💬 Marc Alexander: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 Hon Richard Prebble: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. Mr Alexander has made yet another comment. I think you should now invite him to leave the Chamber.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): I did not hear him, but if Mr Alexander did make such a comment I ask him again to withdraw and apologise, and there is to be no more.

💬 Marc Alexander: I withdraw and apologise.

💬 STEPHEN FRANKS: Could you please advise me how long I have left. I believe Mr Prebble’s point of order was taken during my speech.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): The member is right. It was taken while the member was speaking, but my finger was resting on the bell.

Anybody who has been listening to Mr Franks’ speech would have imagined that this bill contains a draconian provision that in some way restricts freedom of expression or speech. That is patently wrong. Let me explain to those who are listening what Mr Franks is apparently against. Mr Franks has been railing against sections 3A, 3B, and so on, which state that for children under the age of 18 additional protections are provided against behaviour or language that might be injurious to them.

One would think that some new thing had come in, whereby for the first time in this country children are to be protected against matters that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders believe they should be protected against. We have R18 restrictions for publications and films. I ask Mr Franks whether that is an expression of censorship of this country that is unacceptable. It is censorship, indeed, because we believe that children under 18 need protection beyond what we accord adults. What are we protecting them against? We are protecting them against foul language. Mr Franks thinks that it may be a fundamental breach of rights that children should not be subjected to the foulest of language. We are talking about swearing; we are not talking about expression of opinion.

💬 Stephen Franks: Where does it say that?

Mr Franks is wrong, and every lawyer who is involved in this knows he is wrong.

💬 Dr Richard Worth: I raise a point of order, Mr Chairperson. None of the issues the Minister is raising relate to Part 2, so why is he raising them in a context of what his responsibility is—to talk about Part 2?

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich): It is in rebuttal. That is not a point of order.

What else are we protecting children against? We are protecting them against exposure to images of infliction of pain, self-mutilation, and self-inflicted death—suicide. That is why members of the Government Administration Committee—National and Labour members—were unanimous in advising the House that these provisions should be put in the bill.

ACT is a libertarian party: anything goes. Well, the member might think that anything goes, but I want to see kids protected against some of the things that a bipartisan group on a select committee has said they should be protected against, and I make no apology for that.

Then we had Mr Franks saying that this bill is retrospective—and I will finish on this. Dr Worth is quite right in saying that this belongs to Part 1, but I am answering in rebuttal and misleading comments should not be allowed to lie in this Chamber. I refer Mr Franks to new section 4B(2) in clause 4, which explicitly states: “No person may be convicted of an offence against …” these sections “… in respect of conduct before the commencement of this section if the conviction would rely solely on a classification made under any of the new provisions.” That is not retrospective. That is explicitly prospective. Mr Franks does not know what he is talking about.

We have just been treated to a gross abuse of the Committee stage of the parliamentary process. I say that because you, Mr Chairperson, and your predecessor in the Chair tonight have carefully confined this debate to particular parts of the bill. We have just heard from Minister Goff a vein-popping and, I do not doubt, sincere speech in relation to Part 1, which is not in issue. I do not criticise him for the sentiments he expressed—indeed, I espouse them. They are fine sentiments, worthy of repetition, but they have no part in this particular debate as we look at Part 2, “Amendments to other Acts”.

As I look at a crowded Chamber, and a very crowded gallery, I cannot help but reflect that maybe in Part 2 there are amendments to other Acts that are worthy of mention. I notice the presence in the Chamber of Dr Choudhary. I think it is a matter of regret that it seems that only a very few members of this Government are prepared to speak on bills of substance, and that is particularly so for the reasons the honourable Minister has spoken about in connection with the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Amendment Bill. This bill is about protecting young people from what are described in the bill as child sex abuse images.

This debate is a great opportunity for Dr Choudhary, on behalf of his Indian and Pakistani mandate, to talk about the sorts of issues that not only drive New Zealand in general but also the Pakistani community in particular. I ask Dr Choudhary why he will not talk about clause 37, the interpretation clause. Why will he not say something about clause 38, which deals with prohibited imports? Why must he remain glumly silent on clause 39, “Prohibited exports”? Why will he not offer a view on clause 40, “Offences in relation to importation or exportation of prohibited goods”? Nothing has been said by him. Apparently, he has no willingness to talk about clause 41, “Publications imported in course of official duties”.

If I were Dr Choudhary, I would ask why it is necessary to have a clause like clause 41, which gives high-ranking members in the ministry the opportunity to peruse, without fear of prosecution, highly prurient materials. Surely this would have been an opportunity for someone who is committed to a strong Indian and Pakistani code of ethics to say that that clause should go. But have we heard from him? Not at all.

This particular part, Part 2, proposes major changes to a number of pieces of legislation. There are amendments to the Customs and Excise Act, the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act, and the Summary Proceedings Act. I think it is a real matter for regret that although we can listen to vein-popping speeches made by the Minister, those who are of lesser station—the Dr Choudharys of this world, and the members who sit opposite on the second and third benches—are never given an opportunity to say what they truly feel. Although Mr Goff’s views may be worthy of some respect with regard to the electorate he represents, I think we should have the opportunity to hear what the littlies in this Government have to say. We are denied that. I think they should have a voice. They are, after all, as elected members, worthy of even some faint consideration. I raise the point in the context of this bill, which National supports, that we should hear from them.

I must comment on the point made by Dr Worth. I am not quite sure why he attacked Mr Choudhary, or why he thinks Mr Choudhary should support the bill. If we have a look at one particular clause he referred to—the clause that bans the importation of certain publications—then we have to ask what the publications are and how much wider they are. The reason I rise is that the Minister, Phil Goff, has suggested to us that the only sort of material that will be caught is child pornography, which I am sure Mr Choudhary is opposed to as much as any other member of the Committee.

The reason I think Mr Choudhary ought to be worried about the bill—and I do not think this point was in the minds of those promoting it, but they might subsequently move on it—is that we all know what it is actually designed to do. It is all about a particular video—I think it is a video which is put out by some fundamentalist Christians and gives their views on homosexuality. The video is directed at young people. There may be many people in this Chamber who find that material strongly objectionable. I have not seen it myself, but I say to members that for this Committee to put through a censorship bill that is actually aimed at fundamentalist Christians is very, very unwise. The reason it is unwise is that Christianity is a faith that believes in martyrdom. The idea that Christians will be put off by being martyred by Mr Goff is highly unlikely. If one wants to know how it fits, I point out to them that it encourages young people to treat or regard themselves, or others, or both, as degraded, dehumanised, or demeaned.

I am sure that this Living Word video, if it were a good Southern Baptist sermon, most certainly did talk about sin, degradation, and the like. I have heard many such sermons in my life. But it is a mistake for the Labour Party—which is actually a lifestyle fascist—to believe that it has the right, through this legislation, to tell parents and churches how they can raise their children, even if we strongly disagree. I find it objectionable that the Minister has allowed himself, directed by that small group of fanatics within the Labour Party, to put through a bill that he tells the public is all about child pornography when we know it is a bill that will enable the censor to censor material put out by fundamentalist Christians. I may disagree with that material—I may not; I have not seen it—but I strongly oppose this Parliament taking that power.

I say to Mr Choudhary that if they can do that to material put out by Southern Baptists, I am sure they can also do it to material put out by the mullahs in Saudi Arabia. There are, no doubt, nutty people in New Zealand—there were nutty people who objected to the Living Word video; why on earth they went to the censor about it I have no idea—who are just as capable of looking at material used in the Muslim school right next to Māngere airport and deciding that that also encourages people to treat or regard themselves or others as being degraded, because of the things it probably says about masturbation or the like. That is what, legally, this bill does.

The Minister might think it is a joke. He might think he is being funny because he is managing to put through a measure driven by that group of fanatical women in the Labour Party caucus who regard anyone opposed to homosexuality as engaging in hate speech, and who think that people are not allowed to be opposed to homosexuality. Now, I voted in favour of the homosexuality bills, but I am most certainly in favour of people being able to say what they think about sexual matters. I think they should be able to put up their views. I say to the Minister that this bill is actually not about child pornography, and we all know that. This bill is actually about allowing the Labour Party to engage in censorship.

I shall be very short and sweet. As probably one of the only people in the Chamber who has actually watched the Living Word video, I can tell members, point blank, that it is a piece of crap. However, having said that, I also say that it does not come under the auspices of this legislation. This legislation has nothing to do with it. In fact, I have never heard such fanciful rubbish from any speaker in this Chamber as I have just heard the previous speaker utter—absolute and total crap. It is as much rubbish as the video he claims to talk about, yet has never actually seen.

I do not understand how there can be any party in this Parliament that will vote against legislation to protect our kids—and that from a party that claims to be the tough law and order party. But it does not want to protect children. It wants children to have full access to the most awful pornography possible, all for the sake of so-called freedom. That is not the kind of freedom we want to see for our children. That is no freedom at all; that is an abuse of our children. That party, the ACT party, does not stand for law and order. Law and order, my foot! ACT members do not want to protect our children, and that is why they will not support this bill. Shame on them!

I move, That the question be now put.

I appreciate that this is a small part, and I appreciate that the call has probably been given in the spirit of the rulings of Chairpersons that where a genuine debate is occurring, it be facilitated. But I did not get an answer from the Minister’s fulminating as to what kind of “objectionable” was intended in clause 43. The little schedule in clause 43 talks about making or supplying objectionable publications, exhibiting to persons under 18, distributing in public places, and having possession of objectionable publications, but it does not do what the other parts of the part do and specifically say that the “objectionable” for that purpose is the “objectionable” that is completely prohibited. In other words, it appears that this offence can be created when it has been deemed objectionable in the hands of, say, 9-year-olds, or whatever the age restriction is that the censor is free to apply.

It is therefore appropriate to ask whether that was intended or whether that was oversight. It is similar in relation to the two schedules that are to be inserted in the Summary Proceedings Act, both of which refer simply to “objectionable”. It appears that following the amendments that have been approved in Part 1, the reference “objectionable” can include the Living Word video. It can include anything the censor decides makes some young persons feel bad about themselves. Well, a lot of education makes people feel bad about themselves. It might be a video, for example, about fat people. It might be a video that the censor decides could promote anorexia, because it is talking about overeating. There is nothing in the words that Mr Goff is promoting that protects us from any group of hypersensitive people coming along. It might be the Prostitutes Collective, which does not like a hard-hitting advertisement against child prostitution. The Minister, the Hon Phil Goff, is doing nothing else to stop child prostitution. This Minister passes law gaily. This Minister raises the age of deemed childhood to 18, and meanwhile ensures that the police do not even have the power to ask the age of child prostitutes on the street.

This Minister can foam. He can get his doormat allies in United Future to make great claims about ACT wanting to promote injury to children. We are simply asking that the existing law, which already bans child pornography, be properly confined, as the Court of Appeal said, to those kinds of offences, and not misused to advance the agenda of the ruling cabal in the Labour Party. It should not be used to bring in what is effectively a hate-speech power in the hands of the censor before even the Law Commission has looked at it.

The Minister tried to deflect attention when the Government Administration Committee first came back with its hopeless report. The Minister said no, no, he would send it off to the Law and Order Committee and that we should not do anything. In the meantime, the censor has everything he asked for, and the Minister has not taken the opportunity to look at the words of this bill. He has simply confined himself to what he would call rebuttal—by way of personal abuse—and false claims about what the ACT party stands for.

We do not get votes by standing up for principle. We do not get votes here by standing up against the wave of emotion about doing something that looks tough on child pornography. We are doing this because this Parliament should not be passing bills that can be misused by a cabal that has already shown itself very happy to misuse its powers. This part appears, from what I can understand, to require the New Zealand Government to jump to the orders of overseas countries that call on it for assistance. Is that not what the Mutual Assistance in Criminal Matters Act requires? Well, I ask the Minister what kind of “objectionable” allows overseas countries to call on us to enforce an offence. It may be that I have misinterpreted, but the Minister did not choose to take his opportunity to correct the interpretation. Instead, he chose to make a whole series of completely false assertions about what ACT stands for.

We are standing for the right of parents, and for churches of all kinds, to teach their children as they see fit, without the censor deciding that some things are beyond the pale. That was the purpose of our objection to Part 1, and that is why we are concerned that when that Part 1 interpretation comes into Part 2 it might have a far more sinister effect than we had expected—if, indeed, a foreign Government can use it.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Papers 325 and 326 in the name of the Hon Phil Goff to Part 2 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

Part 2 as amended agreed to.

Clause 1 Title