Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill

In the purpose clause of this bill, it says: “The purpose of this Act is to establish a Child Sex Offender Register that will reduce sexual reoffending against child victims,”. I do not think there is anyone in this House—and I very much doubt there is anyone in New Zealand—who does not want to reduce sexual offending against victims. We will support this bill through to the Committee stage, but I have some very serious concerns about whether in fact this bill will actually meet its intended purposes.

We know that the number of offenders is increasing, and the number of sexual offences against children is increasing. For example, there were 505 offenders who committed nearly 2,000 sexual crimes against children in 2012 and 2013. This is an absolute travesty and something must be done about this—of that, there is no doubt. But when we are talking about spending nearly $150 million over 10 years, I wonder—and I wonder out loud—whether this is the best use of this money. We know that children who have been victims of child abuse, of sexual abuse, are more than likely to enter into a life of drug abuse, mental health issues, suicide, and a number of other antisocial behaviours. For a Government at a point in time with a limited budget—is this really the best use of money to address this crime? The police themselves are under immense pressure at this point of time. They say themselves they cannot afford more officers on the front line. At a time when burglary resolution rates are below 10 percent, they are having to find $14 million immediately, out of their own budget, to fund this sex register. I estimate that is around 100 extra police officers on the ground—who could be funded by this money if it was spent on police officers solving crime and preventing crime.

When I have a look at this I think—well, we all know that child abuse is insidious. But we also must, I believe, put in place evidence-based legislation. The Law Commission itself, which knows a little bit about this sort of stuff, has come out and agreed that we need to do something about this problem. But it has also said that it is opposed to this because the evidence does not exist that this bill will actually solve the problem. When the Law Commission itself comes out and questions the human rights implications of this, I think we should listen.

Let me have a look at the regulatory impact statement and what it says. It actually says: “In particular, there is limited research evidence from other jurisdictions about the effectiveness of sex offender registers and the best practice for long term monitoring of high risk sex offenders in the community after their sentences end.” The officials themselves have come out and questioned the value of this. The officials also note that “an estimate of the value of anticipated benefits has not been possible.”

I find it difficult to stand up here and support something that is going to cost us $146 million when, in fact, the officials themselves state that they cannot quantify the benefits. I find it difficult to stand up here and saying that this is a good thing when the officials themselves state that in other jurisdictions it has not been proven that this works. It is a substantial amount of money—a substantial amount of money—on something for which we have no evidence that it will make a difference.

The reason I will support this bill is: let us see how it works, let us give it a go, and if, in fact, it does make a difference—and I am highly sceptical—then let us develop it and let us see where it goes. But I would really like this to be a trial. Let us not say we are going to do this for 10 years and commit $150 million to this. Let us say we are going to trial this for 2 years or 3 years, or a statistically valid period of time, and see whether it does work. Then, if it does not—like it has not in other jurisdictions—let us not be afraid to say: “Let’s put the money into other areas that will really make a difference.” We all agree with the objective of this piece of legislation—there is no one in the House who does not—but we all have concerns about whether this is the best use of the money.

I want to speak to the purpose of this bill as well and just cite a few issues that were raised by submitters during the process. This particular bill, and what it is attempting to do, really does strike the emotional side of everyone in this House and the general public, and it is really important that we do consider this rationally and that we do consider the evidence that is in front of us. We did have to give this a lot of thought before we could confirm that we would support it at this stage, and one of the reasons that we have decided that we will support it is because of the support that we do think we have for my colleague Jacinda Ardern’s Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 193.

This SOP will change the name of the bill to the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Bill. We want to make it really clear that this is about Government agencies sharing information, rather than this being a public register that records the names of and provides information about sex offenders. We had a number of submissions that pointed out the evidence internationally, which proves that, actually, public registers do not work. They may give the general public a sense of security; whether that is a valid sense of security is another question. But the fact is that the international evidence we were presented with shows that a public register does not work, with regard to reducing the chances of reoffending by sex offenders. Therefore, a public register would not make our children, our community, any safer.

The purpose, as I said, is an admirable one and one that we do respect, but I have to bring up that a number of the agencies and individuals that submitted on this bill did say—and I am talking about agencies and individuals who actually work, in some instances, with the victims of sexual offences and, in some instances, with the actual sexual offenders. The majority of those who were in that position actually reported that they did not think that a register would change anything at all or in any significant way.

They were concerned, many of them, that this is a large amount of money. We are talking about $146 million to implement this register over 10 years, and they were concerned that this money could be spent in places that would better address the needs of victims or, actually, create more of a secure environment so that we are less likely to have as many victims, or are able to reduce the number of victims of sexual offences. So it is really important to note that because those really are the experts who are on a day-to-day basis working with the victims of sexual offending or the sexual offenders, for them to say that this is not the best use of money really needs to be noted.

We have real concerns around the issues of false security. People seem to think that if you do have a register and you know who the sexual offenders are, then they will be safe, but the reality is—and we saw this evidence presented at the Social Services Committee as well—that, unfortunately, the majority of people who will sexually offend against children are actually close family and friends. So we cannot protect them through this particular piece of legislation, because most of them will be unknown to the justice system. I would hate to think that this would provide a sense of security for the public out there, because the reality is that we all need to be aware of the fact that, quite often—more often than not—the sexual offending is actually happening in our own homes and in our own communities, and not by people who have been convicted of sexual offences in the past. So it is really important to note that.

I want to refer to one of the submissions that was made, and that is the submission made by the Salvation Army. I am sure that all of us in the House do respect the opinions of the Salvation Army and the fact that it does come with evidence-based views around these types of issues. The Salvation Army refers to clause 43 in the bill and talks about the flawed conceptions of public safety. The Salvation Army submitted that “a Register without sufficient safeguards on its use by the public can actually create conditions that may lead to reoffending.” It states that currently, in clause 43, the bill allows for disclosure of information to a third party if the commissioner believes, on reasonable grounds, that the offender poses a threat to the life, welfare, or sexual safety of a particular child or particular children.

I do not really feel like we got to the bottom of that particular issue in the Social Services Committee. There were discussions about who the third party might be, and I think at one point it was discussed that boards of trustees might be the third party that the information could be released to if they thought that someone posed a threat. And, of course, we can understand the rationale for that, but then, at the end of the day, if this is not intended to be a public register, how does the Minister for Social Development anticipate that that information will not go any further, given that the boards of trustees are actually members of the community and parents of the children at the school? It is hard to see how that information could be confined to just that individual board of trustees and not shared more widely within the community.

I am raising that because of the fact that the Government has committed to the fact that this will not be a public register. So I guess just thinking that through, how do we stop that happening? I think someone brought up at the select committee that the third party could, perhaps, be a church minister if there were concerns that a sexual offender who had been released may pose a threat to the congregation or the children in the congregation. So how does that information then get passed on? How are those decisions made about who appropriate third parties are? It would be really good to get some more examples from the Minister for Social Development about who appropriate third parties would be in respect of that particular clause.

I just want to go back to the fact that we have had a very broad-ranging discussion in the select committee about whether or not this register should be made public. I just want to contrast the SOP that Jacinda Ardern has put in, with the SOP that has been put in by Darroch Ball, SOP 178. I know that Darroch Ball and New Zealand First are trying to make this register public. Our SOP is trying to confirm that this actually a Government agency register and that it is not for the public. So there is a clear difference of opinion here. It will be very interesting to hear from the other members of the other political parties about what their thoughts are on that particular issue.

Going back to the costs of setting up the register, we did feel that they are disproportionate to the evidence in terms of benefits. As I stated, several submitters working in the area cited serious underfunding of proven strategies for curbing sexual offending and struggled to reconcile this underfunding with the investment of $146 million into a register. For those who have not been part of the select committee process, it would be interesting to hear from the Minister how the $146 million will be spent and what effect that the Government anticipates in terms of the actual impact that will have on sexual offending or reoffending by these sex offenders.

It is important to note that submitters articulated the need for the Government to place a higher emphasis on investing in research and evaluation of other means of reducing offending, such as specialist offender treatment, primary preventative education, as well as working with children, young people, families, and communities about recognising harmful behaviour. All of those things are areas in which we would have preferred $146 million to be spent in, rather than on a register, hence why today we are here saying that we are supporting this bill, but with some major reservations: where money could be best spent being one of them, what the evidence says with regards to how we stop sexual offenders reoffending, and how we keep our children safe from sexual offences.

It is important, we understand, to manage any risks to children in the community posed by convicted child sex offenders who have come to the end of their sentences or are serving non-custodial sentences. We do think that this bill will allow for the tracking of convicted child sex offenders in the community to be used as a tool to try to prevent reoffending, but it is, by far, definitely not a silver bullet to the issues that we are talking about and it is definitely not going to resolve the issue of sexual offences against children. It is one tool, it will maybe do a little bit, and it may give the community a sense of security, but there is a lot more that needs to be done.

I thought it was appropriate that I say just a few words in response to the two speakers who have already been on their feet, Stuart Nash and Carmel Sepuloni. It will come as a bit of a surprise to the member who has just resumed her seat, Carmel Sepuloni, that, actually, I quite agree with her. This register, this piece of legislation, is not a silver bullet to solve sexual offending against children and should never be seen as that.

This has been a very slow, deliberate development of policy. If I go right back to when I had the privilege of being the Minister of Corrections, I was really concerned that there were a large number of these predators who disappear into our communities and nobody knows where they are. On their release from prison, or their release from the court with a community sentence, the police may have some knowledge of them, but time goes by and they can move on and they can just slip quietly into the community—and there are a considerable number of them. So that was where the idea came from: that we needed to be able to keep track of where these people are.

I did go and do some international research, and I remark on the comments from Stuart Nash, and that there is a paucity of evidence as to whether keeping a register actually stops anything. What it does do—there is good evidence—is it does keep track of where they are. But the difference between what we saw overseas in some jurisdictions and what we are proposing here is that management context around those high-risk offenders, based on the analysis that is done at any one point in time on their circumstances. That came out of a conversation, actually, with an offender himself who said: “I understand why you’re doing it, but if you’re setting up this register, I need to be able to know that I can go—because I know when I’m slipping off track—there needs to be a way that I can go and seek help when my circumstances alter. I have a good idea of what those triggers are, and I need that assurance and that back-up that I can go and seek some help.”

That has been augmented by discussions with both New Zealand Police and the Department of Corrections about those offenders who are at high risk—not just at one point of time but throughout the time that they are back in our communities when something can trigger a relapse. In most cases those offenders are taught to manage their urges, but when a circumstance changes in their life—losing their job, losing their rental or home, something happens in the wider community, or something happens in their family—it can actually have a serious effect on them. And so that management system that we are building in is new, and it is something that we should keep a very close eye on to make sure that it is effective. I do not disagree with having a good look at it a few years down the track to make sure that it is effective.

At the heart of it, it is a known group of people—and we want to know where they are in our communities and identify those who at high risk and make sure that we can put some support and services around them. There are some police who may well drop in on some of those high-risk offenders on a regular basis to make sure that they are OK, that they are living where they said they were living, and that they are keeping their details up to date.

I just want to be a little bit pragmatic about the amount of money. It sounds like a lot of money—$147 million—but that is over 10 years. So, on a per annum basis, if it means that we can keep track of where these people are, then it is not a lot of money and it does give some comfort and some tools to the professionals in order to deal with a particular group. I also agree with the speaker who has just resumed her seat that it is not the panacea, as I said. It is not the silver bullet, and by far the most dangerous people, the evidence shows, are the people who are friends with your family—or who are in your family—and you need to keep a very close eye on what is happening to your children. I think that is a sad thing. When I was a child we roamed the streets and there was a much more open way of living, and we just cannot do that today. We know that these predators are there, we know the damage that they can do, and we have to do everything we can to protect our children—our communities’ children—from those predators.

Finally, I know that Darroch Ball is going to speak to his Supplementary Order Paper 178; he raised the question in the House today. In the research that I did, there are jurisdictions that have public registers, and there are jurisdictions that have non-public registers. All the experts and all the specialists will tell you that if you have a public register, you leave yourself open to the sort of mob mentality that we have seen on numerous occasions. In fact, one offender who had not reoffended for many, many years, was working, and was well rehabilitated into a normal life, had his house burnt down while he was out working in his forestry job, simply because someone found out that he had a previous conviction, and they did not want him living in their neighbourhood. I can understand the fear that parents and communities have when they know that there is a predator there. We can all understand that, but if we want these people to be rehabilitated—and many of them can be, and can live an offence-free life—then we have to find ways to rehabilitate them into our communities, and a public register does not support that.

But, for me, the most important reason for the register was that I wanted to make sure that all the names were on the one list. The courts do offer name suppression in many cases in order to protect the victims. If we had a public register, those names could not appear. It would mean that you would need a separate register, in which case you have got two places where you have to go to get information. And we all know that that may lead to people slipping through the cracks. So the desire to have a register where we knew where everybody was, and the advice from the experts about the ongoing management of these people in our communities, led to the fact that we needed a closed register that only specific agencies could get access to. I have indicated to Jacinda Ardern that I am comfortable with the change to the name, as proposed in Supplementary Order Paper 193, as I have said on many occasions in recent weeks. Actually, it does not matter what you call it, it is the way that this operates that is going to make a difference in our communities. If that makes it clearer that this is not a public register—it is only for Government agencies—well, then, there is no harm in calling a spade a spade and having the name reflect that.

It was very helpful hearing some comments from Minister Anne Tolley, albeit I am going to disagree with much of what she had to say.

I would just like to refer back, firstly, to some of the comments made by Carmel Sepuloni. Although acknowledging Labour’s serious reservations about this legislation, she suggested that the register might give people some sense of security. In fact, I would argue that that would be a false sense of security, given that the sad reality is that most offending of this sort—most offending against children—is perpetrated by people known to them. I have recently seen evidence that this whole programme around stranger danger we used to run in schools is to be abandoned because it gives people the sense that the problem is somewhere out there, that it is external—somebody hiding in the bushes or behind the bus shelter. The reality is that, sadly, much of this child sex offending is perpetrated by people known to them; therefore, the publishing of a list of names, whatever one calls it, really does not contribute much to resolving that problem.

We have heard very strong arguments as to why this register ought never to be public, and that rather graphic example of a fellow who had come out the other side and was working and contributing to his community having his house torched because somebody discovered that he had been a sex offender. It is almost inevitable that this register will leak. If you look at the list of agencies that will have access to it, at the number of people working within those agencies, it is inevitable that there will be literally thousands of people in New Zealand—and we are a very small community, this country. We all know what a small village we live in. Inevitably, it will leak and people will be victimised, despite their not having reoffended. Despite their living good lives, they will be identified, they will be stigmatised, and there is nothing surer than that those incidents will occur.

Some provisions of the legislation almost invite the publication. I am particularly concerned, and always have been, about the provisions under clause 39. The Commissioner of Police is obliged to develop guidelines for the use of and access to the register—that it must be used for specific named purposes by particular agencies. But all of that gets blown out of the water by clause 39(3), which says: “… guidelines may authorise the use of information contained in the register for a purpose other than the purpose for which the information was obtained if an authorised person reasonably believes such use is necessary to— … (b) prevent or reduce a threat to public safety,”. Nowhere in this document is that notion of a threat to public safety defined. There are no boundaries put around it, so it is a very broad, wide-open invitation, almost, for people to use this information for purposes for which it has not been gathered. I think that is a very dangerous clause, and I think it is one that will undermine the best intentions of anyone who thought that it might ever remain a private, secure register, along with, as I have said, the many of thousands of people who will have access to it.

The Minister noted—I think we are still talking about this figure of $146 million over 10 years, which was in the regulatory impact statement as a projected cost. That is about $14.6 million a year at a time when we are seeing initiatives like Circles of Support and Accountability withdrawn for the sake of a few tens of thousands of dollars, when we are seeing treatment facilities in the community discontinued anywhere and everywhere one looks. Organisations that are doing work in this field are crying out for cash, and there simply is not any to be found. I think $146 million is a great deal of money when there is no compelling evidence to suggest that this register will do any good at all.

In reply to some additional questions put to them, the police came back with an approximate breakdown of what the costs just to them would be. They suggested a $5.08 million capital cost to set up this register, and then something like $54 million over 8 years. So 54 plus 5—that is the thick end of $60 million, at a time when I am hearing from local policemen on the beat in Northland that they are stretched beyond breaking point. We know that everywhere in New Zealand police are running on empty despite their best efforts, despite their hard work, and despite their efficiencies. They are doing their level best to perform in the absence of adequate resource, and suddenly $60 million goes away.

It is a pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. New Zealand First will be supporting this bill because we believe that a register is, at a bare minimum, needed. We do have Supplementary Order Paper 178, which mentions that we wish that the register be made publicly available. I have to note though that my Supplementary Order Paper does state that there will be two separate registers. One will have the entirety of the information that is described in the bill as it is and that will remain restricted. However, the publicly available register will have the basic information on the offenders within the community.

I will talk more about my Supplementary Order Paper in a later call, but first I would just like to speak on a couple of things that the Minister has said and that a number of the other members have said when they were speaking here. The first is that during question time today the Minister mentioned the names all having to be on one register, and that the issue of name suppression would be a reason to ensure that it is restricted and a reason why it could not be made publicly available. The figures that New Zealand First got for the number of child sex offenders—firstly, there are over 400 convictions for child sex offenders every year; over the last 10 years, on average, there are probably around 250 to 300 who are released from prison every year; and, also, around 180 who are given community-based sentences every year.

Of all of those child sex offenders, less than 10 percent are actually given permanent name suppression. This is not a huge number or proportion of all of the child sex offenders who are given name suppression. There is only a very small number, and that is no excuse for keeping the register restricted. There are a couple of questions that fall out of that. There are instances now where high-risk child sex offenders are placed in the community. The surrounding community, the schools, and the neighbours are informed of where they are and who they are. That happens now. The only reason that corrections and all of the authorities do that—the one and only reason—is for the community to know in order for them to protect their children. That is it. There is no other reasoning behind why it actually happens now—why there is publicly available information for certain communities with child sex offenders in those communities.

That is a question that I would like Minister Tolley to answer: why does it happen now that the communities surrounding these high-risk child sex offenders are informed of their locations, but she does not want to make the register of all of the child sex offenders public for that same reason—the one and only reason—which is to give the parents the ability and the tools to make safe and correct decisions for their children about where they go, whom they associate with, where they spend social time, and where they go to school etc. All it is is a tool for parents to protect their children.

Secondly, there are a number of people who have stood up and talked about research. We have had Labour say that registers do not work, and there is little evidence that it does work—same from the Greens. We have had the Minister talk about research as well. Even in the departmental report for the Social Services Committee it literally states that “There is a wide range of international research … against the effectiveness of sex offender registers … most of the evidence that is available comes from the United States, which is not a jurisdiction that is fully comparable with New Zealand.” The last sentence of that little paragraph there says: “There is little evidence available that pertains specifically to child sex offender registers in like jurisdictions.” So when any member stands up and talks about the research, that context needs to be put into place. There is no jurisdiction and no international research out there—and members have been talking about international research—that is comparable to New Zealand jurisdiction. So any conclusions that any member makes in this Committee based on the international evidence cannot be applied with any sense of certainty to the jurisdiction of New Zealand.

There are a number of things that I would like go on to, in further calls, including Supplementary Order Paper 178, but the most important, I think, in regard to this bill is the fact that we had around about 150 submissions to the select committee, and it will be interesting to see how many of the members actually read them. The vast majority—120 or 125—asked for the register to be made public. Over 80 percent of all the submissions that came in wanted the register to be public. Apparently, there are no other parties in this House that are listening to the public. Politicians get accused day in day out about being out of touch with reality, about being out of touch with the public, what the public wants, and what the public needs, and here is demonstrable proof that we have the public coming forward with their submissions and asking and pleading for us to have that register be made public. Every single party—apart from New Zealand First—in this House is ignoring them.

We have just recently had an issue with a child sex offender in Lower Hutt. All the Lower Hutt people wanted to know was who that person was and where they were. That was not because of vigilantism or because of the mob mentality, like the Minister was mentioning, and fearmongering. That is not what the purpose of a public register is. The reason why the parents in Lower Hutt wanted to know who that person was and where they were was solely to protect their children—solely to protect their children. That is why they come out and ask for a public register.

I would also like to note that of those submissions, we had a number of victims of child sex abuse who came forward, and every single one of them wanted it to be public. Every single submission from a victim of child sex offences wanted the register to be public. I can say that we had a number of child sex offenders who actually made submissions, and every single one of those child sex offenders did not want a register and did not want it to be public. I ask the Committee, and I ask the Minister, why we are ignoring the obvious public support for a public register. Why are we ignoring the victims of child sex abuse who have come forward to submit to the select committee and asked for it to be made public? Why is New Zealand First the only party that is listening to them? That is a question that I would like the Minister to answer.

I think it has been mentioned also previously that it is not a silver bullet. It is not about solving the issue of child sex abuse; it is about concentrating on the reoffending. Those who we know have offended, and those who we know are likely to reoffend—that is what this tool is; it is a monitoring tool. It is not about punishment. It is not about extending the sentence that they have had. It is about the authorities, in terms of how this current legislation is written, knowing where the sex offenders are and who they are, and being able to monitor them. That is why New Zealand First wants to extend that for the public to be able to do the same thing.

We believe that, actually, there is a lot of ideology out there about the rights to privacy of the offender and the perpetrator. New Zealand First says and believes that the children’s rights to protection and the parents’ rights and the communities’ rights to protect their children come before any of the rights of the offender—any rights of the offender. If this Committee and the Minister take the step to put the children at the centre of this conversation, then there is no doubt that the Minister must agree to make the register public.

New Zealand First will be supporting this bill. I will speak a little later on about our Supplementary Order Paper 178 in detail. We will be supporting this through the Committee stage. We would like the register to be made public, and I would like the Minister to answer those questions. Thank you.

I take a call, and I just want to respond to a couple of the comments made by the previous speaker, Darroch Ball. We actually had 135 substantive submissions that were made to the Social Services Committee. There were 98 of those submissions that were actually calling for a public register, and we heard 22 oral submissions. The member noted that those who were advocating on behalf of victims, out of the 98 submissions, were asking for a public register. There were those who were actually perpetrators and offenders who actually asked for that. Here are some of the reasons—which the member may have forgotten—why.

When we think about those who are offenders, there is a continuum. There are those who are absolutely at the extreme end, who we know do not comply, who need restrictions and monitoring and management in their situation. There are also, down at the other end of the continuum, those who, yes, have made mistakes. You can also think about scenarios where there may have been an 18- or 19-year-old who, unfortunately, may have had a relationship with a 15- or 16-year-old. It has happened. That is classified as statutory rape, if there is a charge and a conviction that is held. So there is a continuum that we need to be aware of.

In one of those submissions that were made, there was an offender who actually said that he had rehabilitated himself—had been many years without offending. He has a young family now, and all he was asking was that there be some understanding for his situation. That is the reason we need to be cognisant of the fact—when we think about a public register and the harm that it could cause, what about those who have admitted fault, who have had rehabilitation, but who want an opportunity to make sure that their lives can continue on for them and their family? That is part of the reason why.

💬 Darroch Ball: What about the victims?

The member there talks about—oh, absolutely we are taking the victims into consideration. Here is the thing that the member also needs to remember: this is not the silver bullet, as I know we have all been saying. In fact, this is to enhance the CISO, which is the Centre for Impact on Sexual Offending. That is where the police collaborating with corrections have come together since 2013. What it has asked for with this registration is to ensure that it has up-to-date information. That is the power of registration. It is not just a list of names. What it allows the CISO to do is put together what it calls a product of intelligence, so that when it comes to the risk management of an offender, that information and that up-to-date data give it the best possible ability to manage the risk. That is the reason why we have the register. That is what it is doing as well, and we think that is important.

The member talked about the lack of evidence, and he is correct in saying that there is no comparative jurisdiction. In fact, in the States there are multiple jurisdictions that are operational at that point in time—in other words, different corrections departments and different police departments are trying to work in different states. New Zealand is unique in that it has one jurisdiction—the member is correct. But there is the evidence that states this—and it is in the departmental report, paragraph 21. It states: “There is, however, evidence that public notification can severely disrupt the life of the registered offender, and their family, and thereby increase the risk of reoffending.”, so, you know, we need to take that into account as well.

I also want to then approach the member—if he reads on to paragraph 22, it also says that the largest and most comprehensive study about the impact of registration, which was carried out by Prescott and Rockoff, talked about: “We find evidence that registration reduces the frequency of sex offences by providing law enforcement with information on local sex offenders.” This is what we are talking about. This is what the register is about. This is what it is intended to do, and this is the intent of what it is actually trying to achieve. What it is doing is it is a register for those two enforcement agencies to ensure they have up-to-date information and to ensure they have a product. What that does is create a profile around certain offenders for whom—the member is absolutely right—we need to have some concern for our communities, as well.

I just want to comment on the cost. There has been some issue around the $146 million, and we did hear—and Mr Clendon talked about the fact—that the police talked about what that would cost, if they were to break down those costs. There is $5 million for capital set-up of that service, and around about $54 million over 5 years, but what they also told us was that two-thirds of the $146 million was already consumed in services, and also in the intelligence that they currently have, as well. So we are talking of a portion of the $146 million that is already there, and all it is doing is actually pointing those services—of intelligence, in particular—directly into ensuring that the register is up to date and has information that is critically important. We think that is actually an appropriate use of that resource—to ensure that we actually ensure that offenders are kept in line as well. I also just want to make—

Tēnā koe, Mr Chair. There is no easy place for this debate to land because there is nothing more vexatious than the issue of harm that comes to our children. So I want to just acknowledge the Social Services Committee that heard the submissions on this particular piece of legislation, because there were some difficult things to hear, and it is a very sensitive conversation. So it is in that vein—that there is no easy place to land around this particular issue—that I actually want to structure my comments in this Committee stage debate.

When we look at the purpose in clause 3, there are two key phrases that are within the legislation. The first one is about reducing sexual reoffending. We had many submitters who came to the committee and there were a variety of views. If I can, perhaps, sum up the arguments on both sides when it came to that particular argument about reducing sexual offending.

Some of the submitters said that this legislation actually has the ability to identify where potential risk can reside within the community. That is important—so potential risk can be identified and, therefore, it is easier for offenders to be taken in for questioning by police should another offence occur. So you kind of know, in the community, where there are some identified individuals who pose some risk and it is easy for the police to be able to monitor that group of people—as long as they are placed in an appropriate setting, and that is something I want to come back to later.

There was another group of submitters who, actually, had another argument, in that they felt that it was a significant amount of money there we are talking about—and it is significant—and I want to comment on that. When the Social Services Committee conducted the inquiry into funding for sexual abuse services, the result of that was an extra $10 million going into the sector over 4 years. So we are talking about the difference between $10 million to support the sector for people who support victims of sexual offending, and a significant amount of money—$146 million over 10 years—for this register. So there is quite a disparity there, and submitters said that they felt that the money could be better spent on rehabilitation and prevention. That is the thing that I do not think that this register actually addresses—the prevention of harm through sexual assault.

The other thing that the second lot of submitters said was that, actually, there are relatively low rates of reoffending—relatively low rates of reoffending—so that when you have a register of people and you know where they are in the community, they may not be ones who are likely to reoffend. To also pick up on the point that our Green colleague David Clendon made about the notion of stranger danger, this register actually plays into those ideas around stranger danger, when we know that sexual offending—particularly against children—actually happens with people who are known to the family. By and large, there are many more people who offend who are known to the family, and over a period of months, or perhaps years, children, particularly, are groomed by these people.

So we have got two arguments with regard to whether this piece of legislation actually reduces sexual reoffending.

The other significant part of that clause is about reducing the risk posed by serious child sex offenders. And here I want to comment on two recent cases where the community has had a view about having sex offenders in the community—namely, in the Hutt and also in Māngere—and where the community has been very clear about the fact that it does not want sex offenders in their communities. People have felt that the placement of those offenders has been inappropriate in their community, whether it has been where they have lived, or whether it has been where they have been able to access children—being close to schools, and that kind of thing. So the community has—

I would like to reflect on something Mr Ngaro said. He made a statement I can agree with, and that is not always the case, I have to say. But he did point out—he talked about a different scale of offending within overall—I hope I do not misunderstand him. He talked about an example where a 19-year-old might have consensual sex with a 15-year-old. It is undesirable behaviour and something that needs to be dealt with—it is not condoned—but it is a very different scale of offending from someone who assaults an infant or a young child.

Therefore, we would deal with those people differently. We would assess the risk of their reoffending differently, given the circumstances. Unfortunately, that is what this legislation abjectly fails to do. I am going to quote here: “The legislation currently before this committee”—this was written in November last year—“assesses offenders’ risk on the basis of offence type, rather than their risk of reoffending.”

The ever-reliable Kim Workman offered us a supplementary submission to the select committee on behalf of Robson Hanan Trust, and made the very valid point, I thought, that we have in this legislation an expectation that people who commit particular types of offences therefore share a similar risk profile, and that is demonstrably untrue. There are people who will commit certain offences who are highly likely to go on and reoffend in that same style of offence; there are other people who might commit an offence who are most unlikely to reoffend, for whatever reason.

On one of my first excursions into visiting people in the community with some interesting record I went to a relatively remote place and spent some time with a man who had done time for attempted murder. On the way out there, I thought: “This is an interesting situation to go into.” The fact is, having got to know and talk to that man, the likelihood of him reoffending was probably zero in regard to that particular offence; similarly, with some sex offenders.

The submission from Mr Workman was titled “Risk assessment of sex offenders: A short history”. He talked about 1995 as a bit of a turning point in how we deal with risk assessment generally. It was in the context of decisions having to be made by parole officers, but it is perfectly valid for this as well. The key finding he comes to is that this is a one-size-fits-all approach. It does not facilitate or encourage, person by person, individually profiling the risk of reoffending of each individual as we go through. That is fundamentally the wrong approach.

It causes me to reflect on the much better solution that was offered by the New Zealand Law Society, which opposes this bill. The law society continues to oppose this legislation; not dismissing the fact that we do have a problem in this country, but suggesting a much better alternative. Rather than this blanket approach—“You have committed offence X, therefore you go on to a register, potentially for life”—the law society suggests simply giving judges the authority and the wherewithal to make single judgments in specific cases: “Yes, on balance, the likelihood of this person reoffending is very, very high and therefore they ought to be identified in an ongoing way in the interest of community safety.” That is a far more sensible approach than this one-size-fits-all, blanket approach: “You have offended against law X, therefore we are assuming you will continue to offend.” There is simply no justification for that sort of blanket approach to risk assessment.

New Zealand—and Mr Workman notes this—has developed quite a good reputation. We have not got it right yet, clearly—we get it wrong on occasion—but we are seen as having been at the forefront of modelling new and improved ways of assessing the risk of people reoffending, and this legislation is a retrograde step. We could potentially support any mechanism that we believed was going to reduce the likelihood of offending against our children—that might protect our children.

Sadly, we believe that the only protective element is in the name of this legislation. The New Zealand Family Violence Clearinghouse, which has done a lot of research around sexual and domestic violence, could find no compelling evidence anywhere in the world that suggests that having a register actually does enhance the protection of children, or that it would be effective in any way. That was the theme to a lot of the—dare I say it—better informed submitters. We heard anecdotal references to research or reading or something somebody had heard somewhere that indicated that registers do have some facility to protect or to lower the risk to children. We could see no such substantive evidence.

Kia ora. I too would like to start by acknowledging the Minister and the Social Services Committee. The subject matter is probably an area, or a topic, that none of us would like to discuss. The fact that we are, today, debating the merits of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill, or, if my colleague Jacinda Ardern’s Supplementary Order Paper 193 is supported, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Bill, is—I was going to say incredibly sad, because, in preparing for my contribution today, I looked for some statistics.

I found a piece of research, which is on the Department of Corrections website, actually, and it is called Reconviction Rates of Sex Offenders: Five year follow-up study and it looked at sex offenders from 1 January 2001 to 31 December 2003. There were 1,100 male sex offenders. Of those, 63 percent, or 689, were child sex offenders, which is pretty harrowing, actually. Then, when I looked at some of the descriptions, I will call them—on average they were 41 years old, 56 percent were 40-plus when released, 35 percent were Māori, 51 percent European, and 13 percent Pasifika. The interesting part for me—because this whole corrections research project was about recidivism—was that what they found, of the 689 child sex offenders, 66 percent were first-timers, so that is 455; of those, 19 percent were reconvicted within a 60-month period post their release. I guess some people would see that as a good thing, but I looked a bit deeper into the numbers, and it actually means that, of the 455 first-time offenders, 369 are out there—somewhere. We do not know where they are, and no one is monitoring them.

I can see the intent behind this piece of legislation when I look at figures like that, because, actually, it is a safeguard for us when they stay in the system, which is incredibly perverse. What is incredibly interesting, too, was that, of the recidivist offenders, of which there were 234, 54 percent were reconvicted within that 60-month period—126 people—but only 13, or 4 percent, were reconvicted for sex offending on children. I actually can see the intent behind this piece of legislation, so I am getting up to support the Minister.

I think that, in light of some of the recent community commentary, however, on where these sex offenders are currently being placed, what I am hoping is that not only are we going to have a register but we are actually going to think through where people should be rehabilitated in the community. I want to particularly pick up on a comment by the Minister, Anne Tolley, who said that these offenders have to manage their urges. I guess my challenge back to the Minister, to the ministry, and to all of those involved in monitoring these child sex offenders is: is managing them within a kilometre of a school, where they can see children, where children actually, in Māngere’s case, saw them—and, from what we have heard, there were issues of masturbation, because this particular offender was getting off on seeing the kids—appropriate?

There was an interesting ad in Germany in 2005, and it said: “You are not guilty because of your sexual desire, but you are responsible for your sexual behaviour.” I think the reality for some child sex offenders who are paedophiles, managing their urges—as the Minister said—is actually also the responsibility of the Government, because if we are going to put people back into the community and rehabilitate them, then we have to make sure that they are going to be in the best environment so that those urges do not pose a risk, not only for our kids but for them.

Before I call Darroch Ball, I am going to remind members—and I am just feeling a wee bit conflicted now because of stated interests in this area—that they should be debating this bill. It is not a second reading - type debate on the causes or the general statistics. It is not a discussion about where people should be living. Actually, this bill has been accepted by the House at its second reading, and all we are talking about is whether the details in this bill now fulfil the wishes of the House as expressed at the second reading.

I would just like to take a quick call to address a couple of things that have been said, first of all, by Alfred Ngaro, actually—what he was saying. He actually contradicted himself. He was talking about the scale of offending.

First of all, he was talking about the scale of the offending, but it is important to note that this legislation—this register—has got nothing to do with the decision-making process about putting someone on that register. That comes before they are put on to the register. So if Alfred Ngaro wants to talk about the scale of offending and who should go on the register and who should not go on the register, that comes before any decision is made about the role of the register and how the register is used. The authorities make that choice. But he contradicted himself when he agreed with what I was saying about there being no jurisdiction—that you can accurately rely on any research for any information that would be accurate to New Zealand. Within the same breath he starts quoting research about overseas—about what this register is for and why it should not be made public. If he would like me to go back into the Hansard and quote it to him at the third reading, I will be able to do that for him.

The second thing I want to talk about is actually one of the major concerns that New Zealand First has. It is what the Minister for Social Development said, talking about the police and what they would do with the register. She literally said: “The police may well drop in” and “make sure they are living where they say they are.” We have heard from all of the Opposition parties, throughout the readings and the processes of the bill, about the issues with the funding, the stretched budget of the police as it is, and the failure of the police at the moment to be able to adequately monitor those on electronic monitoring and bracelets. Then we have an added task and duty for the officers, to stretch their budget even further to be able to go and monitor offenders.

The issue here with this legislation—the main one is that it points to the fact that the offenders themselves have to update their information. The offenders themselves have to update their own information. They have to say whether they are moving, they have to say whether they are going to be in contact with children where they are, and then the police have to react to that—the police have to react to that. New Zealand First has got major concerns around that, as well.

I would just like to briefly read out two submissions to the Social Services Committee, because they highlight a couple of the points that New Zealand First is making. The first submission is about the need for the public to be able to be the eyes and ears for the police, and the importance of that. It states: “If the success of this register is going to rely on just the Police and Corrections to monitor 250 child sex offenders released in the first year, followed by an extra 250 in year two, on up to 2500 by year ten then supervision is going to become non-existent due to sheer numbers. … The task of Policing is not the sole prerogative of the Police. At any one time there is a very high level of dependence on the general public to see and report what they see to the Police for action.” That is one of the major reasons why New Zealand First believes that the public need to be the eyes and ears within the general public for this register, and that means that the register needs to be public.

The second submission is actually from a victim of child sex abuse, and gives her views on why she believes the register needs to be a public register: “I am a sexual abuse survivor and from personal experience I cannot stress the importance of having a Child Sex Register available to the public. After what I had to go through, … I would hate to think this could happen to another young and vulnerable child. Knowledge is power, and that ‘saying’ couldn’t be more true in this situation. If parent’s and members of the community are able to have access to those that pose a risk to children, then they can in fact make informed decisions around where they live, where to send their children and where they deem safe.”

Those two submissions are the basis of why New Zealand First is putting forward Supplementary Order Paper 178 to make the register public, and we hope that the Minister supports that.

I want to start by looking at Part 1, subheading “Offenders to whom Act applies”. This starts at clause 6, “Who is a registrable offender?”. Clause 6(1)(a) says it is someone “sentenced to imprisonment;”—we get that. But clause 6(1)(b) says “sentenced to a non-custodial sentence and made subject to a registration order.” So, basically, someone who has not gone to prison, but the courts make a decision that they should be subject. If we go to clause 8(1), it says “the court may”—may; and I do not know what constitutes “may”—“order that the person must be placed on the register and must comply with the reporting obligations of the Act. (2) … if the court is satisfied that the person poses a risk to the lives or sexual safety of 1 or more children, or of children generally.”

Well, the first question is: what judge would actually order a non-custodial sentence if he or she thought that a person posed a risk to the life or sexual safety of a child? I think that anyone who poses a risk to the life of a child should be in jail, anyway—but let us not argue about that. What happens is that the judge must consider 10 variables when determining whether to make a registration order. I am not going to list all the variables, but they are listed under clause 8(3), and there are 10 of them. The thing that concerns me about this is that they are subjective, to the point where I think there may end up being judicial inconsistency here. You are going to get a so-called hanging judge who says: “OK, I can’t order you to jail because of past precedent, but you’re going to go down because I’m considering all of these.”

The thing that concerns me about this is a lack of objectivity—I think that what the bill should have done is been a lot clearer in determining who actually comes under a registration order if there is a non-custodial sentence. That is something that I think will have to be sorted out in the courts. What I would be loath to see is people appealing their registration order simply because they felt it was unfair, so that we get another layer of process or court there.

The other thing I would like to talk about is the child sex offender register itself. Now, the Commissioner of Police, he or she is the person, or the position, responsible for this. But the interesting thing, if we go into clause 10, “Administration of register”—in clause 10(2) it says: “Before making significant operational decisions about [how] the register is administered, the Commissioner must consult with the chief executive of the Department of Corrections.” Again, what constitutes a “significant operational decision”? I am assuming that what will happen is that the Commissioner of Police and the chief executive officer (CEO) of corrections will sit down at the point that this register comes into law and have a memorandum of understanding about what constitutes a significant operational decision so that there is no grey area there—so that they have sorted it out and they know when the commissioner must consult with the CEO. But, again, when we have subjective words like “significant operational decision”, it does allow for grey areas that are open to contestability.

If we go down to clause 10(3), it says: “For the purpose of administering the register, the Commissioner may appoint … (a) 1 or more Police employees …”. But this comes back to the point—will the information get out there? This is one or more employees for the administration of the register; it is a different definition for those who are responsible for implementing or monitoring the people on the register, because it actually says in the legislation, under clause 25, that a person who delivers a report—I will come to “report”, and soon—can go into any police station designated by the commissioner. Now, there are 281 police stations in New Zealand at the moment, so, theoretically, what could happen—probably practically, actually—depending on where the sex offender lives, the commissioner will designate that that person must go to make their report to the closest possible police station, which makes sense. So there are another 281 people brought in.

I would never ever question the integrity of the police or of corrections staff, but let us be honest about this. If a police officer or a corrections officer finds out through dealing with the register, or someone on the register, that that person lives next door to—or two doors down from—a niece or nephew or something, human nature dictates that that information will get out there. When David Clendon mentioned that this information will leak—we know it will leak, because that is human nature, and that is something that concerns me.

Thank you, Mr Chair—thanks for the opportunity to contribute to this very important bill. I just want to take the opportunity to correct a little bit of information. Mr Ball told the Committee, that police are responsible for monitoring child sex offenders when they leave prison. Well, that is incorrect and I think we just need to correct that.

But there is another point I want to make about this. I am very concerned about some of the rhetoric around having a public and open register. I think it is one of those questions and issues that might seem very compelling at first glance, but one of the problems is that it does give, for a start, a very false hope and a false sense of security—even having a register. I fully support the register because, to me, it is an opportunity for Child, Youth and Family—or whatever its equivalent is—and many other agencies to understand that they actually are placing a child in a home with a child sex offender, which otherwise they might not know, if they do not have the information. It is really important that we have that information across Government—across the official agencies with responsibility.

But I think one of the very sad comments that I have heard is just the number of people who are child sex offenders being released out into the community. You know, we are talking about 250 in a year. That is an appalling statistic for New Zealand. I would say, on the good side, that it means that those people were caught, that they were held to account, that they did, in fact, receive justice, and that they will have received rehabilitation, as well, in most cases. But what that tells me, too, is that there are probably a large number who are not caught and who are not actually held to account.

We do get quite a lot of talk about where child sex offenders live. Some people want to have a register open so that they can know where every one is. Actually, child sex offenders are more likely to be living in one’s home, along with the child whom they are sexually offending. They are not so likely—although it does happen—to be living in the park, waiting to molest little children as they come to play. They are far more likely to be in positions of responsibility. They might be members of Parliament. They might be counsellors. They might be psychologists. They might be defence personnel. They might even be, dare I say, police or corrections staff. Do you know what? That is actually what has happened in the past. They might even be diplomats. We have certainly had situations like that.

There are people who are child sex offenders right throughout society. They do not have little horns on their heads. They do not have tattoos on them saying “I’m a child sex offender.” In most cases, they are actually people who are highly manipulative and able to gain people’s trust—often gaining the trust of mothers, often gaining the trust of families, particularly vulnerable families, who seek out and want someone to help them with their children or to be a mentor for their children. Some of these people are highly manipulative people. Actually, it is all right to say, well, we have a public register. Then we get—what—vigilantism, and that is absolutely not something that we should be seeking.

We should also be trying to get people who are child sex offenders, once they are released, to actually continue with therapy, because what we know is that quite a lot of the work that goes on in rehabilitation in this area can actually be very successful. It is an area where we have had huge success, particularly at Rolleston Prison. Sometimes people do not realise that. It is an area where change can be brought about. It is not that people no longer identify sexually with children, but it is that they do not act on it. That is what we want. We want people not to act on that sort of behaviour.

It is wrong to think that child sex offenders are not everywhere. I support the fact that I want agencies that have responsibility to know. I also want the situation that if somebody worries that somebody in their family or someone who is living in their house might be acting around their child in a way that concerns them, then they should be able to come to police. The police should be able to get all the information they have and they should be able to talk to Child, Youth and Family. People should be able to tell the parents what is actually going on or what is likely to be going on, and take action, because, actually, that information is so valuable.

One of the things I think we need to do is give agencies the information. I have been to the police to have a look at how this is all working with the Department of Corrections and the Ministry of Social Development staff and all the other agencies working together. I was really impressed with the level of detail that they could have because it is not a public register. I would also say, too, that this costs money, which it should do and which we, actually, are happy to put Budget money towards, because it is so worthwhile. But let us not double up. Let us keep the information where it needs to be and let us have it detailed enough that it makes a difference.

I just want to raise a few points that have not been raised already about the purpose of this bill, and then I am going to go to clause 43. I raised some issues on that before but the Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley, has not responded yet to them, so I am just going to reiterate those.

Looking at clause 3, the “Purpose”: “The purpose of this Act is to establish a Child Sex Offender Register that will reduce sexual reoffending against child victims.” One issue with that that we have not discussed at the Social Services Committee, and I have not heard any mention of by the Minister, is actually what the anticipated reduction is. We know that the National Government likes to set targets, so what is the reduction that the Minister expects to occur here with regard to sexual reoffending? I think it is really important to point that out, because the evidence that we were presented with at the select committee did show that, actually, only about 1 percent of all sexual offences will end up with a conviction in the criminal justice system. So how much of a reduction are we going to see with reoffending, given that that is the case?

I also think that it is important to actually focus on that word “reoffending”. This is not going to reduce the sexual offending against child victims. It is the reoffending against child victims, and the reoffending that has gone through the criminal justice system and ended up in conviction. Keep in mind that 99 percent of the sexual offending against children that goes on does not even end up with conviction through the criminal justice system. So I think it is worth discussing that. In clause 3, after it states “reduce sexual offending against child victims …”, it says “and the risk posed by serious child sex offenders, …”. I think we need to keep in mind that when we are talking about serious sexual child sex offenders here, we are talking about the ones who have been convicted. We are not talking about the serious child sex offenders out there who we know exist but who have not been convicted or have not been discovered, so it is important to mention that.

Clause 3(a) says: “providing government agencies with the information needed to monitor child sex offenders in the community, including after the completion of the sentence; …” I think my colleague Louisa Wall brought up why that is absolutely important, so we support that. But clause 3(b) says: “providing up-to-date information that assists the Police to more rapidly resolve cases of child sex offending.” So when we are looking at paragraph (b) for the purpose, we have to keep in mind that that is after the fact, because we are talking about providing police with information to more rapidly resolve cases of child sex offending. Actually, it is hard to reconcile that with the original statement in the purpose, where it says: to “reduce sexual reoffending against child victims”, because paragraph (b) of the purpose clause is just actually to provide police with information so that they can resolve child sexual offending cases. I think it is really important to talk about that.

I talked about clause 43 earlier, and I do want some answers from Minister Anne Tolley. Clause 43 is in relation to disclosure of information to affected people where a threat to child safety or welfare exists. We know that this particular clause means that it is not just about the sharing of information between government agencies; it opens it up to third parties. I think it is really important that we in the House are clear about who those potential third parties are, what safeguards are in place with regard to protecting that information, and who an appropriate third party is—so, just some examples. How will the risk be assessed before the decision is made to pass that information on to the third party? Who will be making that decision and who will be passing that information on to the third party? What will the consequence be of sharing that information outside of the parameters of the agreement in terms of—if it is given to the third party and it is supposed to stay there, what are the consequences if that information is passed on?

I am thinking here that one example of a third party discussed in the select committee was a school board of trustees. There you have got concerned parents. Yes, they are governing the school but you can imagine that it would be very difficult for them to withhold information from the rest of the community if they then become aware of the fact that there is a convicted sex offender living in their community. So what then, Minister, would the consequences of sharing that information be? I think we are just lacking a little bit of detail and explanation around that particular clause, clause 43. So if the Minister can answer some questions about that, then I think that would, hopefully, give some people a bit of peace of mind or, potentially, give us guidance in terms of further changes that need to be made.

Yes, I am happy to answer that. I am sorry—I meant to do that before. Clause 43 provides that the Commissioner of Police may disclose, or authorise a particular agency to disclose, personal information on the register to an affected person. So the classic example of that is where they know that this person is high risk and that person then moves in with a new partner who has children. When you look at the definition of an affected person, it is a parent or guardian of the child, or regular caregiver. So the commissioner would then decide that there is an element of risk to the children living in that home now with that new offender living amongst them, and he or she—one day we might have a woman Commissioner of Police—would decide that it could be disclosed to that new partner that her children might be at risk. That is the classic example of when that clause would be used. The important thing is that it is the commissioner who makes that decision and disclosure has to be to an affected person.

I want to make reference, firstly, to clause 3, the purpose clause. I would just say, like others, that this issue is of concern, and, like others have said, this issue is so important in light of the media coverage of a couple of high-profile matters that have occurred in my electorate and in the Hutt Valley. When I am looking at the purpose clause, it is quite specific, but I have to ask myself when looking at the purpose—I am hearing the Government members saying that this is about reducing the offending of child sex offenders, and yet, when I read the purpose of the bill, it says: “To establish a Child Sex Offender Register”. In my mind, I am asking how a child sex offender register prevents offences by those who are—and I have seen research to say this—oriented towards attacking young children. I am not a member of that committee, but I would like to know how a register prevents children being molested, being abused, being raped. How does it do that?

I am looking at clause 3(a), and it says: “providing government agencies with the information needed to monitor child sex offenders”. Yes, I agree, like many others, that having that information available to Government departments is important for monitoring some of the most serious child sex offenders. We had one in Māngere, who the ministry acknowledged is of high risk of reoffending. But, like with everything else, this Government has a tendency of cutting funding, and what that clause suggests to me is that it is reliant on somebody else providing that information to it.

Like many people in our country now, people are so busy—how do they provide that information to a Government department? With Government departments now, I do not know whether the right hand and the left hand talk to one another. So I am not sure whether this is broad enough in order for us to do what many MPs have spoken about in this House, and that is to prevent our children from being abused—that is, to keep our children safe from those who are predators. One of the issues that we are still debating is—when a sex offender or a violent offender has served their time and they are to be released into the community, the big question is: where do we house them? I would have thought that if this was truly about preventing child sex offending by those who are of imminent risk of reoffending, then that needs to be part of the purpose. I do not know why this Government has not included that as part of the purpose clause.

In clause 3(b), it says: “providing up-to-date information that assists the Police”. I will give you an example of why that clause concerns me. We in Māngere have a child sex offender who is of high risk of reoffending—and this is a term that the Department of Corrections has made—who is under 24/7 surveillance. I asked the police the other day: “How long will it take for you to get the information that is necessary for you to act on this person if this person slips their surveillance?”. It would take, roughly, as best as I could assess, about 10 to 15 minutes. That, to me, does not give me confidence at all that the purpose that Government members have said this bill is for, the prevention clause. The question that I want the Minister to answer is how having that child sex offender register will prevent high-risk offenders from reoffending—abusing, raping, or whatever it is that they do to children in our community. That is of paramount concern to members of the community—how to ensure that our children are kept safe.

I think this is one of those bills where we would not actually say it is a pleasure to rise and talk about it, because this is something I think none of us would particularly like to be speaking about as a topic. But I think doing something about reducing harm to young people through reducing the level of reoffending by sex offenders in our country is something we absolutely must do. I am quite convinced that this bill can contribute to this, and what I have heard asked a number of times today from across the Chamber is how it will happen. Why do we think this is going to be of any use whatsoever?

I just want to take people back to a conversation I remember having in the smoko room at Child, Youth and Family 20 years ago—in fact, it would have been 1996 when it happened. We were sitting around the smoko room talking about how useful it would be if we were able to identify and know who the previous sexual offenders against children were in our community, because there were a couple of things that would then happen. One would be that when you were actually placing children with a family in care—I mean, there are other checks and balances in place in terms of vetting caregivers—making sure you are not actually placing a child with a known sex offender would, obviously, be particularly helpful. But the other factor that was very, very common, and is still common now—although I have not been practising social work for a while—is that you are working as a Government agency with a family who is vulnerable, with a family who is at risk, it might be a single mum with some children, and then a new bloke turns up and this new bloke moves into the house. As a social worker, actually knowing the history of this bloke who might be turning up in this family—that he was potentially a previous child sex offender—that would be very, very useful knowledge to have, as a front-line social worker, at your fingertips.

I have heard the people over the other side of the Chamber asking how a register would be useful; well, I can tell you right now, that is exactly how it would be useful. It would protect some young people. No one—not the Minister, not anyone who has been speaking in support of this bill—says this bill on its own will stop all reoffending of sexual offences against children in New Zealand. If only it would—if only we could find that silver bullet—I am sure we would all fire it and be quite happy. But, in the meantime, until we find that silver bullet, it is beholden on us to continue to put forward those things that we know can be useful and that will play a part in reducing the level of reoffending involving sexual violence against young people.

I want to refer to the Supplementary Order Paper that has been brought forward in the name of Darroch Ball, who has claimed that the best thing we could do would be to put this register out publicly. I think it is widely accepted by everybody in this Committee—apart from the New Zealand First MPs—that that would not be a particularly useful thing to do. There is actually a reason we have name suppression in certain circumstances; so are you going to publicise all of the people on the register except for the ones who have name suppression? There is a presupposition in this that third parties or other people cannot ever know what is on this list. In this bill, it has been identified that in certain circumstances, this information may be released to a third party—such as the parent or guardian of a child—where that has been deemed to be appropriate in order to protect that child. So there is not a need for us to publicly go out so that Mr Ball and his mates can run around in a vigilante sort of way to hunt them down and seek them out.

There are provisions in this bill to ensure that where appropriate, third parties can be made aware of it, and I think that actually strikes exactly the right balance of what we want. We want to be able to make sure that the professionals—the police, Child, Youth and Family, those Government agencies that need to know—can know; and that any public who those people believe need to know because of some sort of imminent risk can be made aware of it. That is an appropriate place for this bill to land. That is an appropriate level of disclosure.

I would just like to take a quick call to address a couple of the things that the Hon Judith Collins said and what Jono Naylor has just said. First of all, I would like to thank the Hon Judith Collins for correcting me on who monitors those on electronic monitoring or bail, or whatever. Of course it is the Department of Corrections; it is not the police. But what I intended to say was that the police, the Department of Corrections, and the courts all have to absorb the costs of this register.

The intent of what I was saying still remains: the fact that of the $150 million - odd that this is going to cost, the total that the police, the Department of Corrections, and the courts actually have to absorb is around $85 million. What we heard, I think during the first reading, and certainly through the select committee process, was that it was OK, firstly, because it was over a 10-year period, but, secondly, that a lot of it was work that the police, the Department of Corrections, and the courts have already been doing. So part of that would be just a double-up overall. But that does not make sense, when the regulatory impact statement says that the extra costs that are being absorbed will be pursued following decisions by Cabinet to implement the policy. So there is obviously a need that has been identified by the Minister for Social Development to actually sort out where this extra money is coming from. It is not being absorbed just by the police, the Department of Corrections, and the courts.

The point I was trying to make, about the issue with relying on the authorities as the only ones at the moment to be monitoring and using this register, is the fact of the environment they are using it in. The fact is that we have got dropping police numbers per capita, we have got a demonstrable increase in crime, and we have got those three authorities—the police, the Department of Corrections, and the courts—screaming out for resources as it is. The fact that they have to try to stretch resources even further, and add further tasks, is the point that I was making. New Zealand First has concerns with that.

The second thing I would like to mention about what the Hon Judith Collins spoke about was one of the issues with making the register public, which was the fact that you could not put on a public register all the information and the level of detail that you can have on a restricted register. New Zealand First understands that, and that is why, in our Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178, we want a restricted register to remain, to have all of those details and all of that information that the Hon Judith Collins was talking about. That will remain. But there will be a separate publicly available register for communities to know the very basic information—to know who and where the child sex offenders are.

Lastly, I would just like to quote from New Zealand First’s SOP, the last paragraph of the explanatory note, because it sums up exactly our position. It states that “New Zealand First is against using ideology that places the rights of the perpetrator above the protection and rights of the child. Public safety concerns and the safety of children, who are the most vulnerable and defenceless, outweigh the privacy or equal-protection claims of a sex offender.” Thank you.

Firstly, before I start my contribution, I do want to say that the value of these debates is in ensuring that, should this piece of legislation be tested in court, the judge knows the intent of the piece of legislation by viewing the contributions of members, particularly at the Committee stage.

Having been a member on the Social Services Committee and having heard a wide range of submissions, there are a couple of points that have not been traversed that I must ensure are part of this particular Committee debate. In particular, I want to refer to clause 8, which my colleague Stuart Nash raised, because there are some complex and technical matters within clause 8 that talk about the risk factors that a judge would need to determine in order to ensure that somebody who has a non-custodial sentence is given an order to be placed on the register. We have to give those kinds of elements some context. We have to be able to illuminate and be able to ensure that when this legislation is tested, there is a sufficient amount of evidence and information in order to make those determinations.

But on hearing from some of the submitters who actually were offenders themselves, one of the key points that was raised was the fact that—and it is a principle that we need to examine—as an offender who has been charged with an offence and has completed their sentence, there are obvious restrictions upon that person when they go on to a register. There are obvious restrictions. So, not only have they completed their sentence but they may, in effect, have another sentence. We need to look at that principle of having completed one sentence, to then have further restrictions placed upon you. It is an important thing to consider within this debate.

One of the other considerations that people who are offenders raised at the select committee was the fact that if they, as people, as humans, as family members, were to go on to a register, and in particular one that is then made public, what is the impact on their family? What is then the impact on their children? Are the children of sex offenders or the family members of sex offenders then guilty by association? It is an important thing for us to consider—the rights of family members of sexual offenders—particularly if we are unable to control the release of information. For instance, should that information go to third parties, like boards of trustees? It is not just the offender who may be at risk of being identified, but also their family members.

The last point I want to make in this contribution is about the length of time that an offender is on the register. At the select committee we were given some explanation, and I ask the Minister if she can perhaps clarify this, and I have asked this question before: how did the Minister land on the time frame for offenders to be on the register? I know there are three categories and three different lengths of time. How can we say that somebody, after a period of 8 years or 10 years or 15 years, is now safe to come off the register? Or, alternatively, how we can say that the period of X number of years actually reduces any risk to the community?

I do not think that question has been asked as part of the discussion in this Committee stage, so I would like to know from the Minister how she arrived at determining those particular years. I would also like to know how the rights of children and family members of sex offenders can be guaranteed to be upheld in this piece of legislation. Thank you.

It is important to take a call in this Committee of the whole House on what will be New Zealand’s first child sex offender register for child sex offenders over the age of 18 who have committed crimes against children under the age of 16. I want to start by looking at clause 48B, which is around the issue of child sex offenders and their ability to change their name legally. I just want to acknowledge my colleague Jian Yang, who had a member’s bill around this pulled out of the ballot. Unfortunately, it was deemed that with human rights—it was not able to proceed. But part of the essence of his bill has now been embedded in this bill, and quite rightly so. On saying that, I probably did have some sympathy for his bill not allowing convicted sex offenders to change their name. But I think we have got a very practical and right process now, under this clause, whereby the offender would apply to the Commissioner of Police and a decision would be made as to whether the offender was allowed to legally change their name.

Clause 3 outlines very much the purpose. We had Su’a William Sio come into the Chamber and say that he was unsure how this register would reduce risk and would reduce offending. I think it was very much a rhetorical question. If he had bothered to read the bill, he would know that himself, before coming into the Chamber.

We also had Stuart Nash, who tried to play, I suppose, spokesperson politics around this bill by arguing the zero-sum game around the resourcing. We heard very clearly through the submission process about the $150 million. It was an increase, and Cabinet approved that—around $35 million for the technology part of this legislation—but there was a lot of operational expenditure that was already within budget and that will be reconfigured around this register. So instead of playing politics and thinking about “bobbies on the beat”—this is very much at the heart of the issue of what we are trying to address: tracking offenders through a register.

I think that when you look at it, it is around supporting the professionals. It is supporting the police officers, corrections, probation, and social services. I just want to acknowledge the work they do in a very difficult space. We have heard very clearly in contributions from both sides of the Chamber that this is not a silver bullet, but what this register will do is provide the professionals with a tool. What it is about is capturing the data, managing the data, and analysing it. That will then inform decisions made to protect, ultimately, the community and protect our children. When we look at it, it is not about treatment, it is not here to replace punishment, but, again, it is supposed to be informing decisions that will mitigate risk and mitigate reoffending.

I agree with some of the contributions so far—the evidence base is still developing in this area—but it was very clear from the advice that we received that this register and this legislation, once it is enacted, will go some way to reducing four to 34 sexual offending convictions over the next 10 years. So when we look at that cost-benefit analysis, bearing in mind that 90 percent of these offences are undisclosed and unreported, I think it is very clear around the cost and the benefit.

But I think another area we need to focus on is the parents—giving them certainty that authorities are tracking these offenders and putting systems in place to monitor them, because, ultimately, it is about putting young people at the heart of these decisions. I had a town in my electorate of Waimakariri where there were accusations of a child sex offender moving into the area. A lot of parents were very concerned that there was no central register, and in an age like today, with social media, things can go viral very quickly. It builds fear, it builds concern—

I have just decided to take a call on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. Every so often I think that a select committee does a good job of making a bill better, and I think when I look at clauses 48A to 48C, which are around restrictions on change of name for child sex offenders, they have actually done a good job. There was some concern from the Attorney-General that the permanent prevention of changing names by child sex offenders was against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, and I think the office of the Attorney-General did submit to the Social Services Committee that it was probably not the best idea to have that completely absent from the bill.

There was also another member’s bill that was before the House—and, I think, may have been before the select committee—that looked at preventing name changes for child sex offenders permanently. But I think the approach that is within this bill is better, because instead of going to the Registrar-General of Births, Deaths and Marriages to change a name, someone who is placed on the register because of their having been convicted has to go to the Commissioner of Police to be able to change their name. That comes under clause 48B, and if the commissioner is going to consider that, there is a set of criteria that he—he or she, I should say—will have to look at in order to change the name. There could be some scurrilous reasons for a child sex offender to potentially change their name and therefore not be on the register, but there might be some perfectly valid reasons for someone to change their name—getting married is probably one of the most obvious examples of that.

Clause 48C does run through what I think is a better way to attack the issue than that member’s bill was. The Commissioner of Police has to take into consideration, when someone is applying for a change of name, “(a) the safety of the registrable offender and other persons: (b) the registrable offender’s rehabilitation or care or treatment: (c) whether the proposed name change could be used to further an unlawful activity … : (d) whether the proposed name change is likely to frustrate the administration of this Act [that we are debating here] … :” and, finally, “(e) whether the proposed name change could be considered offensive to a victim of a crime or an immediate family member of a deceased victim of a crime.”

I think that is an extremely sensible way to address the issue of people who might be on the register changing their names—instead of the alternative that, I believe, was before the select committee, which sought to prevent permanently the changing of names of people who may have been on the register. So I would like to thank the select committee for taking a rather pragmatic point of view and perspective, and also for taking into account some of the concerns of the Attorney-General.

I think that this change in this piece of legislation is a better balanced and practical way to address the issue of name change. I do note that Mr Doocey mentioned this issue as well. This select committee has listened to the issue around this specific part of the bill. There may have been concerns in the community about it, but it is a much better way than taking the rather blunt instrument of permanent prevention of name change in the member’s bill that was proposed—and I understand that is not going to go through now—and filling the ballot with meaningless and stupid members’ bills.

There are three points I want to make, and I want to start with Part 3—this is “Miscellaneous matters—Regulations”. In clause 49, it says that “The Governor-General may, by Order in Council, make regulations for any of the following purposes:”. Clause 49(c) says “prescribing details relating to the administration of the register:”, and clause 49(d)(i) talks about “the circumstances in which information will be required concerning the identity of the registrable offender …”.

The reason I have some concerns about this is that what this Part 3 basically says is that if the Minister or the Government of the day does not like how this is operating, they can change the rules without bringing the bill back to the House. I think that from a constitutional perspective that is quite dangerous, because what we are talking about here is something—as a number of members have talked about—quite subjective in the nature of law we are proposing and in the type of matter we are proposing here. I think that by taking it out of Parliament and putting it in to regulations, we run the risk of that separation of power. I would have liked to see any change in this come back to the House as an amendment bill.

There is just one other thing I would like to query the Minister in the chair, Anne Tolley, on. She talked about clause 43, where the commissioner may disclose information. The reason I have concerns about this is that word “may”, because this does not put any obligation whatsoever on the commissioner to disclose information to anyone at all. It is purely subjective. What it says in clause 43(1) is: “The Commissioner may disclose personal information in the register to an affected person if the Commissioner believes on reasonable grounds that the registrable offender poses a threat to the life, welfare, or sexual safety of a particular child or particular children.”

There are three subjective terms in there that cause me concern. The first one is that the commissioner “may” disclose personal information, the second one is “on reasonable grounds”—I am not too sure what constitutes reasonable grounds—and the third one is the “welfare” of a particular child. Obviously, we know about the physical and/or sexual well-being because that is highly documented in the case, but the mental and the psychological well-being is, again, subjective. I think this clause here, around when the commissioner may disclose information, or the information that can be disclosed, is too wide and is open to interpretation. The last thing we want to see is someone coming before the courts because they have caused harm to a child and the commissioner being held to account and the court saying that the commissioner should have provided this information but he did not, and therefore we go through a debate about what is reasonable information and when it should be released.

What I would like to talk about is, actually, what the personal information that must be recorded is—i.e., what this register is. We are talking about clause 15 here. What happens is that there are 22 pieces of data that must be recorded within 72 hours—and that is in clause 16—of the offender being released from custody or made subject to a registration order. These are quite specific, and I applaud that. The concern I have is that if we make an assumption—and we have heard these figures—that there are 250 sex offenders released from prison ever year, after 10 years that is 2,500 sex offenders, and it specifies in the bill that an offender must update their report at least once a year, or as designated by the commissioner. So that is 55,000 pieces of data that have to be monitored every year, minimum, after 5 years. That is an average of seven per day.

What it does say in the bill is, actually, in some cases the person has to be monitored for their whole life. So what concerns me is the level of resource that is going to go into monitoring those 55,000 pieces of data every year and, conceivably, even more as this builds. What we must ensure in the Public Service is that when we collect data, it is there for a purpose and not simply for the fact of data collection, if you know what I mean.

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: I know what you mean.

Thank you, Carmel Sepuloni. The thing about this, also, is that when we look at clause 37, it outlines the penalties for not disclosing information. It is $2,000 for failure to disclose information. This is based on the reasonable person test, again, but $2,000 really is not a great fine. But the thing is that it is quite prescriptive in here—

Thank you, Mr Chair, for the opportunity. I would like to speak to clause 3 because there has been a lot of interest in the purpose of this bill. This clause forms the basis of this whole bill, and there has been a lot of discussion from both sides about the objective of this bill. The objective of this bill is to track serious child sex offenders. Yes, I have heard members from the other side saying that there is no evidence that this register is going to help us reduce offending or reoffending, but to me it is a common-sense thing. Keeping track of serious child sex offenders cannot go wrong.

We live in a society where the safety of the public is of utmost importance. We also know that the rights of victims are important, but we need to balance the rights of victims with the rights of the offenders. This register will collect information, not just as a data-collection exercise; the information that will be collected on this register will form the basis for risk assessment of these offenders by police and the Department of Corrections. The information that will be available on this register will be only for specified agencies and will be available to third parties if required.

On Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 178 from the member from New Zealand First Darroch Ball, I want to say that I oppose that SOP because there is no evidence that making such a register publicly available helps.

💬 Darroch Ball: You just said there’s no evidence that a register works, but you’re supporting that.

It is about a publicly available register; that is not going to help. The evidence clearly shows that making such registers publicly available actually does not provide anything in terms of public safety. Instead, it can disrupt the life of the offenders to the extent that they can take up reoffending.

There is a very, very narrow focus in that SOP, because that SOP is just taking into consideration the offender and is not taking into consideration the wider picture—especially those people who may be related to that offender and how their family and work life will be affected if that offender is named and information is in the public domain. It is not just about protecting the offender’s information, it is not just about protecting victims, but it is also about protecting those people who are related to offenders who will go on that register. As I said, the information will be available to specified agencies and, based on that, they will be doing risk assessment and they will be able to take preventative action.

I fully support that this database should remain as a secure database, and that is why we want the administration of this database to be so strict. The bill clearly specifies that the administration of this register will be done by the Commissioner of Police and, as we heard before, before making any significant operational changes the commissioner will be required to consult with the chief executive officer of the Department of Corrections. We have taken this very, very strict, exclusive approach just to ensure this database remains secure and that the public have confidence in this register.

We know that there is a lot of information that will be collected on this register. We need to be sensitive to those offenders and especially the families of the offenders. About who will go on the register—again, this legislation is very, very clear that those who are convicted and are sentenced to imprisonment will automatically go on this register, but in the case of a non-custodial sentence it will be at the sentencing judge’s discretion to decide whether the person should go on the register or not. But, again, this bill gives enough guidance to the judge about who should go on the register. It clearly states that if there is a continuous risk from the offender, then that person should go on the register. So it is about reducing the possibility of reoffending by serious child sex offenders.

About the age—again, there is no uncertainty in this legislation. It makes very, very clear that the person should be 18 or over at the time of committing the offence, at the time of getting convicted of a qualifying offence, at the time of being sentenced to imprisonment or, through a non-custodial sentence, being directed by the judge to be on the register. Another good thing about this legislation is that it covers those people who are convicted overseas. So if people are convicted of a similar offence in an overseas jurisdiction and they decide to come to live here in New Zealand they will also go on this register.

About the information—yes, we heard a lot of information will go on this register related to the offender.

I want to focus on two Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs), one of which we support and the other we do not. I will start with the one that we support, and that is Supplementary Order Paper 193 in my colleague Jacinda Ardern’s name. It is great that the Minister for Social Development has also supported the name change. The bill will be called the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Bill. I just want to quote from the Supplementary Order Paper, because then it will make sense why we are not supporting the second SOP. It says in the explanatory note: “This title better reflects the content and scope of the Bill, by specifying that the register that the Bill proposes is limited to information between government agencies, and not a public register.”

Thereon I move to Supplementary Order Paper 178 in Darroch Ball’s name. I do not think we have actually adequately addressed why we are not supporting it, so I am going to take the time to explain why we are not. I think that when we look at the register—to get on the register you have to be a sex offender, so you have to have been convicted. Therefore, you have to have gone to prison.

I really want to focus on sentencing principles, actually, in trying to explain our position. The sentence must be no more severe than is necessary to meet the purposes of sentencing, and the overall punishment must be proportionate to the gravity of the offending behaviour. If you start from that principle or premise, then why we do not support this Supplementary Order Paper is because, actually, it will infringe on fundamental human rights that we all have in regard to protections of our privacy. The privacy that I want to emphasise is the privacy of our information. There should be rules that govern the collection and handling of our personal data, and I think that we—when looking at why we do not support a public register, it is because it also has to be coupled, which is why I brought up the principles of sentencing, with what the sentencing enables us to do as a society.

Those offenders who are so heinous that we need to monitor some of them for ever can be sentenced to preventative detention, and so sentences such as that protect society from individuals whose behaviour is so unacceptable that, actually, there are going to be limits on their freedoms. We also have public protection orders, which are in place to prevent individuals who have been sentenced but of whom, on their release, we then say that there is something about them and their lack of rehabilitation—because I also want to focus on one of the Department of Corrections’ strategic objectives, which is about the management and rehabilitation of offenders. We would hope that people would go through our prison system and be managed in a way that then enables them to be rehabilitated and to rejoin society, but the reality is that some members of society are not able to do that, so we rely on the Government to protect us.

We do not want, I think, to set up a scenario where we actually breach individuals’ privacy and allow vigilantism on individuals, because we do not want to live in a society like that. We want to live in a society where we are friends to the people who live beside us, our neighbours—where we get along with members of our community because we all go to the same RSA or “cossie club” or play squash together, or whatever it might be. We do not want to live in a society where people who have committed an offence, served their time, and are now back in the community actually have to continue to serve a sentence for whatever transgression they have had in their past. We want to give people another opportunity to be part of society.

Fundamentally, I am sorry to say to my colleague Darroch Ball, that is really why we will not support your Supplementary Order Paper. I think that your intention in bringing this to the Committee was valid, because what you wanted to do was to enable—and particularly, I think, we have seen lately—parents of young children, to give them a choice about how they manage the young children in some of our communities where they do not know that a sex offender is living just down the road from the school or—

Carmel Sepuloni—final call.

I just want to refer to something that my colleague Kris Faafoi was talking about earlier, and that was in relation to clause 48B: “Application for change of name by registrable offender”. In clause 48B(1), it states that the offender “must not apply to the Registrar-General to register a change of his or her name under the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 without first having obtained the written approval of the Commissioner.” Clause 48B(2) then goes on to say: “An offender who, without reasonable excuse, contravenes subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 2 years, or a fine …”.

What I want to check with the Minister for Social Development, Anne Tolley, is why the Department of Internal Affairs—I am particularly looking here at Births, Deaths and Marriages—has not been included as one of the Government agencies that information would be shared with. I am just thinking that if the offender does attempt to register a name change, actually, there are no checks and balances in place. There is nothing there that will actually capture the fact that this is a convicted child sex offender, and so, therefore, they could successfully change their name.

I want to know from the Minister whether or not she would look at extending the sharing of data amongst agencies, because if we look at page 2, where the commentary is, it states really clearly that the specified agencies at this stage are just the New Zealand Police, the Department of Corrections, the Ministry of Social Development, and Housing New Zealand. So I want to ask the Minister whether or not there would be any consideration for including the Department of Internal Affairs to avoid the possibility of a registered child sex offender being able to change their name. I would like to hear from the Minister if that is possible.

I would just like to speak to one specific point, which is new clause 36A, in particular subclause (4). The majority report from the Social Services Committee indicated that there should be a new clause 36A, “which we hope will ease the Attorney-General’s concerns.” We all want our Attorney-General to sleep well at night. The specific concerns expressed by the Attorney-General were in respect of the lifelong reporting obligations that can be imposed on people who are captured under this legislation. The Attorney-General deemed that this was inconsistent with section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, which is the right not to be subjected to disproportionately severe treatment or punishment. The Attorney-General said that he considered that registration and reporting obligations constitute a punishment—so after a person has been tried, convicted, sentenced, and completed a sentence, nevertheless we are going to impose further punishment on them. He suggested that placing registrable offenders on a register was not in itself disproportionate, but the fact that in the original drafting of the bill there was no mechanism ever for a person to have their name removed from that register was disproportionate. So new clause 36A does address that.

I should say that similar concerns were expressed by the Human Rights Commission, which said that “lifelong [Child Sex Offender Register] registration, which may be invoked retrospectively and without the possibility of independent review, constitutes disproportionately severe treatment.” So there are two fairly high-powered comments that we really ought to have some means for people to extract themselves from this register. Clause 36A was inserted for that reason, but what it unfortunately does under subclause (4) is: “The court may make an order indefinitely suspending the reporting obligations of the offender only if the offender satisfies the court that he or she does not pose a risk to the lives or sexual safety of 1 or more children, or of children generally.” In other words, it is a reverse onus of proof. It is incumbent on an individual to prove their innocence, rather than for corrections or police or anybody else to demonstrate that there is an ongoing serious risk.

That is unfortunate wording. It is an unfortunate reversal of the usual expectation that the prosecuting body, if you like—in this case it is the police, corrections, whoever—would not be obliged to prove that a particular individual continues to represent significant risk for children, but rather the onus is on the individual to prove their innocence. I think that is back to front. I do not think that is appropriate at all.

It does say that the police and corrections may make submission. If a person applies—I should make the point, they may not make such an application until at least 15 years have gone by, at which point, if they are unsuccessful in their application, in the normal course of events they must wait at least another 5 years before they can make a similar application. It just seems to be wrong that a person who has not reoffended for a period of 15 years after release from prison is nevertheless obliged to demonstrate innocence. I really wonder how you can do that. How can any of us prove to the satisfaction of a court that tomorrow we are not going to go out and offend in some way, large or small? I find it difficult to think of how one would construct such an argument. An argument of innocence against a charge that you are guilty is one thing, but proof of innocence, I think, sets too high a bar, and, to me, it is most unlikely in fact to satisfy the concerns expressed by the Attorney-General, or indeed by the Human Rights Commission. Thank you, I will leave it there.

I just want to respond to the question from the member Carmel Sepuloni. I actually thought that she was on the Social Services Committee, but however. I draw her attention to Supplementary Order Paper 183, which I have tabled. The select committee actually added both the Department of Internal Affairs and the New Zealand Customs Service into the list of agencies, because it added in qualifying offences under the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act, so it made sense then to put the New Zealand Customs Service in, and of course—[Interruption] The select committee made that decision. For the very reasons that the member was talking about, around the name, it added in the Department of Internal Affairs. The member needs to do her homework.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 183 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to Part 1 be agreed to.

Amendments agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 178 in the name of Darroch Ball be agreed to.

Darroch Ball’s amendment to clause 39 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 178 is out of order, as it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the remaining amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 178 in the name of Darroch Ball to Part 2 be agreed to.

Jacinda Ardern’s amendment to clause 55 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 193 is out of order, as it is inconsistent with a previous decision of the Committee.

The question was put that the remaining amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 193 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to Part 3 be agreed to.

We move now to clauses 1 and 2, and the question is that Jacinda Ardern’s amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 193 stand part. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye, those against, No. The motion is carried.

💬 Hon Members: Party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Can you speak a bit louder, please? I take it you are calling for a party vote.

💬 Hon Members: Yes.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): The Clerk will conduct a party vote.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 193 in the name of Jacinda Ardern to clause 1 be agreed to.

The question now is that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 183 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley stand part. Those who are of that opinion will say Aye, and those against, say No. The Ayes have it.

💬 Steffan Browning: No; party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Sorry, I did not hear any votes against.

💬 Steffan Browning: I said “No”, and then I called for a party vote.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Oh, sorry. The Clerk will conduct a party vote.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 183 in the name of the Hon Anne Tolley to clause 2 be agreed to.