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

I move, That the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.

We know that we are passing this legislation under urgency, and the normal process would be for it to have gone to select committee for examination by the committee and for submissions. So in the interest of providing a round-up of that, I just want to make some comments about the contributions that my colleagues have made across the House.

Firstly, I want to thank you all for your very considered contributions, and I also just want to remind the House that sometimes we do disagree, but it is actually not a bad thing sometimes that we consider everyone’s perspective and points of view, particularly when we have such an important piece of legislation to pass, so I just want to comfort colleagues that dissension isn’t always a bad thing—it gives us perspective. Second, I want to say that one of the impacts of this legislation will be to support those who are impacted by historic sex abuse, and that there are very public cases going through courts at the moment where it is the case that the courage of victims to speak out often doesn’t find them until they’re a little bit older in life. That’s one aspect that I didn’t put in my first reading speech, but I want to make note of it now.

My colleague Simeon Brown, with regards to query that you have about new clause 11 of Schedule 1, inserted by clause 5, I do want to say to you that the reason that is there is that two members of the Supreme Court, including the Chief Justice, found that the appellant’s risk was not sufficient to justify the making of a registration order, and I guess this person has been through the court process to find that. My colleague Ginny Andersen, thank you for your contribution and in particular for your acknowledgment of the Police Policy Unit. Mr Mitchell, yes, retrospectivity is not always a thing that we like to deal with in this House, but you were very clear in stating that we had, as a Parliament, made clear intent and we are sending a message back to our courts about that. My colleague Vanushi Walters—the role of key Government agencies in monitoring. Thank you very much for that contribution. Ms Ghahraman, yes, there are concerns regarding the breaches to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, but balance must be reasonably required, and I think in this case that is what we are achieving here. But I thank you for the perspective on the human rights impacts on this.

Ms McKee, thank you for your approval of the reason for urgency and dealing with retrospectivity, and thank you for also saying that it’s the mature assessment of what Parliament is here to do. My colleague Melissa Lee—intent and effect. That is often the trade-off we have, and I thank you for that contribution that makes it very clear that sometimes it doesn’t always match but the intention of this bill is clear. My colleague Emily Henderson—child abuse epidemic. It is no doubt an epidemic, and I thank you for reminding us of that and the reason we are here, and that we are trying to support a piece of legislation that, as you call it, has a muted and appropriate response to the bill of rights concerns. My colleague Arena Williams—clarification of registration and what that actually means if you are someone who is about to be put on to the register. My colleague Michael Woodhouse, thank you very much for speaking about points of principle versus the rule of law, and I hope that that clarification regarding clause 11 is also what you were wanting to understand. Finally, my colleague Rachel Boyack—you know, the nature of sexual abuse and the courage of victims when they come forward. Thank you for reminding us of that.

I don’t want to traverse much more in this. This is a bill that we do want to pass today, so I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the second reading of this piece of legislation. As I said earlier, National will be supporting this very important piece of legislation as it progresses through all stages of this debate. This is an incredibly important piece of legislation, which amends the retrospective provisions in the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act 2016. And as the Minister has outlined, this, in normal process, would have just gone to a select committee, but currently, due to the urgency, is now here for a second reading.

I do just want to acknowledge, though, the Minister’s engagement on the points that we raised in the first reading, and I do want to just touch on the point that I raised shortly. But I do, firstly, want to just discuss the issues raised by the Green Party in the first reading, which—quite frankly, I found their position to be outrageous, that they have come down to the House here, voting against this piece of legislation because it’s a breach of bill of rights and rule of law. Now, this is the issue that was brought to the Supreme Court—the issue around whether Parliament was intent on actually overriding the bill of rights—and they said the legislation and the wording was not clear enough. So this legislation is simply clarifying the intent of Parliament.

We’re not debating here the policy intent over whether there should be a child sex registry or not. That debate was had back in 2016. That debate happened five years ago. Sorry—2016? Yeah, 2016—five years ago. But here they are coming down to the House to relitigate points which were raised, and their principle, at that point. What we’re debating here today is whether 600 offenders who have been put on the child sex registry should be removed due to the fact that the court, the Supreme Court, took a different interpretation than what the intent of Parliament was.

I just think it’s astounding that they are continuing to oppose this legislation on the basis of some form of high and mighty principles, when what they’re saying, by voting against, is that they would be happy for those 600 individuals to be removed from the registry and not have to have the scrutiny, not have the requirements of police being notified of their movements, their addresses, and all of those other things. As I said, we’re not debating the policy; we’re debating whether those 600 people should be able to not be on the registry.

What they’re saying is those 600 shouldn’t be on the registry. They’re saying those 600 people should be removed from their responsibilities and being able to go about without the responsibilities to keep New Zealanders safe. And this is what this is about: keeping New Zealanders safe from child sex offenders. As a father of two children, two daughters, I just think it’s astounding that a party comes down to the House and wants to play politics when we have such a serious issue. One-quarter of the offenders on the child sex registry are impacted by this Supreme Court decision—one-quarter. That’s an enormous number of people—and the potential harm that will be caused if we don’t get this right as a Parliament. So I just want to put in the Hansard how outraged I am over that particular issue.

The second issue I just want to raise during this second reading debate is the issue—and the Minister touched on it—regarding new clause 11 in Schedule 1, inserted by clause 5, which is in regards to the exception for the particular appellant. The Minister rightly pointed out that the Supreme Court did find, based upon new evidence which they allowed to be admitted, that they did not believe that this particular person should be able to continue to be on the registry. That was a split decision. Two Justices said that the person should stay on the registry, two Justices found the person shouldn’t be on the registry, and one Justice refused to make a judgment on that particular point.

I just think, looking at the offending that this individual did, where there were 1,260 video files and 1,890 photographs of child pornography stored on his computer, with images of child pornography across all five levels of the Sentencing Advisory Panel scale, which measures the extremity of the pornography—and what we’re doing is we’re essentially passing legislation confirming the decision of the Supreme Court, which was split.

I actually think that we should be removing clause 11 and actually leaving this particular individual in the same position as all of the other 600 rather than necessarily confirming it, and I will be tabling an amendment to have that clause removed and would like to have further discussion of that point. I note the member for Manurewa, Arena Williams, commented on the severity, the shock of the severity of this offending. I think it’s very important that that is acknowledged, and we need to have that discussion very, very soon. So that’s a very important point, which I would like to have further discussion on.

The other point which I think needs to be discussed is the final clause, which is around the express override of the bill of rights and the Sentencing Act, and we want to ensure that that is express enough so that we don’t have to come back and do this again. And there is particular language raised by the Supreme Court, which I think—we will have a couple of questions over that during that stage.

So thank you, Madam Chair, for the opportunity to speak on this serious piece of legislation, and I do just want to conclude by congratulating Team New Zealand on just winning the 36th America’s Cup in Auckland. They won it by 46 seconds. I think that’s fabulous news and I think we should be commending them for retaining the auld mug. Go Team New Zealand!

Thank you, Madam Speaker. In my first call on this bill, I noted the data, the extent of and the impact of child sex offending on children, and the enduring effect it has through their lives. I think a number of speakers this evening have done that. I think the reason we’ve all referred to that data—that horrific data—is really to ensure that our law responds in terms of children who are suffering from sexual abuse but also those who haven’t, those who we are trying to protect from further acts of sexual violence. We need to ensure that we’re managing the risk of further offending in this area.

I do want to just speak to my Green Party colleagues from across the House as well, whose kaupapa I have a lot of respect for in terms of their constant protection for human rights principles and what we are all committed to in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I don’t think we should easily sidestep that; I think we must address it. There was also some reference to the research in this space, so in terms of research, I did just want to acknowledge that my view is that there isn’t sufficient research around sexual offender registries and how well they operate. I do think that further work needs to be done on that. However, I was just recently reading a report from the Australian Government’s institute of crime, and they have what’s called a trends report. In 2018, one of the statements that they made was: “While the evidence is limited to … small number[s] of US studies, non-public sex offender registries do appear to reduce [offending] by assisting law enforcement.” But I do also take my colleague’s point that Simeon Brown has made, that that’s not actually what we’re here to debate tonight.

I do also want to address the second point that my Green Party colleagues made in terms of the retrospectivity of the bill. The provision in the bill which refers to this is new clause 12 of Schedule 1, inserted by clause 5, that clarifies the Act’s retrospective application, overrides other laws, to the extent that the other laws are inconsistent with the Act’s—what I would say is a narrowly defined retrospective provision, and that includes sections 6(1) and 20 of the Sentencing Act 2002, as well as sections 25(g) and 26(2) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I just want to speak to the standards of criminal procedure elements in section 25(g) of the bill of rights Act, which sets out for those accused and convicted “the right, if convicted of an offence in respect of which the penalty has been varied between the commission of the offence and sentencing, to the benefit of the lesser penalty”. This is what my Green Party colleagues were referring to, and this is, essentially, a provision whose theme is echoed in the sentencing provisions, essentially arguing that a lesser penalty be applied.

However, section 5 of the bill of rights Act—and my Green Party colleague did acknowledge this as well—sets out the fact that rights and freedoms in the bill are subject to “reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society.” A few of my colleagues have spoken to what we should be turning our minds to as we think about what is demonstrably justified. In this case, I do believe that there is a justifiable limitation given the extraordinarily horrific data—the facts, the prevalence—that we’re facing in terms of child sexual abuse in New Zealand, but also the lifelong effect it has on these children. We’ve heard about how it doesn’t stop there. It doesn’t stop with the conviction; it has ongoing effects for people.

I think the other thing that’s been spoken to, and several people have referred to this, is the limit on the right. So, in this case, we’re not talking about an increase in the period of incarceration; we are talking about the provision of information so that police officers are able to appropriately monitor for a period of time. I do think that that is a reasonable limitation in this circumstance. I won’t take up further time, as I do hope this bill progresses smoothly through the House. I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I am just going to take a very short time because I think everybody in this House is quite interested in this bill getting passed fairly quickly, but I’d like to thank the Minister of Police for taking the time to signal to each member—it is very obvious that the Minister has, in fact, taken note of the comments the different members across the House have actually raised with her, and I appreciate the sensitivity with which she has addressed them in making those points.

Clearly, as the Minister has actually said, and as my colleague Simeon Brown has actually said—and, on that note, I just want to say he just stole my thunder regarding congratulating Team New Zealand, because, to tell the truth, I was in fact monitoring the computer, and the race was in front, on that desk, so I could actually lean over and pretend that I was listening to it all—[Interruption] I was; I was listening to all of the comments! But I also had one eye on the America’s Cup. I think most of us were probably monitoring, but Simeon Brown actually took my lines. Congratulations to Team New Zealand. The auld mug stays in New Zealand; so congratulations.

Anyway, on to the bill, the importance of this bill: it is a simple matter, as Mr Brown has actually said. This is not debating the issue about creating a sex offender register; this is actually about an issue where the intent of Parliament apparently was deemed not as clear in the last edition of the amendment that we made. This is the third time Parliament is actually addressing this issue, where we are hoping that the intention to put these people who are the most heinous of criminals—and I was really touched when Arena Williams was speaking; she was reflecting on her own children and the emotion that she actually spoke with really touched me. I mean, I was almost in tears. My child’s not that young—he’s grown up; he’s 22—but I’m also a mother, and as mothers, and fathers, we want to protect our children, keep them out of harm’s way, and when you have sex offenders, you would want to know that the police are monitoring them—that when they have been convicted of sex crimes, someone is watching them to monitor that they do not actually commit another and yet another child is abused and hurt and damaged.

I have met some people who have been sexually abused as children, and the path that they actually go through to recover their own identity, their own self-esteem, their own purpose in life is a huge journey, and we must, as members of Parliament, do everything we can to make that journey an easier path. Putting sex offenders on a register—that the intent of this Parliament could potentially deregister them isn’t something that any of us want, and I am surprised that there is a party in this House who actually stand on their principles to make it possible for that to happen. Luckily, numbers count and we will pass this legislation, making sure that those sex offenders stay on the register, hopefully never to offend again, but, you know, that’s probably too much hoping. I hope that whatever we do can protect our tamariki, who are the most vulnerable. I commend this bill to the House.

Madam Speaker, thank you for the opportunity to take another call on this important legislation, in the second reading of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. I just want to pick up, first, on some comments from the previous speaker, Melissa Lee, just regarding the purpose of a register such as this. While I do appreciate that the specifics of tonight’s legislation that we are debating is around correcting a drafting error that came through—and that has come through in the Supreme Court’s decision; I say that with respect, because this isn’t about pointing fingers—this is just to say that we acknowledge, as a Parliament, the original intent of the Act that’s currently in place led to a Supreme Court decision that, basically, said that we can’t implement it as we intended to. We are taking the opportunity to correct that. It is not about a finger-pointing exercise at all.

What I did want to talk about a little was, actually, the usefulness of registers such as this. I come from a place where people who do offend against children commit one of the most horrific crimes that can occur against an individual. I also come from a place where I do believe, with the right support, a lot of people—and not all—can actually change and can actually, at least, work towards no longer offending against children. That should be our hope in this House. That should be something that we are aiming for: that those who offend get an opportunity for rehabilitation and to, when they do come back into society, have an opportunity to live a life where they are no longer participating in those offences.

I do want to put on record that the purpose of a register like this is not for the purposes of punishment. It is more than just about monitoring; it is actually about ensuring that agencies can continue to provide support. One of the things, unfortunately, about offending against children in this way is actually the importance of ensuring people are protected from being around children.

One of the things that I know from my work in the church is that, actually, we would often have people coming to church for redemption who perhaps had committed offences of this nature and didn’t want to continue in that way, but as a church, in the role I had, we still had to put protections around those people to ensure that the children in our church were safe. It was an incredibly important and difficult thing to sometimes manage, and the usefulness of knowing people’s histories is actually about putting the right supports around them so that, for example, in the church context, if someone was attending a church who perhaps had a conviction, there would be important steps taken such as making sure that they weren’t working on a children’s Sunday school programme, they wouldn’t be left alone with children, and there would be people noticing if they were spending time around children, because those are the kinds of things that then can become a risk for people who have a conviction around a sex offence.

So a lot has been talked about tonight around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the role of us as a Parliament putting in place legislation that overrides that, and I do want to acknowledge that I think it is fair for us to raise those concerns. I think those questions are good ones to ask. As a Parliament, we should always be taking care not to tread across the bill of rights Act. However, on this particular occasion, in my view, this is the right approach because this is not necessarily, actually, about penalising people. This is about ensuring two things: that when people exit prison, the right monitoring and support is there for them; and, secondly, that we are taking steps to put the safety and welfare of children and tamariki first—which is something that as a society we have to accept is something we haven’t always done very well.

So I am pleased to be able to support this legislation and to support our Minister in changing this law quickly. I thank most of the members opposite for also working alongside us to change this legislation. I commend this bill to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. What a night, rising to speak to this bill for a second time, and there will be a third time. I do want to acknowledge that we’re doing this in urgency, and the colour that that adds to the breaches of our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the rule of law that this bill contains.

But, first, I do want to hold at the centre of this debate the intention of us all across this House, and in particular the Minister of Police, who’s brought the bill to the House, because I know that we all do care deeply about the welfare of children in Aotearoa New Zealand and we do wholeheartedly hope to address the absolute plague of child sex offending, which we know occurs in very, very high rates, and that at any rate would be unacceptable in our nation. We do want to protect children, and I would suggest that that should be done through legislation and lawmaking that is evidence based, that we know will be effective, and that we know will not undermine the legitimacy of the lawmaking process in the way that legislation like this does, unfortunately, do.

I don’t want to traverse, again, my first reading speech—I know there’ll be another one yet to come—but I do want to acknowledge and point to the finding of the Supreme Court. We all have, I think, in pointing us to the breaches of the bill of rights Act, both in the minimum standards of criminal procedure and in the ban against retrospective penalisation of anyone—we hold a lot of power in this House. We can sanction members of the public in the most severe way through the criminal justice system. So we have a responsibility to uphold the fundamental human rights that are contained in both the bill of rights Act and our Human Rights Act and the principle of the rule of law that tells us that law has to be knowable, has to be transparent, before it can apply to members of the public, and this bill absolutely breaches that fundamental principle.

It will apply to people who have committed an act before the main legislation came into effect. We’re making that clear. And we’ve heard from our Attorney-General in what is an absolutely clear and damning report that this legislation does not justify the breach of fundamental rule of law and human rights contained in the bill of rights Act. We’ve heard from the Attorney-General, who has done the weighing-up exercise. We know all of our human rights can be encroached upon if it’s necessary for the safety, wellbeing, and rights of others, and this bill has not met the standard, because child sex offender registries have not been shown to work. It has been found to be a punishment.

Because we’re not talking about, as I think members of the Opposition seem to believe, a registry that the police can refer to. The police have access to convictions. The police already know if you’re a convicted sex offender; the conviction doesn’t disappear. We’re talking about a registry that’s accessed by other agencies, that will apply to—Housing New Zealand case workers may have access to it. It may come into your Ministry of Social Development file. So we’re talking about much broader access than that, and we’re talking about something that both the Supreme Court and the Attorney-General agree constitutes further punishment than what the Sentencing Act has sentenced someone to. We’re talking about going beyond what sentence a person has already served. We’re talking about the idea that rehabilitation after a sentence of imprisonment, after the rehabilitation programmes the courts have already sentenced someone to, then applies and undermines any idea that our justice system can be fair, that a sentence can be finite, that a case can actually finish and a person can rejoin society.

But leaving all of that to one side, we as a Parliament have a duty not to be marred by prejudice, by the weight of the incredibly sad issues that we’re dealing with, with this piece of legislation. And to undermine not only fundamental human rights, not only the rule of law, but the idea that we would only pass law that’s actually based on evidence and is going to be effective to address the problems that we’re seeking to address—this isn’t that kind of legislation. It’s a knee-jerk dog whistle. It was when it first came in, as the substantive Act, and now we’re going further than that and breaching further rights. We can’t apply human rights and principles only when it’s convenient and drop them when there is emotion involved and when it does make us look good.

We’re lying to victims, I would suggest, when we say that this is going to protect them against the horrors of child sex offending. There are things we know we can do. We can apply the resource—the millions of dollars that it takes to monitor this registry—to doing the things that we know will actually prevent harm to children. We know that that work has already begun, with a record commitment to combating domestic and sexual violence, in the last Government. I was proud to be a part of that. I know that the Minister of Police, the Minister of Justice, and ministries across Government are all involved in that work and are excited about it. I know that the work will support front-line organisations that will support Māori and Pacific communities, who are disproportionately impacted by this type of offending, to lead in what will, in fact, heal our society and prevent this kind of offending against our children. That should be the focus.

So this isn’t a good bill. It isn’t the kind of lawmaking that we should commit to or set a precedent for in this House, and I do oppose it, on behalf of the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Before I start on what was going to be a very short speech—it just got longer, and that’s because I’d like to address some of the points that my colleague from the Green Party, Golriz Ghahraman, just made, one of them being about the Supreme Court making a judgment and therefore we should stick by it. But what I think may be lost is the fact that that case actually went through the High Court and it went through the Court of Appeal before it got to the Supreme Court, where we had a 3:2 decision that was made. Effectively, that decision was coming back to us to tell us we had an issue and we needed to fix it. We tried to do that in 2016 when we had this piece of legislation. We tried to fix it in 2017 and again a little bit later, but we haven’t got it right. Now is our opportunity to do it correctly.

When the member next to me speaks about how this law will apply and that the legislation will take effect on past offences, that’s the whole point. The whole point is people, decades later, come out, speak out, and say, “I had an issue. I was sexually abused.” The matter goes to the court; the defendant may be found guilty. The whole point of the register is not to punish them but to protect them and to protect our communities. The way that that will go about is because there will be these Government agencies like the Ministry of Social Development (MSD), like Housing New Zealand, who will help support these convicted paedophiles to be in places where they should be—to be in homes where they’re not near schools, to be able to get access to payments and help that they should be entitled to as recovering convicts. That is an essential part of the register as well. The access is not public. It is Government agencies only. And I think that that’s a point that needs to be emphasised. Again, it is not a punishment; it’s protection for everybody.

So I’m just going to talk a little bit more on the 600 people that will be removed from the register if this bill does not go through. That’s 600 people who police will have lost track of—they will not know where they are. The community will not know that these people are there. MSD and Housing New Zealand will not know where they are and who they are, and the rehabilitation process will stop for those people. So we need to make sure for them as well that this continues. There are historic sex abuse cases that are before us now and there’ll be many more to come. We need to make sure that those offenders continue to know that we know where they are and we’re keeping track—well, police are—of how they are behaving.

Finally, I would just like to say the intent here has been pretty clear—the intent of the Supreme Court, the intent of Parliament—and really it’s just our job to go about fixing it. So I will further commend this bill to the House after I just make one more comment about retrospective law. If cannabis is ever put through legally through this Parliament in this House and the Green Party look to retrospectively remove convictions of those with cannabis convictions, then I will hold you to account for that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I just want to say thank you for this opportunity to take a short call for this bill. It’s an important bill due to its implication for the safety and wellbeing of our tamariki, our children, and their whānau, but also the implications for their future. I say this due to the long-lasting effects it does have into adulthood, and from what I’ve seen as a clinician. I am the father of an eight-year-old son, and many of our parents who are in the House would speak passionately about this particular bill as well. So I would just like to take an opportunity to speak, firstly, to the wellbeing and safety of our tamariki. They don’t usually tell us things that may be affecting them, but usually show us in different ways.

I just want to say, just in my work as a clinician in Auckland, we are always looking for red flags when it comes to our tamariki, as we do know that much of the offending happens from someone that knows the child, whether it be a family member or friend. So, when we have whānau bring tamariki into the clinic, the actual consult starts in the waiting room. When we call your name, when we see our tamariki walking in with their parents—the parents may be holding the child—from all of that data and how they’re speaking, before you’ve even reached the seats of my clinical room, I’ve already formalised about 30 percent of the diagnosis. And then much of it is about the history taking, and we do take a history of what’s happened to the child. Ninety percent will get a diagnosis right there. And then, when we start laying hands and doing our clinical examination, that formulates the entire diagnosis. I say this because sometimes when that 90 percent of the diagnosis has already been formulated, the examination doesn’t fit the history, and that’s when red flags pop up. I say this because there are—when I look at physical injuries, that is one thing. When the history does not match the examination, when there are infections happening, quite often in particular parts of the body, and it does not match the history, that is a red flag for us.

So I talked to this bill, where I acknowledge the many clinicians, the social workers in schools, our school nurses, our people who are out in the community who do face our whānau and their tamariki, that do recognise these sorts of red flags and take action—they play their role, and this legislation plays that role in a much broader sense, to help safeguard the wellbeing of our tamariki and also the long-term effects. I acknowledge the many providers, such as Whirinaki, that we do refer many of our children to because of the effects, the mental health effects, that take hold of our tamariki once they suffer from an issue such as this.

The urgent amendment that looks to retrospective provisions of the Act is essential for this wellbeing and safety of our children. But, number two, I would look to the amendment that ensures that those who, like Parliament was supposed—or, I guess, the intention in 2016 was always intended to be that they remain on the register.

So there is a risk of reoffending, and I just want to talk to the continuing monitoring of our offenders, because I do not want to see another victim added to that person. We do not want to see the issues that we’re seeing in the clinics in our communities of the effects of sexual abuse in our tamariki. Because what I’ve seen from our children, right through adolescence to adulthood—the effects of socio-economic issues that are a by-product of this; the mental health issues that are a by-product of this. So, when we do these sorts of things—whether it be Whirinaki, being a child and adolescent provider; when it goes to our adult mental health issues that are a by-product of this—it is that whole life-long journey of issues from sexual abuse.

So I just want to finish off that when we talk about this monitoring of the register, and those who are on this private register for our Government agencies—I just want to acknowledge what the member Rachel Boyack has said about those who have had an opportunity to rehabilitate, and there are instances like that, but I just want to say that this is more of a safety mechanism that is all about accountability as well. So that’s why I want to commend this bill to the House to make sure that there is that accountability for those to reduce the risk of offending again for those victims. So that’s why I commend this bill. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’m hoping that you’ll just humour me for a moment, as the Opposition spokesperson for sports and recreation, when I congratulate Peter Burling and Emirates Team New Zealand on a fantastic win in the America’s Cup today. I want to acknowledge Jimmy Spithill and Francesco Bruni in the Luna Rossa team. They have been outstanding competitors. They have been very welcome in this country. They have made it a great spectacle for us.

We have a long, proud history of involvement and competing in the America’s Cup. Of course, we go right back to Sir Peter Blake and the iconic red socks that are associated with the America’s Cup. Well, I have to say that blue socks would’ve been pretty cool as well. I just want to acknowledge and congratulate Emirates Team New Zealand on a great win for us as a country. I think that it’s timely, and we’ll be celebrating as a nation right behind them. The celebrations, I’m sure, up in the Viaduct Basin are going to be huge tonight, and around the country. Madam Speaker, thank you for allowing me those comments.

I just want to support the comments that were made by Nicole McKee, because they were very relevant to this bill, and they were points that I was going to make myself. I’ve got now an opportunity to reinforce them, and it comes to the position that the Greens have taken on this bill. I don’t know whether there’s some confusion around what the bill is actually doing, but they’re talking about a breach of human rights as if this was retrospective in terms of a conviction and sentencing. This bill has got nothing to do with that. The person only becomes eligible to go on to the sex offenders register if they are convicted and sentenced. It means that they then go on to the sex offenders register. It’s not an additional sentence. It’s not an additional punishment. It’s just quite simply that they now go on to the register.

It’s extremely important—

💬 Golriz Ghahraman: Was the Attorney-General wrong? Because the Attorney-General found the same thing.

Well, it’s extremely important—and I’ll explain why—that these people go on to the register. The point that Nicole McKee made is actually—we haven’t spoken about it in the House, but it’s very, very relevant. I’d just remind the Green Party member in the House that, actually, they go on the register not just to protect the victims—but, of course, the victims’ rights should always be at the forefront of our minds, especially in a situation like this, because we’re talking about children that are vulnerable and can’t protect themselves. But, actually, it provides the offenders themselves some protection, and I’ll tell you why: because often many of these offenders are suffering and dealing with serious mental health issues. They’ve often got compulsive-type disorders. They don’t always have full control over their offending.

Actually, to be on a register where they are being monitored and our agencies are monitoring can actually put a layer of protection around them and stop them from being put back into a position where they actually reoffend. Is that information important to be shared amongst agencies? Absolutely it is, and you can just imagine if you had a serious recidivist sex offender or someone that was peddling in child pornography, then, actually, if they were going to go into a Housing New Zealand house or they were going to go into a community where there were young children, they should have that information and they should be able to manage and mitigate the risk around that.

So I just think that the Green Party’s position on this does puzzle me. It’s not trampling over people’s rights. The member refers to the report by the Attorney-General. In this House, we’re always going to have to grapple with, at times, the rights and protections of victims and also being able to reinforce and make sure that offenders’ rights are observed as well, but in this case the balance is absolutely right. We’re actually responding to a Supreme Court ruling to say that we as a Parliament have to get this legislation tighter and we have to make sure that our intent is very clear in terms of what the courts are going to do when these people are convicted and sentenced. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Mālō ‘aupito, Madam Speaker. It’s an honour and a privilege to take a quick call on this bill, but may I first acknowledge and mihi to the Minister the Hon Poto Williams for the mahi she has done, across the House but also on this bill, and the police as well for their mahi to progress this much-needed amendment to the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act.

As we have heard, this bill clarifies in the Act that “retrospective application explicitly includes those persons who committed a qualifying offence before, but who were convicted and sentenced after, the Act came into force.” Essentially, the amendments in this bill ensure the safety of our children, our tamariki, and their families and whānau by making sure offenders who have previously been convicted of such damning acts are included on the Child Sex Offender Register, as these amendments will now include those that were previously convicted before the Acts came into effect. This bill goes some way to ensuring peace of mind for the offenders, the victims, and their families that those who have been convicted of these crimes remain on a register so that our authorities are able to continue to monitor these offenders, thereby knowing their movements and ultimately ensuring our victims, the whānau, and our community are far less likely to see these offenders reoffend while we are monitoring them.

Being able to have convicted child sex offenders on a sex registration, regardless of being convicted prior to the Act coming into force, also ensures the Parliament’s intent of this bill and what it was meant to do to cover all offenders under this bill. I believe it also makes sure that it gives our authorities and our forces the mandate to continue to monitor these people and keep our communities safe.

I have worked and supported tamariki and their whānau that have, unfortunately, been victims of such crimes and offences, and I can tell you the trauma that our babies, our tamariki, and their families go through is deep and takes time to even try and see the light at the end of the tunnel. So I’ve also seen victims take years of work, they have nightmares, sleepless nights, bed-wetting, night terrors, worries that the people who attacked them—these offenders—will come back and offend and attack them again. So I believe that, again, it’s a small way to go towards ensuring for these poor babies that have been victimised, while we have these offenders on a register, that the forces, that the police, that our heroes can continue to monitor them. So we will make sure that while we are monitoring them on those registers, these monsters that came and attacked you will not be able to come back on our watch, but that means they need to remain on those registers.

This bill is about fixing, really, a drafting error. So, again, to keep our communities, our tamariki, our babies, our whānau safe, and, again, to give them some assurance that us as lawmakers are going to do everything we can to keep protecting them, I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, for the opportunity to take a brief call on this Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. I want to start by also echoing my thanks to the Minister of Police, not just for her work on this particular bill that we have before us but for her work in this House in general and her dedication to this sector in her previous work.

The Government, I think, is characterised by its unwavering concern for the welfare of all New Zealanders, but particularly our vulnerable and, even more specifically, our tamariki, our children. In 2019, we released the Child and Youth Wellbeing Strategy, which outlined the vision for Aotearoa New Zealand to be the best place in the world for children and young people, and that strategy has established pathways towards this end, including an action plan to address family and sexual violence, a programme to prevent online child sexual exploitation and abuse, and means to improve access to sexual violence services, such as kaupapa Māori and crisis support services. We’ve also introduced various pieces of legislation to ensure that we are the best place in the world for children and young people.

I think it’s noteworthy, as our investigative and our evidence-gathering techniques improve, and people feel, probably, more increasingly confident in coming forward with allegations of sexual offending—or, actually, perhaps there’s just been requisite time passed where people have the requisite strength to face that circumstance, or various other family circumstances have changed. It’s understandable that there’ll be a commensurate increase in historical child sex abuse convictions.

Again, let’s remind ourselves, this legal vagary in the principal Act means that individuals who committed offences prior to the commencement of the Act but who were convicted and sentenced after the date could be omitted from the register. Also, this legal vagary—as we’ve heard it described on several occasions today—saw that the Supreme Court, in a split 3:2 decision, simply found that the legislation and wording, as it currently is, was unclear. Essentially, we’re here now to seek to correct that and to re-establish what was the original intent.

The passage of this bill is a matter of urgency, in that the longer individuals are not subject to registration requirements, the more difficult it will be for police to locate and monitor and for police to do that job of protecting the community. I also want to echo several of the sentiments and the points that have been made tonight about this not being punitive, per se; about it being a tool; and about the intent here not to be adding additional unnecessary stressors but to have that monitoring sort of function, not just for the police but for offenders, who know that their rehabilitation and their continuous effort and their continued effort to not reoffend is supported in some sort of way.

So this relatively simple piece of amending legislation clarifies the principal Act, with retrospective application, and ensures that those convicted of these child sex offences are eligible for registration. It is yet another example of this Government’s firm, fair, and flexible handling of criminal matters. We are getting the balance right between justice, the victims, appropriate consequences for criminal offences, and keeping tamariki, whānau, and the wider community safe. So in that context, I’m satisfied that this amending legislation is important and necessary, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you very much, Madam Speaker. It’s important that we stress that this bill is about the narrowest aspect of what we’ve been discussing, and it’s specifically about making sure that the existing provisions apply in the way that Parliament initially intended them to do. So in terms of making sure that we protect the wellbeing of children, and that we protect the safety of our whānau, we need to make sure that we do that effectively. So this bill clarifies that the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act’s retrospective application explicitly includes those persons who committed a qualifying offence before—but who were convicted and sentenced after—the Act came into force. Look, there’s been some arguments in this House around retrospectivity, and also some very good arguments about how we strike that balance between making sure we are fair, making sure we are firm, but also making sure that we protect the wellbeing of our communities. So this bill, I believe, strikes that ability to give us safety in that area.

I think it’s important to reflect, also, that it is important that we put forward what was originally intended by Parliament, and that’s exactly—for that to be included. So to give effect to the Act’s intent, the bill inserts amendments and new provisions into Schedule 1 of the Act, and that is quite clearly making a provision that validates a person’s placement on the child sex offender register if their registration would have been valid if the amendments were in force at the time of their registration. So it makes it clear that those individuals are, in fact, included, and I know that that will give a strong peace of mind to our communities, to parents, to children, to community leaders to know that this Parliament is vigilant and watching to make sure that we have those things in place.

Just to conclude, it’s important to note that this clarification is in response to a recent Supreme Court decision, and that was D v New Zealand Police, which has just recently been at court in February—9 February, I believe—and that determined that the qualifying offence was committed before the Act came into force. The Act is not sufficiently clear about the eligibility for that registration to displace the right in section 6 of the Sentencing Act 2002. So that has called upon the requirement of this legislation to be issued under urgency to make sure we get that completely straight. So, without further ado and without further delay of the celebrations for New Zealand winning the America’s Cup, I wish to commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a second time.

This bill is set down for committee stage forthwith. This House will be in committee after the dinner break at 7.

Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.00 p.m.

In Committee

Part 1 Amendment to Part 1 of principal Act