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

Tēnā koe, e te Māngai o te Whare. I move, That the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

Firstly, I’d like to thank all members of the House for their very valuable contributions tonight on what is a very important bill. At the heart of this is how we protect our children from child sex offenders and trying to amend—do a fix up—of a previous bill that came to the House in 2016, which I well remember the discussion and the debate on at that time. I want to thank all the members for raising issues that they have and for also ensuring that we pass the bill in its best form by asking pertinent questions.

The bill as it was passed—the primary legislation—was about keeping our kids safe, and it was about the imbalance of power that our children have in times when they are harmed by others. Often it’s very difficult for a child, or, in fact, it’s virtually impossible for a child to raise these issues of harm at the time, and what tends to happen is, as an adult, those offences become so problematic that they—[Member coughs]—apologies—raise them as older people. What the primary legislation and the amendment to this seek to do is to deal with—[Melissa Lee, and then Sarah Pallett give the member a glass of water]—thank you, my dear; oh thank you, both of you—historical sex offences, to deal with cases where, for one reason or another, those matters couldn’t have been raised at the time. I’m very grateful to the House for fixing up a problem that wasn’t intended when that first piece of legislation went through.

I understand the use of urgency is not something we take lightly, nor is looking at the issue of retrospectivity, and often, when we are having debates in the House, one of the things that we raise is whether legislation should be retrospective. We’ve done so in this case because of the unique nature of sexual offending towards children, where the ability to raise concerns at the time is often very limited.

I have to say that what was unique about this case is that we were able to, largely, have consensus across the House. I’m grateful to members for their participation in our dialogue leading up to the bill coming to the House, and I’m also grateful that there have been times when we haven’t always agreed. As I said in earlier readings of this particular bill, dissension is not a bad thing. It does allow us to examine different perspectives, and we should allow for that healthy, robust debate to occur, never more so than in bills such as this where we are looking at the protection of our children.

I want to refer to a comment that one of my colleagues made during one of the readings earlier on that this is a bill that puts a person on a private register—a register that’s only accessed by Government agencies. The reason for that is not necessarily about monitoring, although monitoring is a feature of that. It’s also about the ability to reach in and provide support, and I think that’s an important aspect that we can’t forget: that all people have the ability for rehabilitation and change.

If we are to take that as a feature of how we want to work in the future in this House, it does speak to our ability to be compassionate and to help people when they reach out for help. All of those values are wrapped up in this little piece of legislation, which is my first bill that I’ve taken all the way through the House, and I’ve done it on one day, so that’s pretty momentous.

Just in conclusion, it’s been a big day for officials, and I want to thank them very much for the work that they have done. It’s been a big few weeks for the police, ascertaining the people that were captured by the Supreme Court decision, and I thank them very much for their work. I thank my colleagues, and I commend this bill to the House.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill, which the National Party will be supporting at third reading. I would like to just begin by, again, acknowledging Minister Poto Williams for the work she’s done in regards to this very important piece of legislation following the Supreme Court decision on 9 March earlier this year. It’s a decision which has meant that Parliament has had to revisit this particular piece of legislation again, but a decision on which I believe the Minister’s made the right call in bringing this to the House and working with the officials so that we can get this done urgently, because it is a very serious—a very serious—issue. I’d like to acknowledge with her the officials and the police for the work that they’ve been doing in preparation for this bill coming to the House.

The National Party has supported the use of urgency for this piece of legislation because this is an incredibly important piece of legislation. The child sex offender registration is about ensuring the protection of the most vulnerable children in our community and protecting these offenders from causing more victims in our society and keeping New Zealanders safe. Because of the very real risk to public safety if the 600 individuals were removed from the registry and were not able to be monitored and were not required to continue on the registry for the time that they must stay on the registry as prescribed by the law—because of that risk, we have supported the use of urgency in getting this bill through all stages without a select committee in one day, and that is the right thing to do in these very serious issues with very serious legislation. It’s not something which should be used lightly, but, in this case, it’s very, very warranted.

I have raised concerns in the committee of the whole House, particularly around the new clause 11 of Schedule 1 of the Act, as set out in clause 5(7), and we do express that we have some unease around the way that the legislation has been drafted in clause 11 and are not completely confident in its application to this particular individual. The real concern is that this individual is not only exempted from the offending in his case in being removed from the registry but also exempted from any other potential offending. So look, we do hold some concerns around this and we have expressed that during the committee of the whole House, and we will leave that point there.

We have also expressed concern over the Green Party’s lack of support for this piece of legislation. I will reiterate my comments from the second reading here at the third reading that this is not a debate on whether there should be a child sex offender registry or not. That particular debate was held back in 2016. That was the time to raise concerns over whether that was the most effective tool or the right tool. Parliament should be legislating to try and reduce risk of this type of offending and to keep the public safe. What we are dealing with here is simply the retrospectivity of that legislation and whether Parliament’s intended retrospective nature has been given effect to. The Supreme Court has come and said that, no, we were not express enough in the retrospectivity in the way it was drafted—that’s what the Supreme Court has stated. What we are doing here today is saying that, actually, we want to clarify that retrospectivity so that the 600 offenders and more who would be struck off the registry are put back on the registry. That is about the public safety, and I think it’s outrageous—whilst I can understand a principled argument when setting up the registry, with the registry now in place, it is our public duty as parliamentarians to ensure the public safety of New Zealanders, and I would hope that the Green Party would reconsider their lack of support for this important piece of legislation and the one quarter of the individuals in the registry who would otherwise be struck off if this legislation was not supported.

So the National Party is supporting this piece of legislation, as we’ve outlined. It’s an incredibly important piece of legislation. We look forward to its passage through third reading tonight.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a pleasure to speak briefly on this bill, the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. I really wanted to just touch on a few points of constitutional significance. I note the Attorney-General’s report, which touches on the fact that in the Attorney-General’s view, the original legislation changed the penalty and, in fact, increased it by the imposition of the register, and, therefore, where there is an increased burden across time, the lower of those two penal burdens should be borne by the offender. The register, arguably—look, it’s a register of addresses, personal details, and so on so that the police can monitor people who are a risk to the community, and it certainly isn’t intended to be a form of punishment. It’s simply there for the safety of the community. So I think, when the balancing is done in terms of the burden of retrospectivity, such as it is, it’s very modest indeed.

Of course, the other point around retrospectivity—and I accept, absolutely, the importance of the presumption against retrospectivity. The point is that as we look through the decisions of the courts in this case, it’s been very finely balanced indeed. I think, in this House, where we’ve largely come together on the point, we accept that the legislature’s original intention was that it would capture all sex offending and not only sex offending after the date in question. So that’s the first point. Whilst I absolutely accept the retrospectivity point, it is a very weak one in this case indeed.

I also want to touch on the point that the appellant in this case is excluded from it, and I accept Mr Brown’s observations that, to him, it may seem unusual. There are, essentially, two principles in play here, and Mr Penk also observed that. I think he said something like, “Who makes the rules?” Obviously, Parliament, in this case, is supreme. However, there is another strong constitutional principle that I don’t think has been identified, and that is that when a court has made a decision about rights which apply to a particular person, this House should be extremely reluctant to take those rights away.

We might not like the rights that the court has accorded to this person. The court has said in respect of this offender that “The law is not retrospective and your name need not go on that register.” That’s the Supreme Court and that is the final decision of the highest court in the land, and we must respect that. So whilst we need to fix the law in respect of those 600 other offenders, it is quite appropriate that this House does not go back and rewrite a decision of the Supreme Court. We must absolutely respect the judgment of those lawyers and scholars, but—absolutely—at the same time move on and fix it in respect of all of those other offenders who haven’t had their particular cases before the court and haven’t crystallised that right to not go on the sex offenders register.

So I wanted to really take this moment to say that this is actually an interesting and important piece of legislation, both because it preserves and protects the safety of our communities and because it is a good and elegant solution to a relatively complex constitutional problem relating to the relationship between this House and our courts. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. I won’t make a call that is longer than necessary on this, notwithstanding the complexity and outright interesting, from a constitutional point of view, nature of the debate and the discussion.

Let me start by giving credit to the Attorney-General. I have said in recent times, including on the public record, that I believe that some of the section 7 reports produced under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act have landed in a different place than I would have myself. As it happens, I think that this particular report that has been produced, where he’s identified an apparent inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, is probably correct, actually. So credit where it’s due, in relation to the advice that there may be a double jeopardy and retrospectivity element that would offend those provisions.

Duncan Webb—Dr Duncan Webb, no less—makes a sophisticated argument around whether the fact of being on a register is in the nature of a penalty at all, and that’s a very interesting discussion. I won’t go into it any further, because I think it should suffice to say that even if the Attorney-General is correct in saying that the law is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, that is not a reason, ultimately, finally, that Parliament should not make this law. Parliament has the responsibility of passing legislation that it deems, taking into account all factors—and not merely that one, as important as it is—to the benefit of New Zealand as a whole. It goes without saying that the safety of children, their lives and, indeed, sexual safety—as the phrase is used in the legislation and the judgment—is such an important one that we should not disregard it, to put it mildly.

Of course, accountability is a characteristic that differentiates two branches of Government. If we’re talking about the legislature, we are, rightly, accountable at least every three years in a way that the courts, rightly, are not.

One thing I would just add, though, before I conclude my remarks is that, again, I acknowledge the point that was made, and I had sought to make it before, but perhaps I didn’t do so particularly clearly. When I said that it is important to acknowledge who makes the rules in our system of Government, that is Parliament, but the rulings are the decisions—the judgments of the court in respect of specific cases, all things being equal, of course should stand. I believe that it’s worth making a caveat and a disclaimer to that, however, which is to say that if the court is determining a particular case based on the merits of that case as it comes before the court according to the law of the land as duly passed by the Parliament, that is fine. But if it were the case—and I don’t say that it is necessarily—in the judgment that is before us that the courts, or at least some members of the Supreme Court, had determined not that Parliament’s intention was unclear but, rather, that it was unsavoury, then of course that would have been unacceptable. As I observed in the committee of the whole House stage, comity must go both ways.

At that, I’ll leave my remarks, expressing only a hope for reasons connected with the obvious importance of child safety, as well as for the sake of our constitution, that this argument proves somewhat academic in the case of a person identified in the judgment in question as D. So I’ll leave my remarks there and, as others have done on this side of the House and, it seems, across the House in general, with the possible exception of the ACT Party, or, excuse me, the Green Party—I do apologise to both—I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to make a few brief remarks in relation to this bill at its third reading. I think we’ve traversed a fair bit this evening in terms of the issues, including the prevalence of sexual abuse on child victims, including the impact on those victims, and we’ve also, of course, looked at the reasons why retrospective provisions in this case are justified, which I think several of my colleagues, including Dr Webb, have covered very well.

I thought I’d use this third opportunity to speak to this bill by highlighting some of the requirements in the primary legislation. We did talk about the fact that those individuals do need to provide information, so I just wanted to talk about the term of registration that people stay on that register for. So there is a term of registration for eight years if the offender has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a class 1 offence, or if the offender has been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence for a qualifying offence and has been ordered to be registered by the sentencing judge. That then increases to a term of registration for 15 years if the offender is sentenced with what’s called a class 2 offence, which is more serious. That increases to life registration if the offender has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a class 3 offence.

I was looking at those provisions and just reflecting on some comments in the House made both by Minister Poto Williams and by Rachel Boyack earlier this evening about the fact that this isn’t about punishment. It is primarily about child safety, but also about Government entities being able to reach in and support those people who have been convicted, and I am alarmed that without this bill there might be people not just in classes 1 or 2 but also those very, very serious classes—class 3—who wouldn’t receive that support.

That probably lends nicely to the second point that I just wanted to briefly make, which was in response to some concerns raised earlier by my colleague from the Green Party about the release of information to third parties. So my understanding is—and this is really a reflection on the primary legislation, as well—that Police and Corrections can’t release information about a registered person unless there is a need to do so to protect a child or children from a significant threat. The standard is quite high, and where information about someone on the register is released, there are a number of protocols that apply, and, indeed, there are penalties if that information is released outside of the protocols. So in my view that is a useful justification for the release of that information to third parties, but also—just reflecting on what I’ve just spoken to—it is beneficial for the offender, as well, to be able to access the support that they might need through other Government agencies.

I just want to end on a reflection on some of my experience in my previous life as a solicitor with YouthLaw Aotearoa, and a few people have pointed to this as well. The fact is that it is very difficult to get to a conviction. If you think about what a young person has to go through to raise an issue, let alone an issue that is so intimate and personal as this, it is a significant barrier to cross, and then for that young person to go through the court processes that follow, it’s, again, a very difficult barrier to cross. When you finally do get to a conviction, I think that does place on us an additional obligation to ensure that there is no reoffending—that we look to preventative mechanisms to ensure that there is no reoffending in that case.

I won’t take up any more time from the House this evening. I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise again, for the third time, in this urgent reading of this bill. I begin, again, as others have done and as I have done before tonight, by holding at the centre of this debate the victims of child abuse and sexual violence, the incredibly high rates, the incredible heartbreak of our nation as we consider this absolute plight and epidemic that we face as lawmakers and as New Zealanders. We absolutely all agree across this House and across our nation that children should be safe from sexual violence and abuse, that we hold that duty at the forefront of everything that we do—in particular, because children, without the agency of adults, are our most marginalised of communities.

So I know that that is the intention behind this bill and, in particular, the intention of the Minister who has brought the bill before the House. Unfortunately, it doesn’t change the position that we in the Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand hold: that it’s not good law, it’s not effective law, and it, in fact, undermines both the rule of law and New Zealand’s human rights standards.

We agree with the Chief Justice, the President of New Zealand’s Supreme Court, the Attorney-General, and the Human Rights Commission that there is very little evidence that there’s any efficacy at all in holding a child sex offender register, and I’ll address the comments made by my colleague Simeon Brown from the National Party that the efficacy of child sex registers is not central to this debate because this is about the retrospective application. Well, actually, it is central to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act balancing exercise that we must consider when we consider whether or not the breaches of that Act are justified in law.

We have to consider whether or not the breach of two fundamental human rights in New Zealand, which come under section 25, the minimum standards for criminal procedure, and section 26, the rule against retrospective punishment—whether we’re doing something that’s actually worth it. When there is no real evidence that what we’re doing is protecting anyone at all, that becomes central to the integrity of this law. The rule of law, which it is our duty to uphold, is about transparency and the knowability of law to those that it impacts and affects. Retrospective legislation in every way breaches the rule of law.

Then we come to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. We have section 25 that sets out the minimum standards for criminal procedure. Now, criminal sanction is one of the most important arenas for human rights law to be upheld. There is huge prejudice when we talk about criminal justice, and the prejudice is felt, palpable, in this House tonight because we all care so deeply. We are all so horrified by child sex offending, but that doesn’t make every single piece of law that we say addresses that plight good law.

So we’re breaching the minimum standards of criminal justice and fairness in this law. We’re breaching the rule against retrospective legislation. We are—it is the opinion of the Attorney-General and the President of the Supreme Court—punishing people by putting them on the register. Our highest, independent experts on making that assessment say that this is a punishment—I know others disagree in this House—and that it does breach those rights.

Now, the only way that would be justified is if we could point to evidence that this is at all keeping kids safe. I think it is time, and I think the past Government I was proud to be a part of and this Government do have a commitment to doing things differently in criminal justice. That means looking at the evidence of what works to prevent crime, to keep communities safe, to rehabilitate those that come into conflict with our criminal justice system. This is not that approach.

We have done a lot that’s been right, and we can invest the resource that will go into keeping this register and to apply it retrospectively into what we know works. We know that under the first Wellbeing Budget that we passed under the last Government, together with the coalition partners, we committed the biggest resource—that was $320 million—to a cross-ministry approach to solving domestic and sexual violence, including violence against children, including sexual violence against children. That was led by my colleague Jan Logie, the first parliamentary under-secretary for domestic and sexual violence in New Zealand, and it is going to be work that our new Minister for domestic and sexual violence, Marama Davidson, will lead. I know that the Minister of Police, who has brought this bill to the House today, is excited and committed to doing that work as well, and we know that it will be leading on the support of community-based, grassroots people that are at the forefront of this incredible challenge in our communities, across Māori communities, Pacific communities, and migrant communities. We know that the resource is best spent invested in their work.

So this isn’t good law. It does weaken the rule of law in New Zealand. It weakens us as a Parliament and our commitment to human rights, which isn’t something that we can say we’ll only do when it’s convenient and pretty. We have to do it when it looks hard. We can’t keep relying on old, failed approaches that only make politicians look tough on crime. So I oppose the bill.

I rise as well for the third time tonight and, again, in support of this bill. I’d like to begin my last speech with acknowledging once again the Minister of Police’s work. You’ve put through a tremendous amount in a very short period of time, and you’ve managed to get mostly cross-party support, so well done to you for that effort.

I also just want to put on record, as I already had, my concerns about new clause 11 of Schedule 1, inserted by clause 5. I hope that we are using this urgency well and that we are fixing now what the Supreme Court saw as an error, and that we don’t have to come back to do further fixes because of new clause 11. High-risk offenders are captured by a register. They are being watched by the agencies. They’re being supported by other agencies because they are on that register. In a way, it is helping to prevent reoffending, and I think this is the evidence that my colleague in the Green Party is looking for. The fact that we have low reoffending rates from those on the register is the evidence that the register actually does work. But there is an error that the Supreme Court has found in regard to how people get on to that register, and our job here in this House is to fix that error. I am quite happy to be a part of that fix.

This is about an investment in our communities. By having a register, we are making sure that we are keeping our children safe, that mums and dads out there feel confident to let their children go out and play, go to school, and do all those good things that we probably took for granted when we were growing up. I would like to see and make sure that my grandchildren have the ability to go out there and play, without wondering or worrying about who might be in their community unwatched and unmarked. So, in that respect, I do commend this bill to the House, and I thank the Minister for the work that she’s done on it.

I rise again to congratulate this House, first off. It’s encouraging, as a newbie, to see the courtesy and common sense that has been displayed tonight, in what has been a difficult issue.

I congratulate the Minister for knuckling down to fix a mistake that was not of her own making, with grace and without recriminations, and for the exemplary approach to consultation that she has taken, and also, I believe, possibly a record for the first person to ever get her first bill through in a day. I also congratulate the Opposition parties for also recognising the importance of this work and the fact that it did need to be done under urgency. The discussion has been moderate, thoughtful, and considered, and I likewise respect the Greens’ position. There is an issue with retrospectivity, and the question is whether that issue is justified. It is finely balanced, as my colleague Dr Webb has said—finely balanced in the Court of Appeal.

So I put it to you this way: monitoring is a proportionate and necessary response. But let us break it down even further. The first question is: what is the risk of harm if we do not go against convention? Well, we all know the harm that child sex abuse can do. It is extreme and long lasting in some cases. It is necessary to say—and I do want to say this—not all victims, of course, go on to be offenders, but the results can be long lasting and lifelong.

It is important, however, to notice in particular that historical sex offenders are the ones caught most by this bill, and I want to just reiterate that disclosure of sex abuse is not a quick process for most people who are abused and historical sex abuse disclosures are actually quite common and quite normal, and the harm done to those people who have had to live with that experience all their lives can be crippling. I have worked with people who have taken over 50 years to address what happened to them as children, and I have seen the transformation that happens when they are then able to disclose and deal with that in a sensitive and appropriate manner.

We do know that child sex offenders are often serial offenders. There are studies from the early 1980s which talk about first-time sex offenders, and what was often discovered there was that although it was the first time they had been caught, it was normally not the first time they’d offended. There was often quite a long history of offence behind every single supposed first-time offender. The risk of harm is high.

But is, then, the response proportionate? This is the second part of the question, I’d suggest. A register alone, I have to agree with my Green colleagues, would not be appropriate. A register alone is a penalising response, but this is not a register designed to penalise; it is a post-sentence rehabilitative condition. It enables officials to walk alongside an offender and to help them reintegrate, because we do have effective clinical treatment but we don’t have enough of it. We need this additional fence of the Police and Corrections being able to walk alongside our offenders until they can get into proper clinical treatment. In these circumstances, police monitoring is an effective and proportionate response.

But I do want to reiterate something else that Minister Poto Williams said. It is important in the way we talk about sex offences and sex offenders that we do not vilify. Intensive treatment can work, people do rehabilitate, and also offenders are so often family members, and it is family members they offend against. It is important not to vilify, because we know from clinicians that often the reason kids don’t disclose abuse is because they are scared of what will happen to dad or to uncle or to grandpa. They want the abuse to stop, but they love the offender. We need to be careful and moderate in our language when we talk about this if we want to make a real difference to the children who are being offended against, and I sometimes wonder if the reason that we are sometimes so unready to believe children when they do disclose is that we fail to recognise that most offenders are ordinary people, and that the dad next door can be the monster of our fears and our nightmares.

It is important that we take a treatment-focused approach, and it is important therefore that we make this register a reality for all of our offenders, but it’s important that we recognise that it is a step, hopefully, along the road to rehabilitation for these people, for the sake of their children in more ways than one. For that reason, I commend this bill to the House.

This is a split call. I call Melissa Lee—five minutes.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to thank everyone, starting from the Minister, the Hon Poto Williams.

💬 Hon Poto Williams: Thank you for the water.

Thank you for all of the work—and you’re welcome about the water—and I’d like to, obviously, commend the work that our officials have had to deliver to this House in the short space of time since the Supreme Court decision.

Having gone through the process of the first reading, second reading, and committee stage, I am still left with some questions, particularly because I think my colleague Simeon Brown had a very good point in his amendment. But I am left with the question: is the degree of criminality of the offending of appellant D, if the wording in our original bill had been clear enough so that he would have been placed on the sex offender registry in the original piece of legislation, so there would have been no reason for that person to end up in the Supreme Court—does that process diminish the degree of offence that requires the offence and the offender to be put on the sex offender registry?

That is the thing that keeps playing in my head. I can’t deal with it right now, but I think the very fact that we’re dealing with sexual offences against children is enormously serious, and the very fact is that we have a register of sex offenders who commit these heinous crimes against children. Because it is serious, their names are registered and they are followed—not literally, but they are registered so that the police can monitor them. When they come out of prison, they then have to register with the Police, Corrections, and the probation office to tell them where they’re going to be living, what kind of living arrangements do they have, do they have young children in their homes, what is their car registration, and what kind of internet service provider do they actually have in their home so that the Police and the Corrections and the people who are looking to relocate this offender back into society are able to assist him to, hopefully, not reoffend. I think it is really, really important, and I think the very fact that this offender has his own clause in the bill—appellant D has new clause 11 in the bill—it really concerns me. But I am taking the Minister at her word that this has actually been dealt with.

I just want to address the issue that Golriz Ghahraman actually said. She said, “Is the bill doing anything?” She said that the bill makes politicians look tough, and that is the reason why she’s opposing this bill. This bill does do something. The Supreme Court decision means that 600 sex offenders who were on the sex offender registry were wiped off—that’s a quarter of the sex offenders. This amendment that we are passing tonight puts those 600 offenders—those people who are offending against the most vulnerable children; offending, sexually molesting our children—back on the register so we can keep a watch—not us; the police, the probation officers, and the corrections officers, who can help them as well as protect our children. She said that it makes us look tough. This doesn’t make us politicians look tough; this actually makes us responsible.

The Supreme Court decision was three to two—it wasn’t a unanimous decision. That is the reason why we’re actually debating this. I just wish that we could send a message back with a unanimous vote to pass this so that we can actually make people understand that the intent of this Parliament is to say that there is retrospective law for sexual offending against children and that we are standing together as one voice—one Parliament. It’s just a shame that the Green Party can’t agree to that. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. I rise this evening to take this call instead of the Māori Party. I hear the whakaaro, the discussions this evening, where we talk about our tamariki—tamariki that we treasure as whānau amongst our communities, amongst our iwi and hapū and the places of which we come from. What comes to mind this evening is a whakataukī: Whaia te iti kahurangi, ki te tūohu koe me he maunga teitei.

[Seek the treasure that you value most dearly. If you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.]

As I reflect on the discussion this evening, that is a whakataukī that we share amongst our kids, amongst our tamariki. We encourage them to aim for that lofty mountain. I hear the sense, the call, the karanga, from across the room for kotahitanga this evening on supporting this bill and that we stand by our tamariki.

What this bill does is it ensures that our tamariki are protected through this bill, but it also isn’t an incredibly punitive approach to our offenders, because they also have the right to rehabilitate themselves, to re-integrate themselves into society. But I know the impacts across all of our whānau of sex offenders, intergenerationally, that impact our whānau, and intergenerationally it takes time for families to heal and to recover. What this bill does is take steps towards protecting our tamariki so that they can aim and strive for that lofty mountain, and we have a responsibility, as whānau members, as parliamentarians, to ensure that we take our best step forward to protect them. I commend this bill to the House.

Tēnā koe e te Māngai. I am frustrated. I’m frustrated by the suggestion from the Green member that because we in this House care about sex offending against children, that is the reason why we as parliamentarians are considering a bill with a retrospective provision, and that is why we are entertaining it—that somehow this debate tonight has been emotive lawmaking, that the parents in this House have been considering these provisions which perhaps are a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act because we are somehow emotionally invested in this, that we are somehow considering the rights of our children in an inappropriate way. I’m frustrated by that because I find that to be out of touch, to be cynical, and to be wrong in law and to mischaracterise the role of parliamentarians here tonight.

I have two questions for us to consider as we consider this bill. The first is: what is the rights balancing exercise that is before us? We’ve heard a lot of discussion tonight about this issue of retrospectivity and how we should consider it best. I think it’s really important, first, to consider that when Parliament first considered these amendments, it had the benefit of the Attorney-General’s reports which considered this possible incursion into the rights of people to know the law and for the law to be knowable. The Attorney-General provided his advice at the time about how that may be a breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. My point here is that Parliament passed that amendment with the full view of the Attorney-General’s advice. It knew exactly what it was doing in considering the retrospective nature of those provisions at the time; it chose to do that anyway—that is the role of parliamentarians. At the time, that rights balancing exercise was required. We needed to consider whether or not that retrospectivity was balanced in this situation. We did; we’ve had that debate, and it is appropriate that tonight we correct the drafting error which didn’t reflect that intention of Parliament at the time.

We also have to consider what rights are being compromised, possibly, on the other side of that coin. We’ve heard some submissions from my colleague Dr Duncan Webb, as well as the Minister in charge of this bill, Poto Williams, about how being required to register your personal details on a register which is only available to police is not in fact a penalty. I would just like to add that when you consider the other penalties that apply to offenders in this category—the other penalties that apply to child sex offenders—registering your name and giving details about where you live is a very minor infringement on your rights compared to the raft of other penalties which are imposed upon you. So when we’re considering a rights balancing exercise in the context of someone who has already committed what could be very serious offending, we should consider that that simple tool to allow police to do their job of making sure that the conditions are complied with and that police have that information which they need is in fact a really minor incursion. We should be aware of that before we bring emotive language about the rights of offenders into this debate.

My second question that I would like us to consider is the role of parliamentarians in this. It would be a mistake for any members in this House, and the Green member who made these comments, to hide behind what the Supreme Court said in its judgment, as if parliamentarians should play the role of Supreme Court judges. What the Supreme Court was observing in their judgment was that they did not have the power to presume retrospectivity, even though the Act in its purpose said that it was intended to be retrospective. They could not imply retrospectivity where they didn’t see it clearly.

Parliamentarians are asked all the time to consider those balancing of rights and to make a call. We should make a call tonight that we stand really clearly on the side of police managing child sex offenders in our community and protecting children and families in our communities. We should stand on the side of parents who care about this issue, and we should not consider that making law in favour of those parents, those families, those communities is somehow emotive and somehow not doing our duty as parliamentarians. That is why I strongly commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thought that was a very good speech, and I don’t want to risk the member’s career by saying it sounded more like a National Party MP than a Labour MP. I actually feel—[Interruption]. I’ll take that back. But I do have to say, though, she raised a very important point. And I think that, actually, there’s nothing wrong with introducing a motion into this House and into this debate. I think the one thing that we should remind ourselves tonight of is the fact that there are no children in this debating chamber. And, actually, they rely on us, as adults, to protect them against the adults that will harm them. And so I think the contribution was timely, and certainly much appreciated by myself in terms of starting to complete the debate in this third reading.

I want to acknowledge the Minister Poto Williams, and I want to acknowledge Simeon Brown, because they have worked very hard together. I think it’s been important for us to come to this House united on this bill. I am puzzled and confused, to be honest, with the Green Party’s position on this. I just wonder whether they’re a little confused on it. I want to acknowledge Jan Logie, who’s in the House. As an under-secretary in the last Government, she did a lot of good work around victims’ rights and sexual abuse, and I want to acknowledge that.

But I think this bill—

💬 Jan Logie: The sector opposed this legislation.

Well, I think you guys have really got this wrong in terms of opposing this legislation, because, what has happened here is the Supreme Court has quite simply come back and said to us—bearing in mind it was three judges and two actually were OK with it—as a Parliament, and said “Please be much clearer about your intent in terms of the intent of the bill.”

And I do want to acknowledge the advisers and the police advisers who have worked on this, because they have had to make sure that there is minute attention to detail to ensure, actually, that the bill does do that job.

I want to acknowledge our shadow Attorney-General Chris Penk, because he has gone over this with a fine-tooth comb. And when you talk about the Attorney-General’s report, I can assure you that if he felt the balance was wrong in terms of the issues raised by the Attorney-General, he’d be the first one to stand up in this House and raise it and highlight it. So it gives me great confidence from this side of the House that he has stood up very clearly and said that certainly the balance, in terms of protecting our children by making sure that these sex offenders are actually captured on a register, far outweighs any of the issues raised in the Attorney-General report.

So I just want to wrap up by saying that I’m very proud to stand in the House and support this bill. The Supreme Court came back to us three to two, the judges, to say that we need clarity around it. I think there is clarity now in the bill, and I’m very happy to stand and support it. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

E te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koe. Otirā tēnā tātou katoa. I’m pleased to be the last speaker in the debate tonight on the third reading of this bill; a bill that has gone through all stages under urgency. I have listened to the entire debate this afternoon and this evening, and for those who might only be just joining this debate now, it has been a really considered and reasoned debate across the House; all sides putting forward their really considered thoughts about why this is important, why it is important that we do it under urgency, and the reasons why there is broad support across the House—however, not that of the Greens—for this to pass tonight.

I often think about the speeches that we give in here. As a lawyer—and there are a few of us in the room—I think we were taught in statutory interpretation that sometimes the courts, and lawyers will use it, will come back to the Hansard and look at the parliamentary debates and try and determine what was the intent of Parliament when we were passing certain laws. So I often find it difficult to filibuster—you know, if we are required to do it, or those speeches that you give at short notice—because it doesn’t lend itself to helping when courts get stuck and they are trying to figure out, “Now what was the intent of Parliament in that?” So I think it is really important.

Chris Penk raised some really important points about the role of the legislature and the role of the judiciary and the separation of powers—again, all things that we learnt about at law school. It is interesting to have been part of the legal fraternity and to now be in the legislature and making the law. So it is quite a profound moment for me.

What is really clear is that there was a clear intent of the Parliament at the time for this law to apply retrospectively to those offenders, even if they were charged and convicted after the passing of the law. I think that is why there is support across the House: because we as politicians were clear about that. However, the point was made by Arena Williams, prior to me, that the Supreme Court and our courts can not imply that; it has to be explicit. So what we are doing here tonight is making that absolutely explicitly clear so that we don’t have this situation again. It is a lesson to all of us that we can’t necessarily foresee all of these things happening, but that is why we do the process that we do—we give it that scrutiny, we try and think those steps ahead, so that we don’t end up in this situation.

So the purpose of this bill—and I am the last speaker in all three readings going through tonight; so it has been well traversed. But for those who might be joining late: the provisions clarify the intent of Parliament when it passed the Act in 2016 for the register to apply to all individuals who have committed a qualifying child sex offence, irrespective of when that offence occurred. It is important that that bill passes tonight, because we actually are in the situation where some have come off the register and potentially a whole lot more will. So I do not want to prolong the debate any further. I commend the bill to the House.