Crimes Amendment Bill

I move, That the Crimes Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Justice Committee to consider this bill.

I see it as an important function of Government to keep the statute book up to date. Archaic laws that serve no useful purpose or—worse—frustrate legitimate prosecution should be removed from the laws of New Zealand. To maintain public confidence in the law, the criminal code should be relevant to modern society. It should not allow criminals to go unpunished only because of historical anomalies and, for that matter, we should not seek to retain laws that have no useful application in our country today. It’s on that basis that I’m pleased to bring to this House the Crimes Amendment Bill today.

This bill repeals three provisions from the Crimes Act 1961. In my view, all have passed their use-by date. I believe New Zealand law and society will benefit from their removal from the statute book.

Let me start with discussing the year and a day rule that is now encapsulated in section 162 of the Crimes Act. That section provides that no one is criminally responsible for the killing of another unless the death takes place within a year and a day of the cause of the death. This rule has been described as an anachronism, and I agree. The rule has its genesis in medieval times. Its origins lie in a distrust of science. Whatever its relevance centuries ago, it has no place in modern New Zealand.

As long ago as 1991, the Crimes Consultative Committee, in considering the Crimes Bill of 1989, concluded that advances in medical science had greatly reduced the difficulties in linking injury to a death that occurs a considerable time later. The authors of the great criminal law text Adams on Criminal Law agree, and note that—to quote them—“In relation to proof of causal connection, the development of medical science has no doubt rendered the law under section 162 unnecessary.”

Most like-minded countries to New Zealand have abolished the rule. It’s been abolished in the United Kingdom, in most Australian states, and in Canada. The rule was abolished in those jurisdictions due to factors such as public concern about the rule precluding legitimate prosecution in the case of medical intervention keeping victims alive for longer than one year and one day.

This issue has been highlighted in New Zealand following the 2017 death of a victim 15 months after he was assaulted, and the alleged offender in that case could not be prosecuted for murder or manslaughter, notwithstanding the clear connection between his act—a violent assault on the deceased—and the death of the victim.

The CTV Building collapse following the 2011 Christchurch earthquake highlighted another problem with the retention of the law in New Zealand. Arguably, a critical omission in that case related to the shortcomings in the design of the building dating back to 1986—significantly longer than a year and a day before its collapse—and it’s important to recognise that this wasn’t the sole factor that led to this case not being prosecuted. The Crown solicitor had a view and the Deputy Solicitor-General had a view that the failures of the engineers and designers of the building that meant that 26 years later the building collapsed meant that the deaths that happened at a result of that collapse had their causal origins in the actions of the engineers 26 years before. It therefore put the engineers’ actions outside the one year and one day rule, and therefore it could not be prosecuted.

Possible concerns about the repeal of the rule resulting in a person remaining liable to prosecution for murder or manslaughter for lengthy periods of time are unjustified. There’s currently no limitation period under the Criminal Procedure Act for filing charges for other serious offences, and there should not be for murder or manslaughter. Also, there are existing checks and balances in the operation of the criminal justice system to prevent prosecution where that would be an abuse of process.

Repeal of the year and a day rule will ensure that prosecution is not precluded solely by an ancient rule setting an arbitrary length of time between the cause of death and death itself. I think what it would come down to is that in the circumstances where a Crown solicitor or the police or the Solicitor-General or the Crown Law Office are considering a prosecution where there is a considerable length of time between the death and the action alleged to have caused the death, they will exercise their judgment about whether they have a reasonable chance of establishing beyond reasonable doubt that the death was a result of those actions. Where they don’t think they can meet that threshold, then they will make their judgment about prosecution accordingly.

The next issue that I’d like to speak to is the current protection against prosecution contained in section 71 of the Crimes Act. I should start by pointing out that section 71 of the Crimes Act doesn’t create the offence of accessory after the fact. Section 71 is definitional in that it sets out the essential elements of being an accessory after the fact. The accessory after the fact definition in section 71(1) applies to anybody who, knowing any person was a party to the offence, helps the person escape after arrest or to avoid arrest or conviction. However, section 71(2) of the Crimes Act 1961 provides that no person whose spouse or civil union partner has been a party to an offence can become an accessory after the fact to that offence, even where they do the act prohibited by section 71(1).

This kind of protection generally no longer applies. So, for example, section 67 of the Crimes Act recognises that a person may conspire with his or her civil union partner to commit an offence. Why, then, should they be given an exception to being an accessory after the offence? The judiciary have noted that section 71(2) creates an immunity for spouses or civil union partners, but the same thing does not apply to non - civil union or de facto partners—clearly discriminatory, clearly inconsistent, and clearly a complete shambles.

There’ve also been judicial observations that the retention of spousal immunity for accessory after the fact is anomalous. It represents an outdated view of the nature of marriage which is no longer recognised by the law in other contexts. The risk that some defendants may experience threats or intimidation by their spouse or partner to assist them evading justice doesn’t justify a retention of this law. Section 24 of the Crimes Act, which is the defence of compulsion, protects a person from criminal liability who commits an offence under the threat of death or serious physical harm. So repeal of section 71(2) of the Crimes Act will ensure that all people who help someone with whom they are in a close relationship to evade justice may be prosecuted as an accessory after the fact.

Finally, I’d like to refer to section 123 of the Crimes Act, which relates to blasphemous libel. At the outset, I acknowledge that the honourable member Angie Warren-Clark has a member’s bill repealing the same section but she has agreed to withdraw her bill because that is now covered by this Government bill. Section 123 of the Act criminalises the publication of blasphemous libel. Leave of the Attorney-General is required in order to mount a prosecution. There is a statutory defence if what is published expresses in good faith and decent language an opinion on any religious subject.

No prosecutions for blasphemy have occurred in New Zealand since 1922, and even in that case nearly 100 years ago, the jury returned a not guilty verdict. This is a law that simply does not apply in the modern context. In 1998, when Te Papa exhibited the Virgin in a Condom statue, the Solicitor-General rejected a call to commence a criminal prosecution under the blasphemous libel law. The view was expressed that it would be inconsistent with the freedom of expression as protected by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

Offences dealing with blasphemy have been repealed in numerous other countries in recent years: England and Wales did so in 2008, followed by Norway, the Netherlands, and Denmark. There is currently a bill in the Canadian Parliament doing the same thing. I am satisfied that good reason exists to repeal this offence and that we should now do so. It hasn’t been applied for a considerable period of time and it stands with a very distinct tension with our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act protection of freedom of expression. There will be a range of views on this matter; that could be a matter that can be debated in the select committee.

The criminal law in New Zealand would be modernised and improved by this bill. I commend it to the House as a simple but important piece of law reform.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to stand in this House and support the first reading of the Crimes Amendment Bill in the acknowledgment that it was the hard work of my colleague the Hon Amy Adams, as the former Minister of Justice, who did a lot of the groundwork on this legislation.

It is somewhat puzzling, though. I know we’re heading in to Easter shortly but I’m thinking more of Christmas, and what parents often do at Christmas is find stocking fillers. This piece of legislation feels very much like an Order Paper filler because there’s nothing significant about this legislation. Yes, it’s important, some of the components have been around for decades, and so none of it is particularly urgent or new. It’s not to say it’s not valuable, but it’s somewhat puzzling that for the legislation immediately before this, the Land Transport Management (Regional Fuel Tax) Amendment Bill, there’s not enough time for the House to debate that legislation at length and to allow members of the public to submit on it and yet they’ll get to fill their boots with this legislation, which, unfortunately, in most cases, will not set the world alight.

But at the end of the day, every New Zealander who has a car and drives on the roads will be affected by the last legislation. So it is somewhat surprising, but as I said, we will support it. Unlike other legislation, it will be great for the select committee to have a decent look at it. We know that when a piece of legislation like this is put together and drags in a member’s bill, the Government’s pretty desperate in terms of filling the Order Paper, but congratulations to the member who has had her member’s bill taken up, supposedly, as a Government bill—well done.

I did want to just touch on a couple of the aspects of this legislation. It is quite straightforward; there are three components. The one that probably is dazzling most people out there is the blasphemous libel, which, of course, was the member’s bill. I am somewhat staggered that we have a piece of legislation on our books of which there’s been no action since 1922, so it is probably fair to say it’s overdue for the attention of the House to deal with it. Perhaps it could’ve been done in a Statutes Amendment Bill, but there we go.

I think the one that the New Zealand public will be interested in, though, is the year and a day provision. I do want to say that that is an important piece of work and the Hon Amy Adams did do some substantial work to make sure that this formed a piece of legislation that would then be brought before this House. Because at the end of the day, as we’ve seen in the very real example and the real tragic example of the CTV Building collapse, we do want to ensure that people can be held accountable for their actions. The inability to prosecute anyone for that has had many New Zealanders shaking their heads. So, this Parliament can quite rightly say that that issue is being addressed. I think the other aspect of that is with modern medical technology. People who do have serious injuries are likely to live longer periods of time and that shouldn’t then be justice not being served in that instance.

There are some other areas in this legislation. The third one, of course, is that the protection from accessory after the fact for partners should be repealed. We do consider, though, that there’s additional work that perhaps could’ve been done before this component was brought to the House and on to the select committee for consideration. That is around what protections are being offered to vulnerable partners and spouses who could be forced or pressured into being accessories after the fact. The work that the previous Government did around family and sexual violence raised some really important issues, and we were sort of hoping that the Government would pick up some of that work and really solve some of these challenges for those victims of family violence and those that could be very inappropriately pressured into that position.

There were also a couple of areas that are worth mentioning that haven’t been included in this legislation and, in fact, actively removed from it. I’m really proud of the work my colleague Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi has done with the carrying of traditional kirpan, and that would allow baptised Sikhs to carry that particularly important cultural item for Sikhs. So I do want to congratulate my colleague for putting a Supplementary Order Paper together. I do hope that members on the other side who are very open about wanting to push for greater diversity, for embracing cultural difference, and for accepting New Zealand as a multicultural society, what seems to be quite a simple mechanism—to have removed that from the legislation we find quite frustrating, given that that was a lot of work that was done and a lot of consultation with the Sikh community to allow them to carry their kirpan in public places. But I’ll allow my colleague to talk to that in a bit more detail.

As I say, although we don’t see this as a bill of huge priority, we will be supporting it. Thank you.

It gives me pleasure to rise and speak on this bill—a bill that, I have to say, I’d describe as very pragmatic. As I read through the three provisions—they cover quite a range—one that really does resonate with me is the year and a day rule.

It takes me back to a time as a detective when I stood in an operating theatre watching a young man who’d been stabbed in the back of the brain, in fact in his medulla oblongata, and watching surgeons working to save this young man’s life. Obviously, had he died, it would have been murder at the time, but through some great work, heroic work, actually, by these surgeons over some length of time, this young man did survive but he didn’t thrive. I was to see that young man over the next several years and he eventually did succumb to related injuries. As I read this I thought about the fact that the offender in that case was back on the street relatively quickly. I happen to know that he was involved in another very serious crime further down the track.

So just to put some real, I guess, meat and bones, if you like, on this offending, I will just talk about modern medicine, and I go back to the vital first few minutes, the golden minutes, that occur after any injury. If you are lucky enough to be injured where you do have very good medical help available, then it’s very likely that you will survive, but again, I go back to just how well you will survive or thrive.

So modern medicine, of course, brings us to the fact that many people who would previously have died will now linger, and, we know, death can occur years later from that same injury, albeit given the ability of modern medicine to intervene. That will be a debate for certainly another bill that will come before this House.

So the year and a day rule—the most recent example is the very highly publicised CTV Building in the Christchurch earthquake. Again, I have to say it was a situation I was very closely involved in. I spent basically three weeks inside the red zones following that quake, and I saw the human tragedy there—everything from where there was only a trace of a body, to actually full bodies being taken into the morgue. Again, closure will be an important part of what those families could hope to achieve from that disaster—and what better closure than closure in terms of the two people who quite clearly took unacceptable shortcuts. But those two people will now not face what they should face.

Some would argue that time cures all, but I look at, just this week, the person who was the bookkeeper at Auschwitz who cheated his day in court by dying early. But I don’t think anyone would argue that that man shouldn’t have faced his consequences in court, despite that length of time.

So if you are responsible for a death, however long it should take for that death to occur, of course you should face the consequences and not be freed, if you like, by the fact that a year and a day was reached. Again, I certainly commend that part of the bill, which, of course, is clause 6, which repeals section 162.

I move on to section 123, in clause 5, which contains the offence of blasphemous libel. This is another provision of the Crimes Act which will be repealed. No one has not been prosecuted for that offence in New Zealand since 1922, although I note—and it’s not that particular case; blasphemous libel—that Professor Lloyd Geering, who made 100 years very recently, was prosecuted for heresy, which is a related offence. I think the prosecution was withdrawn. But it just takes us back to another era where the role of the Church and religion was rather more stringent, strong, and relevant than it is today. Even the mere fact that such a statute is on our statute book just takes us back to another time.

I do note that when the discussion was taking place last year, the Labour Party, the then Opposition, was very much in favour of the legislation about blasphemous libel being repealed. There was some discussion then, and the comment made by the bishops in the New Zealand Anglican Church was that God did not need to be defended by a statute. Also, attention was drawn to the legislation last year after news reports that British actor Stephen Fry was being investigated by the Irish police on a complaint of blasphemy. Mr Fry questioned why he should respect God when the world was so full of suffering. He was investigated by the Irish police. He said, “It’s utterly, utterly evil. Why should I respect a capricious, mean-minded, stupid God who creates a world which is so full of injustice and pain?”

That investigation was dropped, but, again, it just goes to show that even today, when we’re talking about legislation here, we often look at what overseas jurisdictions are doing. So it may well be we’re ahead of several other jurisdictions on that, and I commend it as another statute on our statute book whose time is well past. I certainly commend that it be repealed.

I go to the other aspect of the bill, clause 4, which repeals section 71(2). Section 71(2) protects spouses and civil union partners from essentially being an accessory after the fact to an offence. Again, while not precisely relating to this, I used to train detectives at the Police College. One of the tricky questions was always around spousal privilege. Again, that still does exist on the statute book—spousal privilege. Again, that is taking us back to another time, and, really, what was behind that was that a person’s identity is not separate from their spouse. That’s the provision that essentially underlies spousal privilege, and related to that is, of course, the provision we are looking at now, which protects spouses and civil union partners in cases where they would otherwise be an accessory after the fact to an offence.

Essentially, really, the time has come where it’s anomalous. It creates an anomaly because it does not apply to other classes of people who are protecting someone in a close personal relationship. So in terms of the provision I mentioned in relation to spousal privilege, it certainly is related to that and there really is no reason why a spouse or civil union partner should receive the protection that they currently do. A lot of these provisions often are used to hide behind. Lawyers who know their business and know their law will often use these provisions to ensure that the jury, or even the judge, does not get to hear the evidence that they should. Any provision or any law that presumes that a person’s identity is not separate from their spouse, I think, has had its day.

So when I look at this Crimes Amendment Bill, with the three provisions I’ve spoken of, I believe that it would be hard to find anyone who would argue that all three provisions have not had their day. I commend this bill to the House.

I say this somewhat tongue in cheek to the speaker who has just sat down, Greg O’Connor, and I think he shared the blasphemous libel saying of Stephen Fry. We haven’t actually repealed this yet, so that might strictly still be blasphemous and libellous, but I understand we are under privilege here, so it’s all OK.

In all seriousness, I’m very pleased to take a call on this bill, the Crimes Amendment Bill. As we heard from the Hon Louise Upston just a little earlier, National is supporting this bill.

Look, we’ve raised this, and I have as well a few times—our concerns about the bills that are being brought into this House. This bill, while important for the reasons that the previous speaker’s just articulated—and I’ll touch on some of those—is a bill which the National Government was progressing, has been investigating, and, in effect, had put forward. And yet, here we are, seeing it as a bit of fill-in legislation, effectively, now. So I just challenge the Government, again, to bring some fresh, solid legislation to bear. It’s not to say that this Crimes Amendment Bill is a poor bill in any way. I think the three areas are important, but when we look at what is a new Government with a whole lot of new ideas, we’d hope we might actually get something a bit more substantial to get our teeth into.

I’m also hoping that we’re not going to get an instruction at the end of this bill asking for a truncated period of discussion. I’m very concerned, with what’s just happened earlier in the House, that the people in Auckland and which I represent in Tāmaki have had their voices silenced.

This bill is fixing three areas within the Crimes Amendment Bill. The first, we know, is around the place of spouses and partners. There’s, effectively, a defence on the books at the moment that you can aid and abet something that your spouse has done. As was noted, a clever lawyer—and sometimes not-so-clever lawyers—can use that. I mean, in some ways, you can understand why spouses act in the way that they do, but that, effectively, a criminal’s identity is locked into that of their spouse is a bit of a problem. I would hope that the select committee does take quite a bit of time reflecting on this, though, and the potential unintended consequences when, again, a spouse is acting in what they believe is the best interest—in other words, the crime is not the first element in their mind; it’s the relationship to their wife, husband, spouse, partner, whatever.

The year and a day rule: I have to say, I thought the member—granted, he shares the surname as myself, so maybe I’m just a bit sympathetic, but his example, I thought, was very good in terms of how an act can occur, a criminal act, but the death itself may be longer than a year and a day. It was well illustrated by what happened in the CTV Building.

The last thing I want to touch on is that whole question of blasphemous libel. I believe 1922 was the last time there was a prosecution—I think unsuccessful; I have to go and look into that. Our colleague on this side Paul Foster-Bell was actually a big advocate of this, and I think he will be particularly pleased to see this in front of us now. To me, it makes sense that it’s taken off the books, though I’d just point out two elements. The first is that, in the modern parlance, there’s a new dogma of blasphemy out there at the moment. You might not be liable, if you will, in the statutes or on the books, but certain people, if you go out and say certain things now against a new dogma—that of progressivism—you find yourself in a very blasphemous position, and tried in the kangaroo court and pilloried. So that’s an interesting element.

The other thing is that I’ll be fascinated to keep the Hansards close because all of those tonight, particularly those who love to introduce hate speech legislation, who want to limit free speech—it’ll be good to remind them of what they say here tonight in support of removing blasphemous libel, because this basically sits within the framework of freedom of speech and the chance to be able to say what needs to be said. So I’ll just be watching closely in the future, because I’ve heard a number of people in this House, not just to this Parliament but past, that want to limit free speech and who believe there are elements now “blasphemous”. I believe very strongly that people should be able to put their thoughts forward, even in a blasphemous context, and actually have that engaged with. As I’m indicating, there are already signs in society at the moment that certain things just are not allowed to be said anymore, and I think that’s a bit of a problem.

But in terms of this bill, we have a very good bill here. Again, it’s something I think that the Government really should be progressing through very fast. I don’t think that’s going to be the case; I think we’re going to see quite a bit of filibustering and so forth, but I don’t intend to be one of those. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. It’s my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First, obviously in support of this Crimes Amendment Bill. Contrary to the National Party’s members that have spoken so far, especially Louise Upston—I couldn’t actually believe what she said when she first stood up. I quote her, she said, “There’s nothing significant in this bill. It’s not important.” And then we heard from Simon O’Connor that it was just a fill-in piece of legislation.

Well, New Zealand First stands and supports this bill because there are three very important parts to it, and there are very important parts of the legislation that need to be changed. If I can use the words of Louise Upston when she spoke on behalf of the National Party about this bill being not important and nothing significant, I believe that she inadvertently just gave a slight example, or analogy, of how the National Party ran the last nine years when they were supposed to be looking at very important legislation that affects the people of this country.

I would challenge those two members—but especially Louise Upston, because she’s the one that said it, with the typical arrogance of a National Party member—to go and speak to the family of George Siaosi, who died in 2017 by a king-hit. The individual that caused him to pass away, that assaulted him—it happened more than a year and a day earlier than that, and, as such, he couldn’t get prosecuted for his murder. I would suggest that Louise Upston needs to go and speak to his family and say that it’s nothing important or that this is just fill-in legislation, and then, perhaps, explain to his wife why they did nothing over the last nine years, when they were in Government, to do anything about it. I would challenge those members that stood up from the National Party to go and speak to the families of the victims of the CTV Building and tell them that it’s not important legislation, that they are wondering why we’ve got this so-called fill-in legislation going through. The arrogance is palpable coming from the National Party.

I was listening to the Minister’s speech when he first stood up, and was reading through the common-sense bill and the important bill, and I started just writing down a few notes. The first things that I wrote down were that there shouldn’t be any opposition, barring a few questions and queries, and it should be non-political. That’s what this bill should be, but the first couple of speeches that we heard from the National Party were anything but that. And then we have the example of the comments from Louise Upston about the introduction of an Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). It doesn’t matter what any member of that Opposition says, they know that that is 100 percent a political move from the National Party, and it shouldn’t be done in this context. It’s been quite obvious and blatant, that the National Party is trying to have the mantra of splitting this coalition up with stupid individual pieces of legislation or ideas—namely, law and order and other examples like this SOP coming through—but it will not be successful. This is the type of legislation which should be going through without any opposition and without being a political issue, but that’s not the stance that the National Party is taking.

I’m going to go through the three very important—well, let me say two very important and one important—pieces of the legislation. The amendments repeal three aspects of the Crimes Act. The first is, as we’ve heard, about the spouses and the civil union partners being immune to any sort of prosecution when it comes to accessory after the fact of an offence. The second is the blasphemous libel and the repealing of that part. New Zealand First—I mean, we’re supporting that, but we do have some questions that we’ll be wanting to have answered through the select committee phase.

💬 Chris Bishop: What are they?

Well, what we are worried about, or what we want to ensure, is that this won’t impinge on people’s—first of all, obviously—right of freedom of speech, right. So we get that and we understand that. We understand that the blasphemous libel is an old law, that it’s outdated, and it’s no longer in the context of this modern society—we understand that. But what we don’t want is to have situations where individuals’ deities or gods are insulted unnecessarily, and we’ll be making sure that that is not the case and making sure that all of those parts are—

💬 Chris Bishop: That’s why you want to keep it.

No, that’s not true, Mr Bishop. You’re not listening, obviously. I said we’re going to be making sure that’s the case. We are in full support of that, because we understand that, in today’s New Zealand, we are one of the world leaders—if not the world leader—in freedom of speech, and we need to make sure that our laws reflect that.

The third is the year and a day rule, which I mentioned before and which I think is the most important part here, because we’ve got a spate of serious offences—especially over the last nine years, increase in serious offences—and the prevalence of the things called king-hits. They lead to very, very serious injuries, and, with the modern-day technology, we don’t want to have anyone that is the instigator of those crimes get off without the correct sentence or charge put towards them.

Just a couple of fun facts under the—

💬 Hon Member: Ha, ha!

They are fun facts that haven’t been mentioned yet. The first one is about the spousal protection law. This actually refers back to the Bible, and it traditionally refers to the wife. A wife was excused from criminal liability because she was obliged to, quote unquote, “obey her lord” and receive him into the matrimonial home—obviously, in much more chauvinist times was this law accepted. This is known as the doctrine of unity of husband and wife and privilege against self-incrimination. Obviously, we’ve moved on—not just since the law was written for New Zealand; this dates back a couple of thousand years, and we need to move on from that point. I think the bottom line with that part of the bill is that, when it boils down to it, the bottom line is that no individual should be protecting or harbouring a criminal once they’ve offended.

The second one—in regard to the blasphemous libel—is that this provision has been removed from many countries before New Zealand has done it, including France, Sweden, the UK, Netherlands, Norway, Iceland, Malta, and Denmark. It’s quite interesting to note that the majority of those countries, according to their population censuses, are more religious than what New Zealand is. So I think that that shows that getting rid of this bill is not really a religious matter or issue; it’s just one of common sense.

The last one: the year and a day rule. I think that the key thing here for this is it needs to catch up with the modern medical science—the life support technology, for example—victims would be able to survive a lot longer than the year and a day. It’s a very archaic law, it’s outdated, and we need to make sure that it catches up with modern-day society. I think one of the important features is that it only applies to future cases, as well.

I think that, hopefully, we’ll get some more substantial and more non-political and less arrogant contributions from the National Party members from this point forward—

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Don’t hold your breath.

—but I won’t hold my breath, like my colleague said. But New Zealand First will be continuing to support this through to select committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise to support the Crimes Amendment Bill at its first reading. I’m not quite sure where the arrogant and ill-informed member who just resumed his seat, Darroch Ball, got his information from, but he’s clearly unaware that the changes that have been proposed in this are building on the work of the former justice Minister Amy Adams. So the idea that we don’t support the bill that we conceived and have led through its many cases and paces seems to have eluded that member. But, then, many things do, so perhaps rather than dwell on that person’s inadequacies, let’s move to the substance of this bill, which others have outlined.

As we’ve said many times before, we support the three small changes, which are a continuation of the work of the previous Minister of Justice, Amy Adams—

💬 Clayton Mitchell: We just heard from previous speakers that it was useless and a waste of time, though.

—a member of the National Party—New Zealand First over there, ill-informed creature that he is. Other members have, of course, talked about the substance of the bill. There are, really, the three small changes. Naturally, we support them. They are a useful thing.

One of the more disappointing aspects of Labour, the Greens, and, I suppose their tag-on New Zealand First Party is that they have not put into this the Kirpan Authorisation Bill. I would say that one of the things that I have noted in my seven years in this place, having sat next to Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi, who is a Sikh, is that it is very important to them to be able to carry their ceremonial knives, the kirpan. Every baptised Sikh is allowed to have these and to carry them. Kanwal is a devout Sikh. He is very devout in the sense that he wants, not only for his own personal convictions but also for other Sikhs, to change the law so that these ceremonial knives are allowed to be worn—not just by anybody; I certainly wouldn’t want to see the member who just resumed his seat carrying a 10 centimetre blade, even though it should be blunt, which that member’s intellect clearly is.

There are four other articles of faith required to be borne by a baptised Sikh: that is the kesh, the uncut long hair tied up in a turban; the kanga, which is a small wooden comb; the karha, a steel or iron bracelet; and the kachera, an undergarment. I am sorry if I mispronounced any of those names. I speak very respectfully because I know from speaking to Kanwal that this was something he felt was very important, and it was an integral part of this bill because it’s an outdated and anachronistic law and, under the Human Rights Act—section 21 of the Act—it is important that those people be free from discrimination on the grounds of their religious beliefs. So, having made those points, I commend this bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker.

I rise in support of this bill. As previous speakers have laid out quite aptly, it has three components, the first—and probably, to the public, most shocking—being the year and a day rule, whereby our law prescribes the time limit, or a statute of limitations as it’s commonly known, for acts that have caused death to be prosecuted within a year and a day of that act having been committed.

Now, this kind of limitation is normally put in place to protect the fairness of proceedings. It is true that after many, many years proceedings can no longer be fair, especially in very serious criminal trials. Witnesses can pass away over time, memories fade, and it becomes no longer possible to defend cases properly. There’s also, in terms of natural justice, an expectation that a person shouldn’t be living with the stress of serious criminal charges hanging over them, without certainty. Having said that, this arbitrary time limitation does seem particularly short, especially in light of the advent of DNA evidence and other modern technological advances that preserve evidence and also mean that we can adequately investigate and prosecute crimes, over years of time, that we weren’t able to do previously.

New Zealand, obviously, has—as the Minister pointed out—experienced this limitation in the case of the Christchurch CTV Building tragedy, in which 115 lives were lost during the Christchurch earthquake. The police investigation took three years, we spent millions of dollars, there was a royal commission of inquiry, and the police team in charge of that investigation concluded that their case for criminal negligence was very clear. Even though that was the case, even though this could have been a case where negligence by the building team, the company that had undertaken that building, and the engineer himself could have been held criminally liable—which is actually very rare and would have been extraordinary in terms of bringing justice to those victims—the police had to abandon that case under legal advice because of this provision.

So the families were let down, but also, I would argue, a very important opportunity was lost for New Zealand to hold to account those who put profits, and expediency of their access to those profits, ahead of safety, and, in fact, risked lives. We know that bringing a civil case against a company in those circumstances will only result in a monetary fine or compensation, and we know that that can be circumvented through a declaration of bankruptcy—or, indeed, even if a payment is made, it’s only made by the company as a whole. Criminal charges in that case would have held individuals to account—the individuals who made those decisions, who were responsible for the negligence that resulted in death. We could have had a precedent case, whereby those types of reckless behaviours for profit could be deterred in future, but that opportunity was lost. I would argue, you know, putting form before function, the law didn’t work very effectively in that case, and so I am very happy that we’re going to be repealing that provision and that something like that can’t happen again.

The second aspect of this bill is, again, a very arbitrary line drawn in the sand in our criminal justice system, whereby immunity is given to spouses or civil partners from becoming accessories after the fact to a crime. It is a very important function of our system of justice that the police can prosecute those who assist in perverting the course of justice after a crime has happened, or who assist the principal in, essentially, getting away with a crime. To say that a special kind of relationship arises in marriage or civil partnership whereby the police can no longer hold someone to account in those circumstances does seem perverse and contrary to the intention of having accessory after the fact on our law books at all. It is almost always going to be someone in some kind of close relationship with the principal offender that commits a crime like that who helps them to cover up their actions, or helps them to get away, or helps them to pervert the course of justice. So it is a strange anomaly, again, that I’m glad we’re doing away with, to bring consistency and effectiveness to our criminal justice system.

The third aspect of this bill is something that the Green Party wholeheartedly supports, and I do want to congratulate warmly my friend and Labour Party colleague Angie Warren-Clark for bringing that member’s bill, which is now taken up by this Government bill and will pass, bringing our laws in line with the very secular, open society that New Zealand is in the 21st century. I was actually quite surprised that blasphemous libel remained on our criminal books, to be honest. It does seem medieval, and, of course, it hasn’t been prosecuted since 1922. The churches and church community who it was supposed to protect no longer agree that it should remain on the books, and, in fact, our former colleague the Rt Hon Bill English, a devout Catholic, supported this crime being removed from the books. So it’s no longer really consistent with New Zealand culture and our values.

It did remind me, when I thought about this, that my family and I did live under a different criminal justice system, where something like blasphemy was still a crime and could be used, in a reverse way, to persecute people in a very wide range of circumstances, in a way that actually limited their rights to freedom of speech, to freedom of religion—or to be free from religion, which is also an important right that we do want to uphold in New Zealand.

I am very happy that, in all three of these amendments to our Crimes Act, we’re going to be bringing New Zealand into the 21st century. We’re futureproofing our laws and we’re bringing a special level of consistency that was really lacking from our criminal justice system, so I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. Look, I’ve been looking forward to the repeal of blasphemous libel for a number of years, so I’m very excited by this bill. I know colleagues have already mentioned Paul Foster-Bell. Paul Foster-Bell was a great crusader for free speech, wasn’t he? He was a great crusader for getting rid of blasphemous libel, and I know he’ll be—well, he probably won’t be watching the debate tonight. He’s almost certainly got better things to do, but I know that when he eventually gets round to seeing that this bill has been introduced, he’ll be very, very excited. So, Paul, this one’s for you, my friend.

It is of some moment, actually, that 96 years after the last prosecution for blasphemous libel—the only prosecution for blasphemous libel—we are removing this stain on free speech from the statute book. You might say, “Well, it’s not such a big deal: one prosecution, you need the leave of the Attorney-General,” and that would all be true, but, you know, we should always make sure our statute book is shipshape, and in particular we should always make sure that we’re as consistent with free speech as possible.

I did find Darroch Ball’s remarks a bit strange, because I don’t think he really got his head around blasphemous libel. He said, “Well, we agree with it, but we’ve got some concerns.” I thought, “Well, that’s interesting. I wonder what his concerns might be?”, so I yelled out, “What are your concerns?” He said, “Well, we just want to make sure”—I think I’m quoting him correctly—“that people aren’t able to insult religions.” Except—

💬 Hon Member: That’s the whole point.

—that is the whole point: that actually, you should be able to insult religions. So it’s a bit strange to say you support the repeal of blasphemous libel, which allows you to insult religions—it’s the whole point of repealing it—but then say, “We do have some concerns about whether or not people will be able to insult religions.” That’s sort of the point, Darroch. That’s sort of the point. It’s OK—I mean, it’s literally a one-clause segment. We will consider it in the Justice Committee. Sadly, there are no New Zealand First members on the Justice Committee, but if Darroch and the New Zealand First members want to write to the Justice Committee, we will consider those very well-expressed apparent concerns.

So I’m really pleased that blasphemous libel is going. As other members have mentioned, there’s only been one prosecution in New Zealand, and the jury found them not guilty. It was the publication of two Siegfried Sassoon poems in a publication called the Maoriland Worker in 1921, and then in 1922—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: That’s the Labour Party’s paper.

It was a Labour Party publication? See, there we go. The Labour Party, causing mischief for 96 years—I knew it. We knew it. The Maoriland Worker published two Siegfried Sassoon poems, and the jury, in their infinite wisdom—their freedom-loving wisdom—in 1922 returned a not guilty verdict, but they did add a rider to the verdict that the publication of things like this should be discouraged in the future. Isn’t that the classic Kiwi way? And I suspect it reflects the standards of the time. But it’s good we’re getting rid of this. The other changes, as other members have mentioned, are useful as well. The hard-working Justice Committee will add this to our very long list of business, and we’ll get on with it.

This is a split call—five minutes. I call Raymond Huo.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I rise to take a call to support the Crimes Amendment Bill. This is a largely technically driven but very important bill which touches upon three important issues. The first is spousal or civil union partners’ immunity, the second one is blasphemous libel, and the third is the year and a day rule. These are all outdated sections of the Crimes Act, and well past their use-by date.

With regard to the spousal and civil union immunity, it is inconsistent with the way that spouses are generally treated in the law, and prevents prosecution in cases where a person has acted in order that their spouse or civil union partner escapes after arrest or avoids arrest or conviction. There is no justification to continue this immunity from prosecution where a person deliberately obstructs justice, in modern society. With regard to blasphemous libel, as the colleagues that spoke before me have acknowledged, it has not been prosecuted in New Zealand since 1922, and raises potential New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 concerns.

The third one—the year and a day rule. I listened very carefully to the contributions from colleagues, especially from my learned colleague Mr Greg O’Connor, a veteran police officer with 40 or so years’ experience, who was nicknamed “Dinosaur” by our National colleagues. In the context of this bill, I wonder whether calling him a dinosaur would constitute—

💬 Hon Andrew Little: Blasphemous libel.

—blasphemy. Ha, ha! That’s kind of a blasphemous libel, I rather doubt. Back to this particular clause, the year and a day rule provides that no one is liable for the killing of another unless the death takes places within a year and a day after the cause of death. Many colleagues used the CTV Building collapse as an example, and, actually, this particular issue has been highlighted in some of the high-profile cases in New Zealand. The Prime Minister, the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern, made an undertaking to the families of the CTV Building collapse that changes need to be made; this is the Government delivering on its words.

There have been calls for the repeal of the year and a day rule in New Zealand for a long time, with most like-minded countries, such as England, Wales, Northern Ireland, having already repealed relevant sections. They have all abolished that rule, as well as Australia, Canada, and Ireland. In the US, it is complicated. In some states, the rule was rejected and the Supreme Court of the United States of America has confirmed such a complicated ruling. But in California, the year and a day rule has been changed to a three-year and a day rule. There’s no limitation period in New Zealand for filing charges for serious offences, and this is another reason to show that there’s no need for such kind of a clause, and, as such, the original rationale of the rule doesn’t stack up any longer.

It’s a pleasure to take a short call on this Crimes Amendment Bill. There are three parts to it—three small parts. We had a much wider-ranging review of the Crimes Act in our last term, and I see that they have picked out three small parts of it and they’re running with that. I’d like to acknowledge the former Minister of Justice, Amy Adams for the work she’s undertaken in this area.

💬 Hon Andrew Little: She hasn’t brought it to the House. She hasn’t done it.

The fact of the matter is—let me speak—this coalition Government could’ve included it in last year’s Statutes Amendment Bill if it had been that urgent, and I’m not belittling it, because it is important. But if they had taken it last year when we were—several of those amendments, then we could have got it done then. But, anyway, we support it going to the select committee. We support the input from the public, and we hope during the select committee stage there’ll be a wider range of amendments included into it.

Now, let’s talk about blasphemous libel. It’s last century’s legislation. It’s outdated and it’s archaic. I’m glad to hear there hasn’t been a prosecution since 1922. I’ve never arrested anyone for it in the time that I was in the police. I understand that it conflicts with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as well. In fact, I didn’t even know that it was in the law—ha! And so I’m glad—well, I knew it had been in the law, but I thought it had been repealed years ago. So I’m glad that it’s being repealed now and I see that the churches do support it.

Now, what’s more important is the year and a day rule. Now, that doesn’t stack up for a number of reasons.

💬 Kieran McAnulty: Three minutes—that’s all.

Most other countries have repealed it—let me finish. The idea that an offender can’t be held criminally liable for the death of someone if they live beyond a year and a day is crazy to me. It’s just not right. The CTV Building is case in point.

In terms of the law around the protection of spouses and civil union partners in the terms of accessory after the fact—again, it’s yesterday’s legislation and needs to be updated. It defies logic why it was ever the law.

But, in reality, these are classic examples of Government “fili-bills”—filibustering legislation. It is a small bill of four pages, nine clauses, and two schedules. Like I said, we could have had it done last year in last year’s bill that we debated. They have even taken the members’ bills and put them in the Government Order Paper, but that’s par for the course for this coalition Government.

This demonstrates that this Government is disorganised and is searching for relevance. It proves they are out of ideas. Yesterday, during the Auckland fuel tax debate, they said we had no plan and that we lacked ideas. Their answer was another tax. If that’s the Government’s plan to solve everything, no thank you. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to rise and take a call on this Crimes Amendment Bill. I’d like to commend the Minister of Justice, the Hon Andrew Little, for bringing this bill to the House. We brought this bill to the House, something the other side failed to do. I certainly appreciate your excellent speech; I think you covered the sections really well.

It is my pleasure to stand and take a call to clean up this legislation. It’s outdated, it’s inappropriate, and it’s irrelevant to today’s society. I’ll quote Martin Luther King here, and I will read this: “Law and order exist for the purpose of establishing justice and when they fail in this purpose they become … dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress.” These three sections of the Crimes Act block the flow of social progress. We’ve heard today that the bill repeals three provisions of the Crimes Act: section 71(2), spouse or civil union immunity for prosecution after accessory after the fact; section 123, Blasphemous libel; and section 162, the year and a day rule.

The member Louise Upston congratulated me on having my member’s bill picked up by the Government—this was the repeal of blasphemous libel. Thank you, ma’am, for those kind words. However, it makes complete sense that this bill was withdrawn to be collapsed into what we have tonight. This saves the valuable resources of our Government and this House. The former Government actually had the opportunity last year to remove this section from the Crimes Act in a Supplementary Order Paper in the statutes repeal bill last year, and, actually, the Opposition—the then Government of the time—decided that they would not do so, despite the fact that, as the member has stated, the Rt Hon Bill English actually supported the repeal of this, as a very strong Catholic, that this part of the principal Act needed to go.

Now, all of these sections are really outdated sections of the Crimes Act; they’re well past their use-by date—no one disagrees with this. To maintain public confidence in the law, the criminal code should be relevant to modern-day society. The law must be upheld and issues must not be unaddressed due to historical anomalies. We here in the Government believe that our country’s laws should be current; they should be relevant and meaningful. These three sections require repeal because they are clearly not that.

It’s important to note, as well, that in repealing these provisions of the Crimes Act 1961, section 71(2) and section 162 will not be applied retrospectively. That means the law, as it exists today, and as these parts of the Act are repealed, will actually mean, going forward, we are safer. So those who wouldn’t be breaking the law today will not be retrospectively prosecuted. So we’re forward focused.

I’m going to talk very briefly on the year and a day rule. The year and a day rule provides that no one is liable for the killing of another person unless the death takes place within a year and a day after the cause of death. We all know now that modern technology actually means that people live, with medical intervention, much longer than a year and a day. We need to actually focus on what is relevant now. This isn’t relevant now. People are able to live a lot longer after a crime has been committed against them, and it’s important that we as a society recognise that those people, like we have heard tonight who have been king-hit or injured, are able to actually have justice served even though they may pass away a year and a day later.

I’m not really going to talk any more about that. I’m actually very excited to talk about blasphemous libel, and I thank the member Chris Bishop for his excitement tonight around the repeal of this. Who knew—who knew—that there was someone else who shared my excitement of repealing this? Ha, ha!

💬 Chris Bishop: Oh, there’s many of us. Seen Paul?

Oh, whatever. Ha, ha! Section 123 of the Crimes Act covers blasphemous libel, and we’ve all said it tonight: it is perhaps the least-used section of the Crimes Act that we have. It is simply no longer relevant to our country. We’ve all heard its origins date back hundreds of years, and, of interest, we have no definition of blasphemous libel in the Crimes Act. Now, that means that we have to look to the common law, or, for those who don’t know what that is—Matt King—case law.

💬 Matt King: Guilty.

Ha, ha! So we have to look to the case law. Now, we last had a case in 1922; this means the case law is very, very slim. I have taken the opportunity to look up what blasphemous libel is, and it is defined as—and there is a difference between blasphemy and blasphemous libel. This is the definition: blasphemous libel involves written publication of contemptuous, reviling, scurrilous, and/or ludicrous matters relating to the Christian faith.

Now, here we come to the part which actually makes this much more irrelevant today. We are a country of many faiths. We are a country where we have the right to freedom of speech. So blasphemous libel actually only includes the Christian faith, we believe currently, because there is no case law on this to broaden the definition or make it wider. We do not know specifically, right now, what blasphemous libel may mean or might have meant, because we’ve had no cases around this.

The other concern is whether section 123 is also compatible with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. Section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act enshrines the right of freedom of speech, which includes all information and opinion, no matter how unpopular, distasteful, or offensive those ideas might be. We have that enshrined in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.

I also note that section 123 may only include or encompass the Christian faith, as I’ve stated, which means that, internationally, we may be in breach of international obligations. It also gives us the chance to be discriminated against on the basis of religion.

I’m really pleased to see blasphemous libel actually be repealed, and I hope that the conversations and the discussions at select committee are robust and thorough, and that everyone has the opportunity to discuss this matter and to understand the difference between blasphemy and blasphemous libel. It is a fundamental difference and completely changes the meaning of what people believe blasphemy to be.

So, finally, section 71(2), spouse or civil union immunity: I would just like to say that when we’re looking at protecting people, I think it’s really important that we remember that de facto partners aren’t included in this, so, again, it’s discriminatory. It is important that we remove this protection so that everyone is equal under the law, but I certainly welcome the conversation that will occur around coercion of partners. It is my pleasure to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Assistant Speaker, for the opportunity to take a very brief call on the first reading of the Crimes Amendment Bill tonight. As has been outlined by previous speakers, National does support the bill, and I particularly want to echo Mr Bishop’s comments that it is a very positive move in terms of our legislation. I want to acknowledge Andrew Little for bringing it to the House, building on the good work of the previous justice Minister, Amy Adams.

The offence of blasphemous libel has existed in New Zealand for far too long, more recently as part of the Crimes Act 1961 but going back much further as part of English common law. Many jurisdictions around the world with legal systems based on common law have removed blasphemous libel as an offence; indeed, the UK did so in 2008. It’s well past time for us to do the same, and I look forward to this bill passing into law.

Before I finish, I do just want to note the proposed amendment by my colleague Kanwaljit Bakshi. Mr Bakshi will table a Supplementary Order Paper to amend the bill to allow Bhakti Sikh to carry kirpan in public places. People of the Sikh faith have been in New Zealand for more than a hundred years. Carrying the kirpan is very important for them for religious purposes. It is a very non-controversial amendment, and I hope that governing parties do consider it genuinely.

I’m not going to take any more time on this bill. It is a good proposal, and I commend it to the House.

I want to refer, firstly, to the removal of spousal and civil immunity from being unable to be found to have obstructed justice that would otherwise amount to being an accessory after the fact of an offence. I want to reflect that this is one of those anachronistic pieces of law that hasn’t kept up with changing circumstance, but to put it in a historical context.

I was thinking about what the things are that have changed over the last century as we’ve tidied up these areas of law where there were some unusual rules, particularly in the criminal law, that used to confer special rights on spouses and, latterly, the equivalent civil union partners. It’s not so long ago that spouses were not competent to give evidence against their spouse in a criminal prosecution. Even if they’d seen the criminal act and they thought it was a terrible thing, they couldn’t turn up in court and say, “I saw that happened—he did it.” and be heard in court, because they were not competent to give evidence. There was some reasoning behind that that asserted that to have it otherwise would somehow undermine the institution of marriage and undermine relationships, because you shouldn’t be able to tell on your partner even when they’ve committed a crime.

Well, that changed and spouses thereafter became, in most jurisdictions, competent to give evidence in a trial against their spouse but not compellable—so not compellable for the prosecution: competent for the prosecution but not compellable—and then it further changed so that they were both competent and compellable in respect of giving evidence for the defence. I’m not sure of the exact timing of those different events.

The other one that came up on radio just a little while ago—it was just in 1967 that Sir Lloyd Geering was tried for heresy by the Presbyterian Church and found to be in doctrinal error for having asserted that the remains of Christ lie somewhere in Palestine and that the Church was in error in saying that resurrection meant resuscitation of Christ’s body. The Church also didn’t like the fact that Lloyd Geering, then practising as a Presbyterian minister, denied that God remains a supernatural being who oversees the world. The Presbyterian synod, when it went to the next level up, had the wisdom to dismiss the charges without trial. It is interesting that that’s not that long ago. As people who were listening to the national programme a couple of weeks ago, on the Kim Hill show on a Saturday—it was a fascinating interview with Sir Lloyd Geering, at the age of 100, still smarter than anyone in this House, I suspect. A very, very clever man, with all his marbles at 100 years—amazing. This is another example of where the law needs to move on, and spousal or civil union immunity now needs to be removed in respect of the crime of being an accessory after the fact.

The year and a day rule has already been covered by others. Can I thank the Minister of Justice for bringing this to the House. I think all of us saw the distress caused to the families of the people who died in the CTV Building, at there being, in the view of the Crown Solicitor—it wasn’t possible for there to be a prosecution that would meet prosecutorial guidelines, in part because of this year and a day rule. At the time, the Minister of Justice spoke both publicly and to me saying that he was dissatisfied with the law, and the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, made the same comments and promised that we’d have a look at fixing it. So here we are, less than six months into our term of Parliament, having fixed this and making the law better.

Again, the historical context for this is that people, if they were injured badly in an act that might be criminal, they didn’t live for a year. In the old days they couldn’t be kept alive for a year. Nowadays, you can be kept alive on a ventilator virtually forever, if you’re artificially fed. And sometimes you may, in the hope that someone will regain consciousness from a coma, and therefore they may die after a year and there’s still evidence of criminality, but the year and a day rule means that no charge can be laid. That law needs to change and is being repealed by this bill.

The third area of change is to blasphemous libel, and, really, the example that I gave in respect of Lloyd Geering and heresy fits even more appropriately to blasphemous libel than it did to the antiquated laws relating to a spouse being an accessory after the fact. I enjoyed the contribution of the Green member Golriz Ghahraman, pointing out that—sorry, that wasn’t a literal expression; you’re actually looking quite healthy, ha, ha; excuse me—and making reference to the fact that there are many places overseas where people are, essentially, tried and sometimes stoned to death for criticising the Church or the Gods that are recognised in those other countries. I think it’s timely that that be removed and, as my own colleague pointed out, it’s a piece of legislation that’s in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, or inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—the rights to freedom of expression, including the right to criticise religion.

Now, that’s not to say that we should be blind to other people’s sensitivities when it comes to how we talk about other people’s religion. We’re not for one thing saying that you should be insulting about other people’s beliefs or religion. I’ve always been happy in that regard to note that I can no more prove my atheism than other people can prove their faith, and on that basis I’m happy to allow other people to have their faith in the same manner that I expect them to be able to respect my right to atheism. So whilst I have a different religious view to other people, I think that I should be respectful in the way in which I talk about their faith, because it’s an important matter to them.

I think one of the things that worries me as a consequence of the rise of social media is this rise of, sort of, hatred and vitriol in a way which is not subject to the normal societal constraints that you encounter if you’re speaking to someone one on one. It’s not subject to the old constraints where, if that was done through the media, you had a right of balance and standards being maintained by newspapers, who had their own accountability mechanisms through the Press Council and the like; similarly, for radio and TV. Social media seems a Wild West when it comes to inappropriate comments in a way that the world is still trying to grapple with.

Although we shouldn’t have the crime of blasphemous libel, it is interesting that overseas countries from Indonesia to Germany are grappling with these issues as to how it is that you appropriately have some level of control of what happens on social media. I wonder if we’ve made a mistake in the world, allowing those that make money out of social media, the Facebooks, the Googles, the internet providers that carry the message, to have no financial liability for the irresponsible things that happen on their platforms, because I suspect that as a society that has been corrosive. Unlike the fourth estate, which maintains scrutiny of the important institutions like Parliament in order to keep them clean and functioning, social media is not working that way. Anyway, I’m pleased to see the end of blasphemous libel.

Bill read a first time.

Bill referred to the Justice Committee.