Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill

I am pleased to take a call in this Committee of the whole House on the amendment bill to correct a piece of legislation that was passed only in October of last year.

I have got a specific question that I would like to ask the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paula Bennett, and that question is: will this amendment actually correct the legislation so that the 107 offenders who have been excluded by the original primary legislation will now be captured by the amendment? Will they now actually become eligible for the sex offender register? Why I ask that question is that during the first and second readings of this amendment bill we were very clear that we were concerned that we had to come back to amend the piece of legislation so soon after it was originally adopted by the House. There were some concerns that the original promoter of the bill and the original select committee were not entirely appropriate and perhaps equipped to deal with the technical aspects of the legislation, given that some very smart legal people have, since the introduction of the primary legislation, managed to find this loophole and, I presume, managed to get the people whom they were representing off the register or to become ineligible to be part of the register. So I am really hoping that the Minister will be able to answer that question.

We are very concerned about the truncated nature of the process, in that we want to make sure that we get this amendment absolutely right. The primary role of legislators of course is around public safety, and the safety of our children is absolutely paramount, and the child sex offenders register has some real resonance in the community. Many parents expressed some real concern, particularly during the debate on the primary legislation, and their fears could be allayed by the introduction of the register. Then we find that no sooner has the legislation come into force, we have found some fault with it.

We would want to ensure that we get it right. It is right and proper that we are in urgency to conduct this amendment, but we want to ensure that we can allay the fears of members of the public, parents in particular, and particularly those of, I think, Hutt South and Māngere, who expressed concerns when sex offenders were released into their communities—that they would be monitored appropriately.

We know that in the primary legislation there were certain conditions with regard to the release of sex offenders. But I would like to be assured, if the Minister has got the information, that this will make sure that those 107 offenders who were excluded from the primary legislation, due to the technicality around release conditions and conditional release and the date of sentencing—that this issue will now be resolved and they will actually be eligible to be part of the register. Thank you.

Thank you to that member, Poto Williams. The Police have informed me that the 107 will be on the register within 48 hours of this bill passing through; hence the urgency for tonight. I heard previous speakers talking about processing, about whether or not this should have gone to select committee. I actually considered that a lot because I do respect the process of this House and the process of all MPs and the public getting to look at legislation. It was because I am not changing the intent of the legislation at all. That was debated somewhat, and I get that you have got a slightly different argument, in that you are saying that, actually, it just gives it that level of scrutiny. But I felt that it had been right through that. Trust me, this is one mistake—this is not a Minister’s finest moment, to have to be standing up in the Chamber and changing something.

The reason that we are back here so quickly after the legislation had been passed and the Act put in place is purely because of that retrospectivity. So you will not be back again, because it is that one particular, if you like, unique group that is causing the problems for them being put on to the register—that being around that retrospectivity. So everybody who has committed these offences and been sentenced since 14 October is on the register. I am horrified to have to say that it is hundreds of people. So they are on the register and they are going through all of that process. There is this group that has been questioned, they were questioned legally, and it came down to technical wording. As I say, they will definitely be put on to the register. That is the whole purpose of us being here.

To be quite frank with the Committee, I got advice that said I did not have to do this—I could have left them off the register, if you like. It was my opinion as Minister—and I do want to clarify, actually, while I am there, as well, that this has been passed to the Police from the Ministry of Social Development because that is the best place for the register to sit and for it to be owned; hence me being the Minister fronting up today to do this.

But it was absolutely, in my opinion, the intent of this Parliament—and as a consequence of that, the intent of the public—that those 107 are on the register. So there was no question for me about coming here and fronting up and getting that fixed, so that they have the extra monitoring that goes along with being on the register. That is why we are here today. That is why I am putting the bill through under urgency. That is why I did choose not to go to select committee, because I think—well, I know that we are not changing the intent, and, as such, I did not think it needed that level of debate, and that this would do.

I will take just a really short call because I have a couple of questions for the Minister too. The Minister has just said that the register is best placed with her ministry and what her portfolio overlooks—so the Justice and Electoral Committee?

💬 Poto Williams: It went to the Social Services Committee.

No, but it is with the Justice and Electoral Committee now. So she is saying that this register is best placed with the Justice and Electoral Committee. I just want to know when the Government gained that realisation, because, I mean, the whole original legislation went through the Social Services Committee. I would also be really interested to hear from Minister Tolley—given that she was responsible for seeing the original legislation through—to find out what the reasons were for the fact that there were oversights with regard to the original legislation, and now we are back here less than 6 months after it was introduced to amend that. I would like to know from Minister Tolley why that is the case, rather than the Minister now who is taking over.

When was the realisation gained? Was it gained once the mistakes were discovered—that perhaps the Social Services Committee was not the best place? Because it really did take the Government quite a while to work that one out. And yes, definitely, I would like to see Minister Tolley in the chair as well to respond to some of the questions here, given that she was responsible for the original legislation. So will we be seeing Minister Tolley in the chair tonight? That would be, I think, very worthwhile for this Committee of the whole House.

I share the frustration that has been expressed by my colleagues, not in terms of the substance of the original legislation, although it is very contentious as you are dealing with a series of finely balanced arguments in terms of the registration of child sex offenders. But that is not the argument that we are having now—that legislation has passed. The problem with it was that it was not done in a careful and considered way. I am not surprised that Minister Tolley is not taking a call, or has not taken a call so far, in this part of the debate, because I think she will be feeling pretty—

💬 Carmel Sepuloni: Embarrassed.

Embarrassed I think would be a fair word. The fact that she has got the Hon Paula Bennett to front up on her behalf is very interesting, but the fact is undeniable that, actually, it was shonky work, it was careless work, and the Social Services Committee was not supported well enough by the Minister to get this critical bit of information right.

Instead of fixing it in a proper way and instead of allowing due process so that it could go to the select committee, and members of the select committee could hear advice from the officials, who are the ones who have no doubt picked up this error, and members of the public, perhaps, could have an opportunity to have a say—it is not on the original policy intent; it is just fixing a flaw, fixing a mistake, in the legislation.

We could have, of course, as one of my colleagues mentioned earlier, put the implementation date from the time of the introduction of the bill so that the consideration at select committee and proper rigour of parliamentary scrutiny would not have impacted the implementation date. The outcome would have been exactly the same and what we were trying to achieve would have been exactly the same, but two other things would have happened—if the Minister and her colleagues had agreed to a proper process.

The first is that we would have had time to consider the concern and the wording and the proposed fix properly, instead of the whole process being done in one go. No members of the public have been able to speak to us and there was very limited opportunity to get the officials to be able to respond. It is entirely at the whim of the Minister, who is not often inclined to get on her feet and take a call and answer questions from members during the Committee process—I have noticed that; she just closes down pretty well. So our access to the actual people who know what they are talking about, the advisers on this bill, is totally denied, except at the discretion of the Minister.

The second thing that would have been achieved if a proper process had been undertaken is that Parliament would have been shown the respect that, I feel, is due. Members of Parliament would have been able to contribute to this legislation in the manner that is ordinarily the case. The only reason for taking something through all stages under urgency is if somebody is going to gain from it by having advanced notice—a personal benefit, which we would not consider appropriate—or if the intention of the legislation could be undermined unless it was taken through all stages under urgency. Neither of those fit the bill. As I said, the implementation of the legislation that we are considering now could have been from the date of introduction, and we still could have taken it through a proper process.

I remember a former Minister of Health taking legislation through all stages under urgency in this way. That bill was even worse than this one. That bill was to—

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order!

—make sure that a narrow group of family caregivers received payment.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): Order! Back to this bill.

I am giving an example of when urgency is actually needed, which it clearly is not for this legislation.

The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): No, no, I just ask the member to concentrate on the content of the amendment, and not bring in other bills, which, although they may be interesting, are not part of what we are debating.

Thank you, Mr Chairperson—extraordinarily competent guidance. Even though this is a wide-ranging debate, it is clearly not that wide ranging. The point that I was making was that using the process allowed by Parliament to put a bill through all stages in one go should be saved for cases when it is actually necessary, not when it is convenient for the Minister to sweep it under the table, to not allow proper process, to deny members of Parliament access to answers to their questions from officials, which every member of Parliament knows is a vital part that we normally do at a select committee. So although I support the outcome of this, I certainly do not support the process.

I will take just a short call on this. It occurs to me, in part following from a previous speaker, that the work we are seeking to do in this Committee of the whole House to interrogate the actual detail of this legislation is exactly the sort of work that should, and ought to, be done at a select committee. Perhaps I was not listening carefully enough, but I have not heard a compelling reason about the haste for this legislation.

People may not appreciate that the first Opposition parties saw of this bill was at around 10.30 this morning. Immediately after question time this afternoon we were obliged to debate it to endeavour to make some sort of useful and positive contribution to what is not an overly complicated bill, but I think the point needs to be made that this should be following a proper process, and I have heard no compelling reason for the urgency that has been applied. The fact that we are correcting a mistake—a serious mistake, apparently—made in the primary legislation and are doing it under urgency is almost guaranteed to compound the mistake. Sir Geoffrey Palmer quite recently made the point that—in fact, he expressed the view that this Parliament passes too much legislation and that, therefore, it is done in haste and, therefore, errors are likely to occur.

To come to some of the detail, Part 2, particularly, of the bill talks about retrospective application, and it talks about the people, the individuals, to whom these clauses will apply. Specifically, it seeks to capture those who were in a particular set of circumstances on 14 October 2016, whether they were serving a sentence for a qualifying offence, they were on parole subject to some release conditions, or, indeed, they were subject to an extended supervision order or an interim supervision order, or even those few cases where they were subject to a public protection order. So what we are talking about here, effectively, is a class of persons—a group of people.

Again, as I have referred to in the earlier readings, this is a very blanket sort of catch-all approach. It does not get down to the individual offenders. It does not consider individual risk profiles of individual offenders, and, to us, that is fundamentally wrong. The fact that people have committed a particular offence certainly is an indicator that they are capable of committing that offence and that they may be capable of committing that offence again, but it makes absolutely no differentiation. It is a fact that person X was convicted on a particular day of a particular offence. They served a sentence or are in the process of serving one. Therefore, they are deemed to be at risk of reoffending and, therefore, they must appear on this register, which has significant implications for their future—for their options in life, frankly.

We would put it that a much better amendment to this bill would be to revert to what was proposed in the course of developing the primary legislation, which was that, yes, undoubtedly, there are individual people who, at the completion of their sentence, are still deemed to be people at high risk of reoffending and who therefore create a risk in the community to our most precious—to our children. Those are the people whom we need to have some security around. Those are the people who ought to be on a form of register so that we can keep a very, very close eye on those people. But, unfortunately, by establishing these classes of people, this amendment bill sort of perpetuates the notion that a person who has committed a particular offence is therefore almost certain to reoffend, and therefore must be subject to the provisions of this register, which are intrusive.

Would it not make a great deal more sense to establish—if one must—a register, but have people put on that register only if, in the judgment of a judge or, indeed, of the Parole Board, at the completion of their sentence those people still constitute a risk? These provisions are saying, effectively, that we are expressing a view that whatever might have happened in the course of that person’s sentence and whatever rehabilitative or whatever treatment programme they have been to, we are assuming that they are actually not working. Nevertheless, these people still represent a very high level of risk and, therefore, must by default be put on to this register, with its very, very intrusive provisions in terms of people’s lives.

I agree entirely with the member from the Green Party in that we were given this bill early this morning and we have had little opportunity to really digest what these changes to the legislation mean. I have got the Act here, and I am reading section 8 of that Act. It says: “A corresponding registrable offender is a person who has been convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction and,—(a) in respect of that offence, has been sentenced to imprisonment; or (b) as a consequence, has been required to report”—and it goes on. That has now been changed to say a corresponding registrable offender is a person “who, as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence,” and “has been sentenced to imprisonment; or (b) … has been required to report in that jurisdiction information”—it goes on.

Really, we have not had time to sit down and really work out exactly what the difference is between the Act as it stands and the changes that are being recommended here. There is wordsmithing, there is a change of verbs and adverbs and all sorts, but, really, no one has had an opportunity, certainly not from the Opposition side of the House, to sit down and digest what these changes actually mean and whether they are actually going to address the problem that we are trying to solve. We really do not know. We have not been able to really sit down in our party, and those of us talking on this debate asked: what does this actually mean, and are we going to address the actual problem?

If I take section 9 of the Act, it says—this is “Court may make registration order”—“(1) If a court convicts a person of a qualifying offence and imposes a non-custodial sentence in respect of that offence, the court may order that the person must be placed on the register and must comply with the reporting obligations of this Act.” That is going to be changed to: “If a court imposes on a person a non-custodial sentence in respect of a conviction for a qualifying offence, the court may order that the person must be placed on the register and must comply with the reporting obligations of this Act.” Really, again, it is just another case of moving words around on the page, but are they actually going to make a difference, and what difference is that all going to make?

In Part 2, the new provisions replace the term “conditional release” with “release conditions”. How that actually escaped the attention of everybody when the Act was passed is quite amazing. I mean, “conditional release” means release with certain circumstances before you can be released. “Release conditions” is something totally different. In my understanding, they are the conditions that somebody has imposed on them after they have been released.

It goes on to clarify that the Act applies to persons released from prison but yet to reach their sentence expiry date. We just have not had time to digest what it actually means. I think it does a disservice to the House that we are going through under urgency trying to work out exactly what on earth it is that we are trying to change. We all agree that we want to keep children safe, but I think, just as a matter of respect—because we do support the bill—we should have just been given a bit more opportunity and a bit more notice that this was going to come up so that we could actually get in behind it. We probably would have tried to truncate the whole process, but, because of the lack of respect towards the Opposition, we are just saying: “Well, hang on. We need to give this the attention, and we need to go through all the stages that we are going through in urgency here.”

This should never have got to this stage. It should have been dealt with the first time that the legislation went through the House. Child sex offenders—it is too serious an issue for us to make the mistake first time around. Hopefully, we will not come back in another 6 months and try to change something again because we have not had the opportunity to sort it out this time.

I too express my colleagues’ concern for the lack of time to actually fully understand the implications of this amendment bill—I presume this is the feeling that my colleagues have. We were led to believe that the bill was actually minor and technical, in that it was about the sentencing date and also about the phrase “release conditions” as opposed to “conditional release”, and, my colleague Kelvin Davis has already explained, the interpretation of those particular phrases. But when you look through the legislation, Part 1 and Part 2, you actually see that there is a little bit more going on than just those two things that we were led to believe we were tidying up.

We have got amendments in clause 5, which clarify the definition of “corresponding registrable offender”.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Before we broke for dinner, I was talking about the Opposition having received the bill at kind of fairly short notice, and the idea that there were actually a couple of things that we needed to fix up in the primary legislation, principally the difference between “release conditions” and “conditional release”, and the whole expiry date for sentencing. But then we got the bill and see that there is a whole lot more that we need to actually consider. So I am a little concerned that we are actually being told that we are kind of making small but useful amendments to ensure we capture the 107 who are not currently eligible to be on the child sex offender register but yet, when we look through this, actually there is quite a bit of work that we are fixing up here.

I think I want to concur with my colleague Kelvin Davis when he said that perhaps we should have been given a little bit more time to actually examine this fully. When I have a look, I see that not only are we looking at release conditions and sentence expiry date in clause 4, but then we are also looking at who is a corresponding registrable offender, and whom the court may take a registration order from. We are also looking at the retrospective application of the legislation. Then further on in Part 2, I think, we are also looking at reporting obligations and various other applications. So this is actually quite significant.

When we think about the Social Services Committee’s process around this, the select committee was looking at things like “Is it appropriate to actually have people on a sex offender register?”. They were looking at vastly different requirements to what we are now considering. So, yes, I do agree that the Minister of Police is now responsible for this piece of legislation, but it is quite a different beast from the original piece of legislation that came before the select committee.

I am concerned that we actually are not going to be given sufficient time to examine the implications of this fully, and I would actually like it if the Minister has a few minutes just to perhaps give me some comfort that the particular amendments, particularly those that apply to Part 2, because it is quite a lengthy part of the bill—that actually we are going to be satisfied that we have got this absolutely right. I know I did make a plea in my previous call on this, but I am looking for some comfort that we are going to be absolutely sure that we do get everything we need tidied up for this, and I am sure the Minister has got some information that she can provide to the Committee on this. Thank you.

So I have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair, because I am quite confused about some of the time lines relating to the changes in this bill that is before us today that we are now in Committee on, under urgency, which is essentially to fix up some gaffes in the drafting of the legislation that passed in October last year. On the record, Labour is supporting this bill. We supported the bill in October. We can see the logic for it and the importance of it. But when you have to come back—just how many months after—about 4 or 5 months later and correct some quite significant holes in a piece of legislation, then you have got to expect to answer some questions about how that came about.

My first set of questions is around the definition of “conditional release” or “release conditions”. I do not know whether the Minister has answered this already, because I note that she has, and it has been good that she has, got on her feet early on and actually provided some explanation. My question is, how it was that what seems to be a really quite standard definition—because this bill is actually inserting definitions from the Parole Act, so it is a definition that already exists in the Parole Act 2002, into this legislation—as I understand it, got missed. Was it missed by the Ministry of Social Development officials or whoever was legally advising them on what needed to be in the bill? How is it that a critical definition like that could be misconstrued or written wrongly or whatever?

I do not understand, in a ministry as big as that, how that is possible and how there was not another pair of eyes, or lots of other pairs of eyes, dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s on this legislation. It really does raise questions around whether it was rushed through too quickly or whether there was not the right expertise being provided. So what I ask the Minister is: has that situation been remedied? Is there an assurance that can be given to the Committee that the expertise on legislation like this does reside within the ministry and within the Minister’s office in order to ensure that the time of the House and taxpayers’ money is not wasted in this way—in having to do some quite fundamental changes to a piece of legislation? I can hear you argue: “Well, why do you not just approve it, tick the box, and let us all get on with it?”. The fact is, and as my colleague Chris Hipkins outlined, I think, in the second reading, the purpose of the Opposition is to point out these problems with legislation drafting and how the Government simply is not doing its job properly in drafting legislation and ensuring that it is correct legislation.

Here we have urgency again with a piece of legislation that is correcting an original piece of legislation. So I would ask the Minister, if she can, to provide an assurance to the Committee on that, because I think it is pretty important. After all, as a previous speaker on the National side of the Chamber said earlier on, there are currently 1,659 sex offenders on this register and 107 who ought to be there but are not, who are not captured by this legislation because of the holes in it, and that is quite significant.

For the public listening, it is important that they realise that that is why a piece of legislation is going through under urgency. It is quite a serious issue that just definitional problems—defining a clause incorrectly—can result in such a major impact. [Bell rung] Mr Chair.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Before I give the member the call, and she is certainly entitled to another call, I just want to make the point that we are looking for some new material here. The fact that every speaker is getting up and repeating the same points over and over again does not actually add weight to anything or expand the gravitas of what we are discussing. So, yes, the member will get another call, and I will call her shortly, but she should bear in mind that repeating the same things that every other member has said is not necessarily a call in this stage.

Thank you, Mr Chair. My second question relates to the changes in clause 5, which rewords section 8 of the Act to clarify who a “corresponding registrable offender” is, concerning conviction in a foreign jurisdiction. My question to the Minister on that is whether this relates directly to policy changes made by the Government, I think at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016, around the deportation [to New Zealand] of Kiwis who have committed offences and how this Government treats them. If it does relate to that—I want to know whether this change that is being made in the legislation today relates to those changes that were made between the New Zealand and Australian regimes—then why was that not sorted out when the legislation was drafted in October last year?

There was a gap there of—and I just had a quick look on the “Googleiser” at when those big debates were happening around the Kiwis being deported from Australia. Sort of around February was when things were pretty hot. I know it went back further than that, but even if you are generous enough to say February last year, that is around 9 months’ difference between February and October for there to be input into the drafting of legislation that would get this right. And, too, it does not seem like a really complicated change is being posed today in this legislation. Why was it, then, that this could not have been got right, back in October last year?

Clause 5 in the legislation that we are looking at today amends section 8. It replaces “who has been convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction and,” with “who, as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence,”. What I would like the Minister to clarify is what has brought that about. What is the need for that particular change, and what has been the problem in that October legislation that has had an impact? Has that related to some of those 107 people who have not been caught by that primary legislation—have they ended up being caught up in that clause not being properly defined?

Those are just some of the changes that are being proposed in this piece of legislation going through under urgency. I think it is fair to reiterate that although Labour does support the legislation, we are deeply concerned about the need for urgency under these circumstances. If these changes are so fundamental in terms of the definitions and the impact of them, they should go to a select committee and we should be able to ask officials these questions. We should be able to get a bit deeper into why on earth this has happened—what has created the fundamental flaws in the drafting of legislation, and whether there is a more systemic problem that we need to be worried about and that the public needs to be worried about.

I actually want to follow on from my colleague Clare Curran and really focus on clause 5, “Section 8 amended”, because I am really—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Which she has just been talking about.

Yes, but I am actually interested in how many of the 107 people that this legislation is now relevant to—because we want them captured so that we can list them on a sex offender register—have come from overseas jurisdictions. I am also interested in the number of people who are class 1 offenders. Class 1 offenders, as we know, are those who will be on the register for 8 years. They are enabling offences, but they are also individuals with non-custodial sentences where a judge has ordered that they be monitored and added to the register.

I think that we all should know who these people are. I also think that we should know what they have done. That is what the classes actually do. They are tiered. Class 2 offenders are people who have committed indecent assault, and they have to be on the register for 15 years. Then class 3 offenders whom we would want to see on this register have committed sexual violation and have had sexual connection, which means that they are on the register for life. I think that we are all entitled to know, given that the Committee is in urgency, how many are within those classes, and how many are coming from overseas, as my colleague Clare Curran highlighted. I would also like to know, actually, what regions these 107 people have come from.

At the moment those people are not monitored by anybody, because there is no requirement for them to go on the register—and that was the fundamental purpose of the primary piece of legislation. When people were released from prison, or if they had received a non-custodial sentence and had conditions, within 72 hours—and the Minister can correct me if I am wrong—of that release, or at the direction of a judge, or on arrival in New Zealand they were to alert the police to their address, where they were working, what memberships or clubs they had, what car registration they had, and all of their contact information, because this is about monitoring where these people are in our community so that we can mitigate risk and make sure that the community is safe. What I know is that if they did not do that we actually have penalties in the legislation. They can go to jail for 1 to 2 years or, if they tell lies, they can be fined up to $4,000.

Given that the Committee is in urgency because there has been a mistake with the primary piece of legislation, and this is amendment legislation that we have been told as of today is relevant to 107 people who have committed sex offences in New Zealand, I think New Zealanders deserve to know where these people are, and, in fact, if they are not on a register, then what monitoring is being undertaken by Corrections and by the police.

The other entities involved in this cross-Government initiative were Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Social Development. As I explained earlier, I can see why the Minister for Social Development, based on that, introduced the primary piece of legislation, and why it has now been handed to the Minister of Police, but given this is the only scrutiny available to the public and to the Opposition on this piece of legislation, I actually think it is not unreasonable for the Minister of Police to answer those questions.

In saying all of that, we support the legislation. We support the legislation because we also support the register. Why do we support the register? Because we do not want people who have committed sex offences to repeat that offending. The whole intention of the primary legislation and the amendment legislation is to protect our children, to protect our families, to protect our communities, and also, to some degree, to ensure that those offenders do not reoffend. We want to be reassured that they are placed in contexts that are going to enable their rehabilitation and their future participation in society.

What we are not reassured by, and what we know today, is that there are 107 people whom we should be monitoring, whose whereabouts everybody should know, but we do not know where they are because they are not required to go on the register. I would also like to know, based on the 72-hour notification period, when these 107 people are going to be required to register. Is it when the legislation gets the Royal assent? What is going to happen to these people once this legislation is passed, which we hope will be tonight? Thank you.

I am going to respect that the member previously speaking, Louisa Wall, has not listened to all of the debate. I mean that in the context where we have already stated quite clearly that they are being monitored. I just want to be really clear with the Committee and really clear with the public that all 107 have absolutely been monitored by both Corrections and the police, depending on the circumstances of their release conditions, because that is how it is done.

Their release conditions are not based on the class of their offence but on their risk assessment. That is for a number of reasons—so whether it is around rehabilitation. Of course their actual offence is taken into consideration when those release conditions are met.

There is absolutely no doubt that the register obviously, and part of the main reason for it, does impose other conditions. Quite frankly, that is why we are here right now, because from 14 October everyone is on the register and is being monitored like that. As I said previously, it was completely the intention of Parliament that those 107 would be on the register. There are some sections in the Act, as people can see, where they have to let the police know whether, for example, they are moving house. I can tell you that Police and Corrections have been monitoring all of them; they know where they are. They are doing it as closely to the register as they can, without quite having that.

I just think we have to be careful that we are not being overly alarming for the public out there, who, quite rightly, should be worried about people with these kinds of offences behind them. I want to absolutely assure the Committee that these offenders are being monitored. The other thing is that none of the 107 are deportees; all of them have got convictions from within New Zealand.

As far as clause 5, which amends section 8, is concerned and the work that is going on there, this stuff is pretty technical. Once we are changing one clause within it, that being that main clause where we are absolutely clarifying the difference between the definition relying on the point of sentencing and not the point of conviction, because that is the retrospective part of the legislation that has caused this problem, that there is one particular quite defined group—well, actually three groups because they are slightly different, which is what makes it complicated. Once we changed one, we then had to go through and make sure that obviously the whole amendment bill fits with that one original clause that we are clarifying for the purposes, to make sure that we are doing what we intended. I think that answers the questions.

I have got questions as well—and I would just like them clarified—around clause 5, in terms of a corresponding registrable offender. It is talking about people who have been in the detention centres and have been sent back. I do not want to buy into that hysteria that they are all murderers and rapists—we know that was overblown—but there will be in that group some people who were child sex offenders.

I am just trying to work my way through these additional groups—to just give an example, the child sex offenders serving short-term sentences of 2 years’ imprisonment or less who had reached their statutory release date before 14 October 2016. I am talking about child sex offenders who were in detention centres who may have been out of prison for 1 or 2 years and been kept in detention. The question is, will those offenders who have been deported but who have spent 2 or 3 years in detention centres after their sentence in, say, Australia—will they still be captured by this, or is there some gap there?

It is a genuine question. I am just really not quite sure exactly whether they do fit into this, so that is just a question for the Minister. I see her shaking her head, but I just do not want any person whom we think should be eligible to go on the register to miss out because of that gap in time after the end of their sentence in Australia, which was the time they spent in detention centres—and, technically, they were free people; just “freely detained”, I guess, are the words—before coming back here.

As I previously stated, none of the 107 are deportees from overseas—none of them.

Thank you very much for the first opportunity to make a contribution to the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. I want to confine my debating points mostly to the title, commencement, and principal Act part of this legislation, because I do find it deeply ironic that here we are under urgency debating and trying to address and fix up a mistake that was made almost certainly because the Act that we are amending was debated under urgency at the time. I do think that it is timely to remind the Government how many times the Opposition has cautioned the Government on moving on these matters in urgency, because we do need proper scrutiny of these bills. The fact that we are back here so quickly to amend this underscores, I think, that point.

In referring to the title, the Act is the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Act 2017. Yet the commencement clause says: “This Act is taken to have come into force on 14 October 2016.” That is very unusual wording. Because of the mistake that has been made, we now have this very odd occurrence that hardly ever happens in this Parliament where we are doing a retrospective fix up. We are applying that fix up, or the closing of this so-called loophole, that has allowed, or made the provision for, up to 107 people, I think, who should have been captured by the original legislation to be on the register. In fact, there was a loophole that saw they were not on the register.

I am interested to know from the Minister of Police how it came to the Minister’s attention that this loophole existed. What were the circumstances that actually brought this to her attention, that this was, in fact, a loophole that existed? I think that for Parliament to understand all the detail of that would allow us to properly scrutinise whether what has been proposed here actually does address the issue. I am interested to know how it was that we came to learn that 107 people who should have been on the register were not. What gave rise to that set of circumstances? Who reported that? How did we come to learn that this was an issue? Specifically, what was the action that came to the Minister’s attention that caused the Minister to realise that an Act that had been passed in October last year was going to need to be amended under urgency on this day in 2017?

I certainly feel uncomfortable with the idea that we are being asked to fix up a loophole without understanding the context of that. I am trying to imagine in my mind how we get to know that there are people missing from the register. Who reports that? How do we understand how the Minister came to uncover this mistake? I also would like to know whether the Minister acted at the earliest occasion. When did the Minister learn that this was a problem? What was the date that the Minister first had this reported to her? Who was it reported by? How was it described to her? Did she take action at the earliest possible opportunity to actually remedy this issue?

As I said, we are now in a position in this Parliament of agreeing to—as I think every party does in this debate—a commencement clause that is highly, highly unusual in a parliamentary context. I think I have only ever seen that type of commencement clause worded in that way when we have been debating taxation legislation—legislation that, for reasons that I think everyone understands, it is important that people do not get a heads-up about before the legislation changes. That is normally the only time that we are actually asked to consider that type of commencement clause. But today we are being asked, because a mistake was made in October last year, to agree to a commencement clause that says the Act is taken to have come into force on 14 October 2016, yet we are not debating it until today.

I say sorry to my friend and colleague Kelvin Davis, and I hope that you are able to take the opportunity to have another call shortly. Can I just briefly reiterate the points that my colleague Sue Moroney has made, and that my colleague Clare Curran made before that, and say to the Minister in the chair, the Hon Paula Bennett, that it is immensely frustrating when we are considering a bill through all stages under urgency that we do not have any access to members of the public who want to make a contribution. We have no access to the people who actually know what they are doing, who are the official advisers on this legislation.

The Minister is standing between Parliament and information, and I do not think that is acceptable. We do not have access directly to the advisers ourselves, so when members ask genuine questions—and it is my view that they have; this is legislation that we are supporting—then I think that they are entitled to answers. It is easy for the Minister to do. She does not have to know the answer; she just has to ask someone who is seated on the bench. She does not even have to understand the points that are being asked about.

When this bill was originally described, I understood that it was quite narrow and that there was just one provision that had been misinterpreted or was open to potential misinterpretation by lawyers or people who are implementing the law. Therefore, 107 people who were intended to be covered by the registry were likely to not be covered by the registry. If you look at the provisions further in the bill, in Part 2, the bill does appear to go a lot wider than that, and it is on this point that I would like to get the Minister’s comments.

In Part 2 it talks about those very people—the ones who were missed out because the definition was not clear enough. It was a bit of shonky work done by one of the Minister’s colleagues, the Hon Anne Tolley—not done carefully enough. So now Minister Bennett is obviously having to pick up the brush pan and sweep up after her. For example, clause 2(1) in Part 2, which amends schedule 1, has a very specific description of the notification procedures that the chief executive of the Department of Corrections has to go through in order to notify these people who are covered by the registry. So it says they have to be notified as soon as practicable of the penalties or the provisions in the legislation if the chief executive does not make all practicable moves in order to give them this notification. But is this replicated in the earlier legislation? Is this exactly the same and, in that case, why would we not just say in an amendment that the notification provisions, as outlined in the primary legislation, are duplicated for these people under this special legislation that is extending to these 107 people? Why does the whole procedure have to be written out again? It does not make sense.

What we should actually be doing is comparing, word for word, this Part 2 with the primary legislation and seeing whether there is any difference, because we know that if there is any difference in the actual wording of the notification procedures, then somebody will challenge it—somebody will challenge it. The last thing that this Parliament should want is for a procedure set up so that people can be monitored and protected better—people who are offenders can be monitored, and people who are in our communities can be better protected. The last thing we want is to be driving more mistakes through this House, under urgency, through all stages.

We are only debating this now because of the mistakes of the Hon Anne Tolley, which she made only 6 months ago—not even that; 5 months ago. Here we are fixing that up, and yet we are using exactly the same procedure, which is most likely to end in further mistakes being made.

Members of the public may have their own views of select committees, but I know that if select committees operate properly they can detect a large number of errors, and party members can work constructively across political boundaries to correct those errors and make better legislation at the end of it. We have not had that opportunity. We still have not found out what actually caused the original problem. The Minister has been asked several times, but flatly refuses to take a call and answer that, and is blocking this Parliament’s access to the advisers. I think it is a shame. On an issue as serious as this, we should be taken more seriously.

Just in response to one part of the member’s question, it went through Cabinet yesterday—just to be clear—and I actually rang Labour as soon as I could afterwards. I actually went straight back to my office and rang the spokesperson. I offered him a briefing by officials and was told that Labour did not want one.

Can I just briefly refer to Minister Paula Bennett’s answers that she gave just now. I am sure the Labour Party was very pleased if, in fact, it did receive this bill yesterday. There are other parties in this House that take an interest in the proceedings of the House. I do wonder why one party is favoured over another in terms of having been given access to the bill. We saw this bill for the first time about mid-morning—10.30, perhaps—this morning. I do wonder why the same courtesy is not extended to every party, because we all have an equal role and an equal right to represent the point of view of the people who put us in this place.

If I may, I just want to refer to clause 6 of the amendment bill, which amends section 9 of the primary legislation. I observed the Chair’s comments earlier about Groundhog Day—not wanting to hear repetitive comments—and I apologise if the point has been made, but I am not sure that it has. I struggle to see anything in the first part of clause 6 that is anything other than wordsmithing, and I wonder why we are in the House under urgency—chewing up time on a Tuesday evening, essentially—for wordsmithing.

If I may refer to section 9 of the primary legislation that we are amending, section 9(1) says: “If a court convicts a person of a qualifying offence and imposes a non-custodial sentence in respect of that offence, the court may order that the person must be placed on the register … comply with reporting obligations”, etc., and then the rest of the section goes on to talk about the consequence of that. The amendment being offered to us in clause 6 of the bill says that we will replace the words “convicts a person of a qualifying offence and imposes a non-custodial sentence in respect of that offence” with the words “imposes on a person a non-custodial sentence in respect of a conviction for a qualifying offence”.

I have read those two phrases. I have tried to sort of unpick them and rearrange them, and I fail to see any material difference in the wording of them. Both require that both conditions pertain—that a conviction and a sentence must have been determined for the offence. It is not a matter of at what point this requirement, or opportunity, to put somebody on a register kicks in—is it after the sentencing or after the conviction? In both versions the court must have done both—convicted and sentenced a person—before the court has the option of putting them on the register.

So I am just really puzzled as to why what appears to me, after reading it numerous times, to be purely wordsmithing—I fail to see any material difference in those two phrases, with the new phrase replacing the old. The question I ask is, why? What is the material outcome? What is the actual difference in terms of how this bill will be understood or implemented?

The other point in clause 6 of the bill inserts—again, into section 9 of the primary legislation—the statement that “(1A) For the purposes of subsection (1), the date on which the person was charged with the offence is irrelevant.” I am not sure what mischief that is putting right. Again, where in the bill is it implicit or explicit that the date on which a charge was applied has any relevance to the decision of the court as to whether or not a person ought to be placed on this register?

So those are the two questions, I guess. Why are we simply wordsmithing under urgency, and what is the relevance? What is the mischief, or the absence, the lack, or the shortcoming, in the primary legislation that the new section 9(1A)—this reference to the date of a charge and the relevance of that—is applied to? Thank you.

I do not want to labour this point, but I guess this is the purpose of having an actual debate. Minister Paula Bennett’s reply to my question, saying that none of the 107 people this applies to are returning offenders—that was exactly my point. There have been over 660 offenders return from Australia. Are you saying, Minister, that none of those 660 are returning sex offenders, or are you saying that none of them qualify to be on this list? My question is, really, should there be some?

If they have committed child sex offences in Australia, finished their prison sentence, spent a couple of years in a detention centre, then come over here, should they be on this register or is that a gap, is that a loophole? I am not asking it to be a smart alec; I am just wondering whether there is actually a loophole there. Should some of those 660 people who have returned actually qualify for this or are we letting in child sex offenders who should be on the register? That is really the question. Is there a gap?

We debated the returning offenders legislation, I think, in November 2015. I think the bill was enacted in February of last year. Are there gaps? Are there offenders from Australia, and will there be offenders from Australia who in the future may need to go on the register if they had committed the offence here, but because of the length of time they have been in detention centres and all that sort of stuff, does it create a gap, does it create a loophole? That is my genuine question to the Minister—is that something that needs to be considered? Is that something that needs to be patched up at this stage? So I will just leave that question there. Kia ora.

Outside of those 107, because, as I have been quite clear, that is actually what the bill is about today—it is retrospective for that particular group. But, out of respect for the member Kelvin Davis’ quite serious question, a period in a detention centre in Australia is irrelevant. What would be relevant in the case of a corresponding registrable offender is their conviction for a corresponding offence and whether they have been sentenced overseas to imprisonment or required to report to a corresponding register overseas. So that is what the relevant clauses would be.

The police do share information with police in Australia, of course, and it goes both ways so that if there are those who need to be monitored or are considerably alarming to the public, then they will often share release conditions and make sure that there is monitoring in that way.

First of all, I would like to just come back to the theme of retrospective legislation, because it occurs to me as I have listened more and more to the debate, I wonder, if this is about child sex offenders being on a register, why on earth—and I just cannot get my head around this—we would need that to be retrospective. They have not been on the register since 14 October. Why would we make it retrospective that people who have not been on the register will, what, be deemed to be on the register for that period? What does that trigger is what I need to know, because if they were not on the register for that period, surely all that Parliament should really be fixing up is the loophole, because they were people who were intended to be on the register. Surely we just make that from today’s date or the date that the Act comes into being. What is the purpose of them having retrospectively been on a register that they were never on? I cannot understand the point of that.

My understanding of the register was so that people in the community would become aware of where these people were and they would ensure that the community was kept safe because of that. But these 107 people have not been on the register for that period. I do not understand what the intent is of retrospectively saying they are deemed to have been on the register since 14 October. What possible purpose could that actually have for the community, if they have not already been on the register? I really fail to understand what it is that we are doing retrospectively here.

Is there some other consequence that I am not aware of with the primary legislation? Does it mean that they come off the register after a certain period of time? Is that why we are making it retrospective, so that they can come off the register early or earlier than if we just re-enacted this from today? I really do—and it is a serious question that I am asking here for the Minister to explain. Why is it that we are retrospectively putting these people on a register given that the community’s knowledge of them being on the register can never be retrospective, because they were never on the register at that time? So why are we making it retrospective? What are the series of actions that that puts into place—what are the consequences that that brings about?

I am also curious, given the Minister’s answer to my colleague Kelvin Davis’ question about people who have been deported from Australia. She has been very clear—and I thank her for that, because that is the one bit of clarity that we have—that none of these 107 people are people who have been deported from Australia under that very odd regime that was brought in last year, or I think it might have been the year before now, actually, and most of them were coming back, as we heard, around about February last year.

So if none of those people are these 107 people, then I need to understand why in clause 5 we are amending section 8 of the original legislation to replace this phrase “who has been convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction, and” with these following words: “who, as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence,”. I assumed that that was covering off the situation where a person is in the situation where they had been convicted in Australia, they had done their time in jail, and then they had been into a detention centre—I understood that that change in that phrase was to cover their situation. That is what it sounds like to me, because it has changed from saying “who has been convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction” to “who, as a consequence of a conviction”, which I thought, it seemed obvious—well, I thought it was obvious, I assumed it was talking about that detention period. However, the Minister is telling us that this loophole does not apply to any of those people. None of the 107 people who should have been on the register but were not because of what we are trying to fix up today are in fact those people.

So I am now very confused about why we are doing clause 5 at all. Why are we amending that phrase about people being “convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction” and replacing it with “who, as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence,” being a corresponding registrable offender?

Look, I just want to take perhaps a short call on this because I do want to reinforce the argument I have been running all evening on this bill on whether we have actually got this bill right, whether we have taken the opportunity to really craft the most appropriate and effective amendment that we can. I look at the departmental disclosure statement and see that there have been various people—I think this is the right departmental disclosure statement; is that right? Is that the same? Yes, it is, OK.

So the Department of Corrections has been consulted and supports the draft of the bill, but the following other agencies have been consulted on the draft bill: the Ministry of Justice, Treasury, Accident Compensation Corporation, Crown Law, Ministry of Education, etc., etc. There is a whole list of agencies and organisations that have been consulted on the draft of the bill. Then I also see the proposed amendment in the name of the Minister replacing “October” with “October 2016” in clause 7, which inserts new clause 1(2)(b) of Schedule 1. So even though this bill has been given some thorough scrutiny because we have come back to amend a couple of clauses, even today at 5.34 p.m. we find another error. So, Minister, I would like to know whether you are completely satisfied that that this is the last error that you will find or whether we actually should take the time to scrutinise this properly—

💬 Clare Curran: Send it to a select committee.

Yes, and as my colleague says, perhaps we should send it to a select committee and actually do what we should do, which is look at this piece of legislation to make sure we actually get it completely right.

We have been arguing this point since we started this process earlier this afternoon and I am starting to be a little uncomfortable about what else we might uncover, or we may pass this piece of legislation—in fact, we probably will within the next hour or so. Unless we take the time to make sure that we get this absolutely right, we will be committing yet another session of Parliament to correct an amendment on an amendment.

So how many amendments do we have to make until we get this absolutely right? I cannot stress enough that the community—the public of New Zealand—wants us to get this absolutely right. We support this legislation, but we want to make sure that the legislation is sound because of the impact it has on our children and the impact that it will have on the public of New Zealand’s trust and confidence in the House of Parliament to actually write appropriate legislation. So, Minister, I would welcome your view on this. You have been very generous in providing answers to questions as we have gone through this process—and that is rightly so, because, obviously, there are other matters that need to be corrected, as we have been examining this legislation. I do want to thank you for providing this proposed amendment to the amendment—

💬 Sue Moroney: Ha, ha! Amendment to the amendment.

Yes, I know. This is a very serious matter. We could laugh about this—but this is very serious—that we cannot even get the date right, when the two primary reasons that we are coming here are to ensure that we include the right people on the register and that it is retrospective to the correct date, which is October 2016. So thank you for the amendment that you are proposing, Minister. I would hope that this is the last change that we have to make, but I am, on behalf of the people of New Zealand, starting to lose a bit of confidence that we have actually got it right. Thank you very much.

It does not seem to have registered with members of the National Government that putting stuff through all stages under urgency is very bad practice. At 4.30 p.m. this afternoon, part-way through the second reading of a bill that is now going to go through Committee stage and a third reading, the Minister, Paula Bennett, tabled an amendment. I think there are still quite a few people who are shaking their heads and saying: “This is really important. We want to get it right. How can we have confidence that we have got it right when the process is so rushed?”. I want to ask a question about an entirely new matter—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Good!

It is in—I think you should try to restrain your excitement at that possibility, Mr Chairman, if I may be so bold as to give you advice.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Well, I have been calling for it since about 7.40 p.m.

We all live in hope. In Part 2, new clause 2 of Schedule 1, “Notices to be given”, the chief executive of the Department of Corrections is now required under this amendment legislation, as soon as practicable, after 14 October last year—so the chief executive is a bit slow off the mark—to give written notice to every registrable offender. Given that these people are now being put on the register retrospectively, and are then deemed to have been on it since 14 October, what I want to know is, what if they have breached one of those conditions between 14 October—when they are, in theory, on the register—and today, when they are actually on the register? How does that merger of real-world and retrospective theoretical behaviour merge? So suppose that a person on 17 October did something that they are not permitted to do on the register—so on 17 October last year in the real world, when there were not on the register and the chief executive had not applied and given them notice and put them on it—and they broke the rules of being on the register. Now, tomorrow, the chief executive is going to put them on the register and deem them to have been on it from 14 October last year, what happens to their breach on 17 October? I had better ask the Minister because I cannot ask the officials. I want to know, Minister, is that person really going to have breached the provisions of the register on 17 October, or in November, or in December, or January? Simon Bridges—he used to be regarded as having a sharp legal mind; not so much these days. The Hon Amy Adams is pretty good with the law. Here are two lawyers, in their previous lives, who might be able to give us advice. Retrospective legislation—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Are you paying by the minute?

Ha! I will pay you what you are worth. You will owe me by the end of the session, Minister—you will owe me by the end of the session.

💬 Hon Amy Adams: Highly unlikely, Ruth—highly unlikely.

Yes, he would. So I would like to know about this provision in Part 2, new clause 2(1)(a) and (b) of Schedule 1, and then clause 2(2) in the same vein, where the commissioner has to give written notice to every registrable offender. They have reporting obligations, they have penalties for failing to comply with them, and they have a set of criteria around a condition, really, of them being on the register. What happens if they have already breached it without being on it, and then later tonight we are going to put them on it? It is a really Mickey Mouse set up—actually, if the Chairman was not in the chair’s seat, he would be another person with a trained legal brain—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Of course, he cannot be brought into the debate, unfortunately.

—whom I could seek advice from. But, unfortunately, I cannot bring him into the debate—

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): He has got a lot to say, though.

—but I might wait until later in the evening. But, you know, any of these members are welcome to make a contribution. That is the final question that I have that I would really like answered, but I just want to reiterate to the Minister that it is not really acceptable, as a proper process of Parliament, for her to stand between us and advice. Every time she has taken a call—generous description by my colleague Poto Williams, who praised her responses; I thought they were woefully inadequate, to be frank. Sometimes she did not even acknowledge or answer a question. [Interruption] Pardon? Take a call, Minister. Show us you can do it, and this time, answer the questions that have been posed to you for the last hour. Just answer the questions and then we can move on to having some confidence that this bill that we are putting through retrospectively will not be another shonky mistake.

The Chief Executive of the Department of Corrections has already given notice to offenders, as it mirrors provisions in the principal Act. These offenders were in prison at 14 October 2016, and that is the difference.

I would like to refer to clause 3, and also new clause 1(3) of amended schedule 1 set out in clause 7 in Part 2. My first question to the Minister of Police relates to the unusual circumstances—and I will not dwell on this, because I know that it has been referenced before—but the unusual circumstances of having to amend a principal Act within 5 months of it being enacted, and in quite an important way. I can see that law schools around the country will be paying attention to this piece of legislation, or this amendment tonight, and, actually, it will probably end up being taught in courses and classes as being—

💬 Hon Simon Bridges: Oh, I doubt that—I doubt that very much.

Well, with respect to the Minister over there, he would say that.

The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Order! I just wonder whether the member would mind getting quickly to the new point she is making about the point that has already been reiterated.

Well, the question is: how many times has this Parliament, under this Government, had to make amendments to primary legislation within a year—well within 6 months—of it actually being enacted? That is my first question, and I can see this being taught as what not to do as legislators.

My second question goes to new clause 1(3) of amended schedule 1 as set out in clause 7 in Part 2, which actually provides a lot more detail than previously, as I understand it, on the reporting obligations of offenders. What my question goes to is this: if this clause does not relate to deportees from Australia, and the 107 people who have fallen outside of the original legislation; and if they are not deportees, given that new clause 1(3) of amended schedule 1 relates to “a person who—(a) was convicted before 14 October 2016 of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction; and (b) as a consequence of that conviction, … (i) was … sentenced to imprisonment; or (ii) was … required to report in that jurisdiction information about [themselves] to [somebody] performing functions substantially similar to those of the Commissioner under this Act,” etc., “or (iii) was … deported from that jurisdiction.”, who does this clause apply to?

I think that is a really valid question—who—because I have been sitting here racking my brains. If we need to insert this subclause, it must apply to some people. It must apply to people who have committed offences in another jurisdiction and who are now in our jurisdiction—am I correct?

💬 Hon Member: Yes.

So if that logic plays out—and it refers in new clause 1(3)(b)(iii) of schedule 1 to “was or is deported from that jurisdiction.”—then, clearly, deportees come in somewhere. And if they are not deportees from Australia, then where are they deportees from, and how have they been excluded from the primary legislation?

I know that the Minister has given some assurances around monitoring to the Committee during the debate, and I thank her for that and that is reassuring, but I think that what we now need to know is some information, clearly without identifying people, about what jurisdictions we are talking about and how this came to be. What has actually sparked the concern and the need to insert this clause into the legislation? I think this is really important, and I hope the Minister can answer.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the following amendment in the name of the Hon Paula Bennett to clause 7 be agreed to:

in new clause 1(2)(b) of schedule 1, replace “October,” with “October 2016,”.

Amendment agreed to.