Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill

Te Māngai o te Whare, tēnā koutou katoa. I move, That the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill be now read a third time.

I would also like to say kia kaha Aotearoa New Zealand. There are things happening outside our Parliament at the moment, and we need to remember that we are here for all of Aotearoa New Zealand. I’d like to thank the 74 submitters and the 22 oral submitters on this bill. And my recognition of our submitters really is about the sharing of their experience of intimate, image-based sexual abuse and matters to do with intimate visual recordings that they have not consented to being shared with anyone other than sometimes their partners or people that they’ve engaged in sexual relations with. But, in other instances, they haven’t given consent at all for that recording to be created in the first place.

I would like to acknowledge the advisers from the Ministry of Justice, support from the Office of the Clerk, the Parliamentary Counsel Office, and I particularly want to acknowledge Marion Clifford, who helped in the initial drafting of this piece of legislation. And can I also take this opportunity to highlight the leadership of Ginny Andersen as the chair of the Justice Committee, and also mihi to the other members of the Justice Committee. He mahi pai, and thank you very much for your diligent work.

At this, the third reading, I think it’s important to again highlight the significance of image-based sexual abuse. And to do so I found a piece of research titled Image-based Sexual Abuse, which was an international study of victims and perpetrators. It had over 6,000 respondents; 2,000-plus from Australia, from the UK, and from New Zealand. They also compared image-based sexual abuse between 2017 and 2020. The non-consensual sharing of intimate visual recordings has almost doubled, within that context—that three-year period. And this is related to the shifting practices in technological use in dating and also in how people are now having sex.

The problems that were identified within that context point to issues of victim blaming and also the minimisation of the impact of image-based sexual abuse. The key findings from that study highlight that women are the majority victims of image-based sexual abuse, but also younger people—those aged between 20 and 29 years, those who belong to sexually diverse groups, those who belong to ethnically diverse groups, and it also says that men are victims of image-based sexual abuse too.

Last night, in preparing for the third reading today, I received two emails from two women survivors of image-based sexual abuse. One had intimate visual recordings taken without her consent. The other had intimate visual recordings that she did consent to; they were shared between lovers and they were “for your eyes only”. Both were feeling let down by the current law because there were no charges able to be laid under the Harmful Digital Communications Act. One of the perpetrators shared these and didn’t intend harm; the other sold those images to OnlyFans to make a profit—OnlyFans, by the way, is a porn site.

From the international study that I quoted earlier, perpetrators’ motivations for this type of abuse are that they do it for fun, they do it to be sexy, they do it to impress friends. They do it to maintain relationships, for attention, for revenge, to embarrass their partner, to control their partner, for financial gain, and to obtain further images. In all instances, no, there is no understanding or thought to the harmful impacts upon the victim and there’s no recognition that image-based sexual abuse is harmful.

In 1998, academic Liz Kelly in her article titled “Surviving Sexual Violence” discussed how women were encouraged to deny or minimise the impact of obscene phone calls, of flashing, of peeping, of wolf whistles. Women were told just to ignore such conduct. Clare McGlynn and Erika Rackley who coined “image-based sexual abuse” in 2017 noted women being advised not to take online abuse so seriously and to get a sense of humour. Image-based sexual abuse is on a continuum with other forms of sexual violence and must not be tolerated. With this amendment bill we empower the survivors of image-based sexual abuse. There will be no need to prove intention to cause harm. There will be no need to prove the nature of the harm caused. If there is no consent, these sexual abusers are criminals under this law.

My Image My Choice is now a global campaign. It was started in December 2020 by victims of image-based sexual abuse to provide a safe and supportive environment for survivors to speak about their experiences of image-based sexual abuse. The goals are to change laws, to empower survivors with the legal framework to hold sexual abusers to legal account—that no consent to make, tape, or share intimate visual recordings.

I really wanted to end by sharing why it’s so important and what the harms of image-based sexual abuse are. A recent report titled Shattering Lives and Myths was conducted over respondents from the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. They interviewed 50 victims or survivors of image-based sexual abuse. Again, that was McGlynn and Rackley, who were part of the research team, but also Professor Nicola Garvey from the University of Auckland. Their key findings were that image-based sexual abuse shatters lives, that there are significant numbers of victim survivors who experience profound social rupture. Social rupture means that people break down in all aspects of their lives and, in fact, some women also suicide—that the threats that they experience are life-threatening and paralysing leads to intense isolation from friends, from family. The online world and society in general categorises many experiences.

Victims spoke of how the abuse that is constant, ongoing, and relentless shatters not only their lives but also the lives of those who love and support them. Image-based sexual abuse, therefore, is motivated by control, by misogyny, and also by a feeling of men’s entitlement and laddish attitudes. It causes gendered harm, and the lack of support leaves victims isolated and they have to navigate processes—legal processes—alone, often, most of the time. So what this bill says to survivors is that you are not alone, that Parliament supports you, that society supports you.

And, finally, to the survivors and, again, those who participated in this parliamentary process, ngā mihi aroha ki a koutou. Don’t stop using your voices. There is more to be done and Parliament—all of Parliament—is listening. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa. Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and thank you for the opportunity to speak for the National Party on this bill. This is my first contribution to the House remotely. I’m based in Auckland and have a household COVID situation, and so we’re all stuck here for the next few days, but it is nice to be able to continue to contribute to the debate.

This is the harmful digital communications amendment bill by Louisa Wall, a member’s bill, which is one which any member of the Parliament can put their name on a ballot and the House will debate the bills. We’re now at the final stage of this piece of legislation, which is designed to deal with a particular issue in relation to revenge porn, as it would normally be described, where intimate visual pictures are posted without the consent of somebody and that, obviously, leads to a dreadful situation. It was the previous National Government that brought in legislation that focused on this, and it did have a not untypical hurdle required, which meant an intention to cause harm in posting such pictures or videos. And I think the person who’s put this bill through, Louisa Wall, has made a good case that that hurdle can lead to too many excuses being offered, that “Oh, I didn’t mean to do any harm.” and has made it more difficult for cases to be prosecuted, notwithstanding the fact that a large number of successful prosecutions have been brought under the previous bill. So, on balance, we support this bill as a next step. We will be interested to review it, as we should all legislation, to ensure that it works properly over the next few years.

As I said, this is a member’s bill introduced by Louisa Wall. I would like at some point to see a statistical study done of the amazing success that that particular member has had in the drawing of members’ bills. I’d like to see the odds laid out clearly. I certainly would like to also join her bingo team if given the opportunity, given her incredible luck that she has shown in the drawing of bills over the years. And I’m sure she will be pleased that she has continued to make great contributions, certainly to the debate within this House, and legislation, as it goes forward.

In terms of this bill, which we’re looking at in the third reading, yes, we are conscious of the fact that the problem that has been focused on through this legislation is a real and urgent one. As everybody is aware, the ubiquity of smartphones in particular has meant that this has been an era, particularly for young people where, you know, material has been recorded and pictures have been taken in many circumstances more often than not, and with the vast expansion of social media platforms the opportunity has arisen for those to be shared. And so the consequences of this happening have become so much more rapid, so much more troubling for the victims of such a posting of intimate pictures or videos that could have a terrible impact on the victim.

The law has to move and respond to ensure that perpetrators of such a thing are held to account. And, you know, we can all talk about the circumstances in which this happens. It may be around blackmailing somebody. It may be around extortion. It may be around revenge particularly in the context of broken relationships. It doesn’t really matter what the reasons are for it. It is clearly unacceptable and this legislation will send a stronger and clearer message from this Parliament and from New Zealand society generally that we do not tolerate this behaviour and you will be held to account if you do it. The debate throughout the select committee process, such as it was, did look around that issue of intention to cause harm, and some amendments were made in the legislation just to clarify elements of that, and we supported that discussion.

I suppose the only point I’d make in conclusion is while this is a useful advance in a particular area of law and order, it does sit within a broader context of law and order that many New Zealanders are concerned about. It sits within a broader context of increased violent crime, a 50 percent increase in gang membership across the country, and a real sense of a breakdown of law and order in parts of the country. And we’re very conscious of the situation out in front of Parliament today being one example where New Zealanders are rightly concerned about the enforcement of the law and the speed with which that is done and a sense of disorder on our streets. I just wish and hope and would encourage Government members and the Government itself to continue to prosecute legislative change that helps deal with those much broader law and order issues that we are confronting, that increase in violent crime, that increase in gang membership.

The other blazing justice issue that we need to deal with is the incredible dysfunction or slowness of justice within our court system. That has been exacerbated by COVID but continues to be a real issue. Justice delayed is justice denied. So, even in the context of this bill, it’s all very well to pass legislation, but if it takes three years for a court to consider and deal with a case and a victim of a crime such as this, such as the posting of an intimate image, if they were to have to wait two years before the situation made it to court and had to relive and re-deal with all those situations two years after the event happened, then that is a hopeless state of affairs. So I just would encourage the Government in its justice focus to really look at those issues and make progress. When I look at the Government justice bills, I don’t see any focus on any of those issues. Instead, we see striking three-strikes laws and a range of other things, maybe some hate speech and other issues, all of which are reasonably important but not the fundamental law and order issues that we need to see addressed.

Having said all that, the member Louisa Wall, of course, is not responsible for all these things. She is one who has been very creative and thoughtful in the way that she’s come up with legislation before this House, and from what we see, this is the final reading of this bill and we in the National Party support it. Like I say, as with all legislation which more often than not has consequences that weren’t foreseen by legislators, we will three or four years down the line take stock of how it’s worked in practice and will always be ready to adjust and amend if required. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This bill, in the name of Louisa Wall, at its third reading, aims to prevent and mitigate the harm caused by image-based sexual abuse. As I’ve learnt through the process and the passage of this legislation, while we typically think of sexual abuse being something that would happen in real life, as the world has changed and as our lives have become increasingly transplanted to being on an online platform, so do the harms and the crimes that come with that online platform. Therefore it is appropriate that our legislative framework changes to protect those who are vulnerable and to hold accountable those who have offended. I would like to commend Louisa Wall, as the member in charge of this bill, as taking a real issue—a real issue that affects the lives of predominantly young women in New Zealand and internationally—and endeavouring to provide further protection for women against image-based sexual violence that occurs on a daily basis.

We know from Netsafe that approximately 5 percent of New Zealanders have reported being exposed to such events and activities, but from hearing submissions, I suspect that that figure is much higher than what we see, as we know in around a lot of sexual violence offending that the rate of unreported crime is high in that space. So it’s important that we take the time to debate this bill, and it’s important that we get that message out there that being exposed and being threatened with having nude images of yourself put online is not only unacceptable but it’s illegal once this bill becomes law.

So the problem currently where the law sits is that section 22 of the Harmful Digital Communications Act passed back in 2015 stipulates that there is a requirement that the perpetrator intended to cause harm. So while there’s the act of posting the image, the mens rea or the intent that the prosecution needs to demonstrate is that there was an intention to cause the victim harm. So it is very easy in a courtroom setting for that perpetrator to argue that it was a joke or it was done in jest, or it was unintentional or not required. So for that purpose, those images have been able to stay online, to be duplicated, to be shared, to be replicated on multiple different platforms, and having those removed is incredibly difficult once they’ve been uploaded. So there’s been a real barrier to law enforcement and to New Zealand police in the past because of the difficulty of proving that intent that the perpetrator intended to harm the victim as opposed to just show off to their friends.

So what this bill does is it introduces a new offence of knowingly posting a digital communication that is the intimate visual recording without the consent of the person who is the subject of that recording. So in essence, the mere action of posting that image without consent, there is harm implied within that action. So there is no requirement for the prosecution to prove that the perpetrator intended to cause harm. That is a significant step forward for victims of sexual violence online because it enables greater action to be taken early on for things such as take-down orders in order to remove those images as quickly as possible.

So why we support this bill and why this is a good move going forward is that we know that image-based sexual abuse is an increasing problem in New Zealand. As young people are increasingly using online platforms for relationships, for exchanging images, we need to make sure that there’s adequate legal protections of their rights and also the ability to hold those who are offending accountable. Image-based sexual abuse is most common amongst young adults. One support agency told media that five years ago they were working with victims as young as 15, but now they’re working with victims as young as 12 years old as more young people get themselves online. As parents, we want to make sure that our children are as safe as possible, even though they are engaging in online platforms more so than they have ever done before.

The next reason why we are supporting this bill is because of mental health. We know that the biggest impact upon young people who have those images of themselves unknowingly shared or against their will has a significant impact on their self-confidence, on their mental health, and their ability to grow up feeling strong, proud young women in New Zealand. Researchers found that the impact of image-based sexual abuse on mental health is similar to that of sexual assault in real life. Victims have reported experiences of trust issues, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and even suicide at points when there has been repeated sharing of an image that cause them real distress.

Victims are exposed to the threat of being stalked, attacked, bullied, and stigmatised, particularly if their contact details are published alongside their images. It only took through the submissions period to hear those sad stories of young women who felt like their lives had been ruined because a former partner or someone they’d had a relationship with had then gone on to share video footage or images of them nude. Once those images are available and uploaded onto different platforms internationally, it is incredibly difficult to remove those. So we heard stories of young women who had promising careers in certain areas who felt completely debilitated by the fact that a disgruntled or angry former partner was able to get revenge, was able to use power over them in a way that prevented their life from operating as it would have done before that image was shared. So it is only right that those people that endeavour to cause harm, and do cause harm to women, should be held accountable within the courts and within our legal system, and that is exactly what will occur going forward.

We need to also point out that this bill will protect victims. It’s a step as part of a wider suite that this Government stands strong by and is making sure that our legal system is more victim-focused, and that we look at things through the lens of how the victim is able to not only have rights but is able to make sure that their protections are guarded when they are going about daily work and activities such as engaging online.

We know, from all of the submissions that we heard, that there are some strong voices out there. I would like to acknowledge a few that that came forward and have been strong proponents of this bill. Netsafe came and stated quite well to the Justice Committee that in recent studies they found that New Zealand adults consistently perceive this activity as one of the most unacceptable types of online behaviour, and to note that. InsideOUT was one of the ones that gave a really great submission to the committee, and they acknowledge the effect of the harm on victims, and they referenced the significant effects of posting a person’s intimate visual recordings.

Also we heard from ones far out, such as Rural Women New Zealand, and they used their examples of their own members who had been exposed and gone through very traumatic circumstances. They stated that they believe that unauthorised posting of intimate visual recordings is consistent under psychological violence and/or coercive control. Many of those submissions talked about that power imbalance, that coercive behaviour we often see with perpetrators of family violence and sexual violence, and this is yet another tool along those lines of control over another person. And more often than not, it is a younger female that is at the end of that illicit intent.

So in terms of some of the changes that the committee put in place, we clarified the age of consent to make sure it did not contain a minimum age for someone to provide consent for an intimate visual recording to be posted online. It is important to note that the new section 22A(1A), set out in clause 4, sets a minimum age of consent at 16 years in line with the age of consent, which is also consistent with what’s in the Crimes Act.

I would like to commend Louisa Wall for seeing this bill right from the beginning through to the end. I would like to acknowledge all of the hundreds of people who have submitted to the committee, and I’m really proud that we’ve made good changes to a bill that will significantly not only improve the rights of victims but make New Zealand a better place for young women to grow up strong and confident. I commend it to the House.

Order! With apologies to the member again, but can I just encourage those members who would like to make a remote contribution that it would be very helpful to the order of the House that they indicate via the chat function that they will be wishing to seek a call. If the member who wishes to make a remote contribution does not seek the call via the chat function, the Speaker cannot give them the call. I would encourage a number of members who I anticipate, due to their speaking list, are going to want to seek a call—can I encourage them not to wait but to indicate via chat that they wish to do so. Apologies for that rather large missive; we’re all still learning.

Thank you, Madam Speaker—we are all still learning. I’d like to begin my contribution to this third reading of the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill by congratulating once again Louisa Wall who does apparently have the Midas touch when it comes to having member’s bills drawn from the ballot.

The National Party is happy to support this bill. We do believe it is a very important change to a piece of legislation, by closing an existing gap. We’re happy to see the passing of it today because it will now make it an offence for a person to post online an intimate visual recording of another person who, by definition, is “naked or engaged in an intimate act” without their consent. I think the member who spoke previously, Ginny Andersen, canvased very well the issues of consent and that power imbalance and the coercive nature that often occurs in these scenarios.

As the Opposition spokesperson for women, I am firmly in support of this bill. It goes without saying that the unauthorised disclosure of intimate visual recordings is a form of gender-based violence, and very shamefully for this country, it affects women at a significantly higher rate. I think, as has been canvased already, the societal consequences tend to fall more heavily on the female victim. I personally could not imagine a more traumatising form of manipulation or abuse, but sadly, though, studies have also indicated that it’s our rainbow community, and those youth that Ginny Andersen mentioned—the 16- to 29-year-olds, who are at a very high risk of experiencing this type of what can only be described as sexual exploitation. I understand—and I didn’t sit on the Justice Committee, but having read some of the submissions—that throughout the select committee hearing, as was canvased by many, many submitters, it is clear that any non-consensual sharing of intimate recordings could cause harm and should therefore be an offence. It is very clear that if there is no consent, then this is a crime.

So the purpose of this Harmful Digital Communications Act, which this bill would amend, is very clear: it deters, it prevents, and it mitigates harm caused by individuals through any form of digital communication or platforms—of which there is a proliferation online. Importantly, it provides victims of these harmful digital communications with a means of redress, but it is also a deterrent, and we know already the numbers are starting to climb. I understand that in December two years ago, around about 420 people were charged with the offence, while 270 were actually convicted. In 2020 alone, there were 106 charges, with 74 convictions. So it is good to see that this is being enacted upon.

Madam Speaker, as I’m sure you’ll know, National has a very strong record on recognising and updating law to reflect harmful behaviour in, specifically, a digital age. It is—as other speakers have referred to—an ever-evolving space, and it is so important that we legislators in this House ensure laws are modernised at every possible opportunity. So with this bill we will be able to further the work, started by the previous National Government, to limit the harm caused by actions such as this. Where people are made victims to posting of intimate visual recordings—or is often referred to as “revenge porn”—it can have disastrous consequences on those individuals. It causes irreparable harm. They’re often exposed to bullying, stalking, attacks, and being stigmatised. As Louisa Wall said, it does “shatter lives”.

This bill is a great example of a select committee process that further improves law changes. A Supplementary Order Paper that was put forward further closes some of those technical gaps that were found in the bill’s initial drafting, which give more clarity to definitions and add the ability for the courts to impose interim orders that can order takedowns or disable materials. So I would urge members of this House, and particularly of the Government, to continue work in this area, and to make sure that laws remain relevant to the times of technology—and, of course, do also serve to protect people in our society who are more vulnerable to crimes such as this. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Kia ora e te Māngai o te Whare. I have to say it is a particular pleasure to speak to you today on this bill, to commend this bill to the House—on a personal note—because this is in fact my first re-entry into the House. Earlier this year I had the misfortune to take a tumble on a tramp with my family. Clearly, I should have heeded the teenagers’ suggestions and allowed them to stay on their digital devices safely at home. But the upshot is that I am personally, deeply grateful for the fact that we are now in a hybrid parliamentary system and I am able to contribute here remotely and do my job for my constituents in Whangārei and, in fact, for all of the people who are going to be helped by this very important bill.

So I want to start first by congratulating my sister, by congratulating our wāhine toa Louisa Wall, and I want to start by congratulating those absolutely brave young people, old people, everyone who came before us as submitters. There was so much trauma and pain that they needed to tell us about, and they did it superbly. They were so brave. Their voices were raised, their voices were heard, and our voices now amplified them throughout the land to create an important law.

Now, there are a number of things that I want to cover, and I am going to cover them in some sort of order and this is going to be it. So the first thing I really wanted to talk about was just how important this Act is on a general level. This is a remarkable piece of legislation, and I’ve said this in second reading, but I think it’s worth saying again, it’s a remarkable piece of legislation for what it does for the whole panoply of sexual violence offences in this country. When we were investigating how this Act was going and whether this bill was necessary, we looked at the other pieces of legislation that cover off this type of offending. And what we saw there was that there is a sense that if you’re going to be offended against digitally, it was only women who were not at fault or had not taken agency who were going to be protected by the law, in many ways. So, for example, we start with section 216G of the Crimes Act, which is the upskirting offence where you will be prosecuted if you post unauthorised digital communications involving someone’s intimate person, but only if they didn’t know about it. Then you look to the Films, Videos, and Publications Classification Act, where, again, you will be prosecuted for posting indecent images, but only of people under 18. So, again, it’s a case of talking about consent, and these are children we consider too young to be able to take ownership of their sexuality.

Then you look at the bill that Louisa actually brought to us, and the Harmful Digital Communications Act was there for women who had consented to the making of the images. Oh, yes. But they then were forced to jump several barriers. The threshold of proof that was put in place there was punitive. And that is in three respects. So, first, you have that requirement that the offender be intending actual harm. And the reality, of course, as the previous speakers have said—and I really want to mention the speech of our chair at the Justice Committee, Ginny Andersen—is that a lot of the people who are posting these images don’t do it considering that they are going to do harm. They aren’t considering anything of the victim’s wants or feelings; this is a profoundly selfish—“laddish” was the word used earlier—piece of behaviour. It is a case of people who think they look cool doing this stuff. They think it’s some sort of trophy. This is laddishness to the extreme, and it was never going to be captured by this particular Act.

Then you get those appalling people who actually do this sort of thing for profit. And again, we have instances where we were being told that people weren’t being prosecuted because, oh yes, he did it, he admits he did it, but he did it to make money, so it doesn’t count. And then, turning to the other ways in which this Act was just failing, and particularly failing women, particularly failing our young people, particularly failing our rainbow community—and I echo Ginny’s statements when she said that she suspects the figure is far higher, because one of the things we heard was from Women’s Refuge, who said that 40 percent of the women who come to them have had this happen to them—40 percent.

How much of this shaming are people, are women, burying? Because I know women and girls, particularly girls, in my life who have had this happen to them, and it is appalling in its impact. But the way in which the Act then proceeded was to ignore the way in which this actually happens. It first required the reasonableness test: “Was it reasonable that you were harmed by this behaviour?” and then next, “Were you actually harmed?” And this is where we fall into a trap in the courts. While the courts are working really hard to pull themselves out of outdated ideas, the fact remains that we still have a judiciary who tend to underestimate the violence done by sexual offending. A bit of a laugh and a bit of a lad is still something that is seen as a real thing by some of our judiciary. We will work to change that, but in the meantime we’re changing the law.

So it is a very, very proud moment, and I am very, very grateful to be able to stand to talk to you about this now as we address some of the underlying misogyny that has been running through our law for so long. Well, no more. Because what will happen now is that we are, as the previous speakers have said, going to take notice of the obvious, of the innate, of the clear harm done any time someone decides to be so thoughtless, reckless, or just plain cruel as to post images of someone else without their consent.

I do want to address, also, the way in which we went about the question of age, because that was something that came up a lot. There were people who felt that we should have a firmer mechanism for recording the consent of these people who were making these images. It was felt that if we put in a requirement that if you wanted to post something, you had to have someone’s written consent—that would magically sort things out. But, actually, when you are talking about young, young people being targeted for this in such vulnerable moments of sexual intimacy, we didn’t believe that we could actually rely on written consent being given fully or safely. It was too open to manipulation, and we have seen that happen to women too often. So, instead, we decided to go with an age limit, and we have tied the age of 16 to the age of consent in the Crimes Act. Now, that still allows for the indecent images provisions to come in if it is necessary under the video classification Act, but we feel this is the safest and most sensible way to protect our young people and to ensure that in their vulnerability, they will not be exploited.

It is something where we struggled with the possible age of the offenders, because the fact is an awful lot of this is going on with some very, very young offenders and, in particular, young men. I am the mother of three young men, so I have a fair amount of awareness of their thinking. But it seems to me that we can still go ahead with this bill despite the youth of some of the offenders, because we can trust a world-beating, our world-leading Youth Court and the discretion of our police to ensure that our young people are not inappropriately criminalised when in fact an educative approach is appropriate. And for those under 17, of course they will inevitably end up in the Youth Court, and there it is a social response, an educative response which is used—and with great success on most occasions.

So to start to conclude, it is quite something—as someone who has spent a very long time on the other side of the lawmaking process, on the side that involves wigs and gowns—to come here today and to know that problems I have battled with on that other side of the lawmakers, in the courts, are going to be addressed for our women, for our young people, for our rainbow community comprehensively and in a way that will enable them to take ownership of their sexuality with pride and know that we are not going to tolerate the shaming—the sheer shaming of our young people. Your sexuality is there to be enjoyed, it is there to—[Time expired]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This my first time speaking via a Zoom Parliament, so it’s good to be here, and I do want to acknowledge that everybody who is in the House right now in person is probably quite anxious and experiencing the anxiety that comes with what’s going on outside.

I do want to begin by congratulating my friend Louisa Wall, the indomitable Louisa Wall, who got this bill to us, for magically having every bill that she puts in—and they’re always very good bills—pulled from the ballot, and for shepherding it through the select committee process, which was actually quite a difficult one, at times, in terms of the details of the harm and the experiences that were heard from survivors. I had the privilege of sitting through some of those hours and hearing firsthand the kind of far-reaching, very serious harm that’s involved, not just in the actual offending that this bill captures but also in the process that comes after, which this bill seeks to amend and moderate—which is to say, proving the harm in court. So I do want to acknowledge her, but I also, on that note, would like to acknowledge and thank the survivors, in particular, who came to the Justice Committee and did the difficult work of telling us what the harm looks like and what that experience looks like, through the justice process and also in their own personal lives as a result of this type of offending. And also, with them, I want to thank the organisations that have been working on this for such a long time, who also came: others have named them, but the likes of Women’s Refuge, who told us about the sheer prevalence of this that we probably didn’t know and were horrified to find.

This is about posting intimate visual recordings, being intimate, sexualised, nude images that often the victim will have consented to having made and shared—maybe not always, but at some point, most often, done with the consent of the victim—that then have been shared without their consent. As others have said, that victim is predominantly female, but this bill does cover men, gender diverse people, the rainbow community—all victims—acknowledging that, actually, the full spectrum of our communities are now engaged in making recordings and images that are sexualised, because we live in a digital world, and that harm can come from the abuse of that trust.

So what this bill does is take away the incredibly high onus that the previous law placed on victims to prove not only that the harm had occurred as a result of their intimate recording being shared without their consent online but that the harm was specifically intended by the offender. That’s incredibly difficult, and it’s also a detail and an onus that isn’t part of the defence. It would be the prosecutor who would have to prove that beyond a reasonable doubt. So the onus and the standard of proof were incredibly high, and victims, barely able to make it known—to make a complaint—in the context of the shame and stress of offending like this were then faced with meeting that incredibly high burden. So this simplifies the law in terms of acknowledging that this type of harm is innate if consent is breached in posting the recordings.

Actually, the harm, as we’ve heard, is incredibly deep and long-standing. Again, we live in a digital world, so having an intimate recording shared online affects every aspect of a victim’s life. So whether she misses out on work, whether she’s shamed and humiliated in her profession, whether it’s her community—and certain cultural communities, we heard, would receive this differently and have different levels of knowledge and understanding of how this might have happened without consent. Different levels of shame and humiliation and loss of face would occur from the victim having even consensually made the recording initially with their partner, for example. And all of that harm—to have to prove not only that it occurs, which is hard enough, but that it was specifically intended is just impossible, and, of course, victims were working in the context of suffering the grave mental health costs of even having suffered this harm.

I think the other thing that we have to hold, and that was repeatedly made clear to us, is that the actual making of visual recordings that are intimate, and the sharing of them, comes with incredibly high prevalence among very young people—so teenagers. That’s because there’s pressure. There’s a cultural pressure. Whether it’s direct and interpersonal or just broadly at school and tech or wherever they are, it is there, and they’re far more likely to do it. So it’s far more likely that they will be the victims of that recording being, then, non-consensually shared—whether it’s the space where it’s been shared that wasn’t their intention or the people that it’s been shared with not being their intention—and, again, that can harm them, irreparably, often, for a lifetime.

So that’s there, but also I think that the thing that we need to acknowledge in Aotearoa is that we are also dealing with an incredible rate of domestic and sexual violence—that we used to call an epidemic, but I don’t know if that’s appropriate now, living in the pandemic—and that this is part of that continuum. Often it will be as part of an abusive relationship, whether it’s young people or whether it’s much older people, that the harm is happening and is intended. So it’s part of a power and control dynamic in the partnership: punishing a person for leaving the relationship, for example; shaming and controlling them with threats that may then be realised once they do leave or once they behave in a way that the abuser doesn’t like. At any rate, whatever the intention of that abuse, it’s an incredibly dehumanising way of treating that person for having shared their sexuality and it is always abusive, always a form of sexual violence, and, in the context of relationships, a form of intimate partner violence, as well. So this bill acknowledges that, acknowledges that this is a huge problem that we as a community and society need to address, starting with acknowledging that the harm is innate whenever consent is breached, in any type of sexual act, whether digital or not.

One of the concerns that I will address that the Green Party has is the focus on imprisonment, because we know that that’s not always the most effective way of addressing criminal behaviour. It is our hope that while this House acknowledges this kind of harm and this form of offending and makes it easier for prosecutions to happen, we also continue to acknowledge that, for example, Māori are far more likely to be targeted by any criminal justice reform; that prisons in Aotearoa are overcrowded; that we do over-imprison; and that our rehabilitative measures are far, far less effective and less invested in than they need to be. This is actually an opportunity, in particular when it’s young people at stake, to educate and invest in preventive measures to protect victims and to prevent harm from happening, prevent offenders from offending. So all of that needs to happen, and the investment needs to be in mental health care and addiction treatment and resourcing community connections and education, as well. With that, I do commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I hope you can hear me. I rise—or, in fact, don’t—in presenting for the first time today via Zoom in this virtual, splendid House, with great pleasure, to support the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill at its third and final reading.

But before I start to talk to the bill, I’m considering some words that were shared with me just now by one of my colleagues, who was told when they saw the scenes outside Parliament today that we need to remember why we’re here. I do remember why I’m here when I consider what we’re doing here this afternoon. What we’re doing is we are continuing to work together to make things better for New Zealanders and for women, in particular, and for young people, for our rainbow communities, and for those who have been victims of this particular form of violence who haven’t been able to, until now, seek or receive any justice, and they have felt that keenly, as we’ve heard.

I’d like to acknowledge the Justice Committee, which has been very ably chaired by my colleague Ginny Andersen. So I would like to thank them for their work. I’m not a member of the committee, but I know that they have been working extremely hard, although, of course, not as hard as the Health Committee, which I’m a member of. They are working very hard and they’ve been doing some extraordinary work, and we are very grateful to them for everything that they’ve done.

I particularly want to thank my friend and colleague Louisa Wall for another piece of legislation in front of us that is going to make a real, palpable difference to New Zealanders—to us all—because although all of us aren’t going to be victims of this crime, many are. But I think that holding people to a standard that is higher is a good thing and benefits all of us.

I also want to say before I really go into detail here that one of the things that really strikes me is the need for me to share a little bit of a content warning. I apologise or, rather, I would just highlight that if you have been a victim of this sort of violence, I understand that us talking about it this afternoon is going to be distressing, and, certainly, the cases that I will be referring to—I’d just like to acknowledge the courage of the people who shared them, not just with the select committee but with Stuff reporters in various stories. It’s really to be commended.

We’re here because, as Netsafe have pointed out, up to 5 percent of adults each year in New Zealand have been threatened with this sort of personal intimate content being shared without their consent. So 5 percent every year, and I believe that half of those have actually been actuated, which is a huge number of people.

The Justice Committee heard from some of those people who have had that harm perpetrated upon them. Some of those people were brave enough to come forward and present to the select committee, and they shared stories that were very difficult to hear but, obviously, far more difficult to live. They have come forward so that we could make the changes to the current Harmful Digital Communications Act and make it better, because it wasn’t working, and I hope and trust that as this bill moves forward, that will change.

I’m speaking here not just for those people who presented to the select committee but also for people who’ve shared their stories—a Christchurch woman, for example. We heard that Christchurch police were unable to charge a man who uploaded a sex tape without consent because, as we’ve heard other speakers refer to, they were unable to prove an intent to harm.

The man, Jacques de Koker, had a consensual sexual relationship with this woman and she had consented, albeit reluctantly, to him filming them having sex—reluctantly—because he had promised not to share it with others. She, as my colleague Emily Henderson said before in relation to other people, other women, other men, and other young people, has done absolutely nothing wrong—absolutely nothing wrong. She’s had consensual sex, as we do, and she agreed to film that.

Intimate pictures, we agree, occasionally—I’m not speaking for the House or for myself, but really for the community. When intimate pictures are taken between consenting adults, consenting people, we agree to share them on the very clear understanding that they are not going to be passed on. We understand now that the act of sharing itself without consent is intrinsically harmful, and the need to actually prove harm is what has held people back from justice.

There’s nothing wrong, as I said, with sharing images of consensual sexual acts. The betrayal comes, as I said, by the sharing without consent to others. In the case I was referring to, the gentleman took the woman’s trust in him and totally betrayed it and totally betrayed her. He uploaded the footage to Pornhub. Multiple versions of the video were published, explicit descriptions, including the woman’s home city, were included, and although she’d asked him to remove them, he declined. At that point, in my view, he was aware that harm was being caused, but she had to contact every website herself to ask them to remove it, which is an extraordinary amount of work. That video, she said, has had 35,000 views and was live for a year.

Now, although she filed a civil case and was successful—the judge found that she, clearly, had not consented for the images to be splashed around the internet—the police were not able to proceed with the case with the law as it stood until this bill moves forward. The detective inspector confirmed that legal opinions taken under the Harmful Digital Communications Act as it stands said that Mr De Koker’s actions didn’t meet the evidential test under the Solicitor-General’s prosecution guidelines because the person who posted the material—the police had to be satisfied that it was with the intention that it caused harm, and that intention itself was really hard to prove, as my colleague from the Green Party has pointed out.

I do slightly disagree with my colleagues who have referred to this behaviour as laddish. I have a high opinion of men and I agree with the Women’s Refuge adviser who said that revenge porn is a strategy to degrade and exercise control over former partners, and we have seen the highlighting of a lack of awareness among police and courts of how these instances are really part of a larger and insidious pattern of coercive control and degradation.

I am really grateful to my colleague Louisa Wall for bringing this bill to the House. It’s an important piece of work, and I heartily commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I stand on behalf of the ACT Party in this, the third reading of the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill. I must say it has been a very interesting bill to work on. In saying that, I’d like to take the time to acknowledge the work of my colleagues across the House from the Justice Committee, the officials who worked hard on this bill, Louisa Wall for her initiative in bringing it, but, most importantly, the submitters—the 74 who gave us written submissions and the brave 22 that came in and gave us oral submissions. I acknowledge how hard it was for some of them to share the details of what is ultimately, for them, public humiliation.

The purpose of this bill is to make it an offence to post an intimate visual recording without outright consent, and it also allows for the courts to issue takedown notices. Usually, a harmful digital communication is referred to as revenge porn. It involves intentional, and often non-consensual disclosure of intimate visual recordings, and then posting those intimate images online, or sending them to others. The outcome for victims and families has been devastating on their mental health, and, at this stage, I think it’s important to acknowledge those victims who have considered, or who have even successfully taken their own lives because of this harm. I acknowledge the families of the victims dealing with the fallout of harmful digital communications that they have experienced.

Through the committee of the whole House stage, there were a couple of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that ACT supported. We supported SOP 82 under Louisa Wall, and we thought that this was important, and we’re glad that it went through. That actually changed the interpretation of a victim so that an individual receiving a harmful digital communication of another, not just the victim themselves, can be included. This was important when we heard of the story of a son receiving intimate visual communications of his mother from another man. This change allows for that son to be included as an individual that is also now a victim.

I was, however, disappointed that we did not manage to get a successful agreement to support the Green Party’s SOP 103, because that would have included legislating against the increasing rise of deepfake imagery. Deepfake imagery, of course, for those who are unaware, is where you have an image of a person, say their face, put on to someone else’s body, and this is happening more and more. We believe that there was a need in this bill to have that SOP 103 put through, identifying and recognising deepfake, because of the rapidly changing technology. This technology can be just as harmful as real imagery. We thought that SOP 103 was relevant as it was futureproofing, as well as acknowledging the increasing number of deepfakes that are occurring now. So we’re disappointed that Labour did not have the foresight to see that as well.

The safety of our community is paramount to the ACT Party. Women here are mostly the victims of harmful digital communications. But I think there’ll be a change, and we’ll see our youth coming through, also becoming victims, as well as offenders. We heard that victims sometimes find out about intimate visual recordings from others, and they often find that the recording has been downloaded and shared on multiple platforms, often internationally. Some of the submitters had said to us that there was nowhere for them to go, that there was nothing that they could do, and that there was nowhere for them to get help. I hope that when this bill is enacted it will give them some recourse.

I’ve got a bit of a concern, as I just mentioned earlier, a safety concern for our kids, for the future. I’m not young but I’m not that old, either. When I was growing up, we didn’t have cellphones as a teenager, and I remember video cassette recorders coming in, and getting really excited as a teenager. Teenagers nowadays have access to digital equipment that allows them to record and to post without care and, mostly, without supervision. They’re also asking each other to share intimate images of each other and not having a care for what they are doing with those images, or where those images go. I think it is the responsibility of us all to educate not only my generation that did not grow up with this technology but the next generation that could use it harmfully and not realise.

The world is changing, and it’s changing quickly. Technology is advancing at speed, and we need to constantly advance with it, protecting our community, our wāhine, our tamariki from the pain that technology is capable of delivering. It is the responsibility not only of everyone in this Whare but also those out there in our community. ACT are pleased to contribute to enhancing community safety by supporting this bill.

I first became interested in this law when I caught a news headline, and it said a man who uploaded a Snapchat screenshot of a woman—so basically, it was a modern digital version of a sex tape—uploaded it to multiple sex sites without her consent, and he wasn’t going to be charged for a crime. I thought, “How could that be?”, and then I saw a TV interview with the victim, or, should I say, survivor. Her name’s Tarryn Flintoft, and it was about her case, which to my mind epitomises the mischief caught by this bill and, gosh, what a horror story it was.

Tarryn spoke really bravely and quite compassionately, I thought, about what had happened to her. She said a man, her former partner, had pretended to be her and used the uploaded visual recording to engage in online sex with other men. So now there were two sets of victims: there was the woman in the recording and the men who’d been duped into having online sex with a predator man. Surely having an intimate photo or recording uploaded online for all the world to see must be one of the most humiliating and harmful experiences. It is a grave violation, and surely, therefore, subject to the full weight of the criminal law. Well, apparently not. Now, the man turned out to be National Party candidate for Upper Harbour, Jake Bezzant, and he wasn’t going to be charged because police couldn’t prove that he intended to do the woman harm. In fact, as she said in her TV interview, harming her probably wasn’t his primary intention, but harm her he did.

After a nine-month break from posting the recordings, while Tarryn thought her nightmare was over and she was trying to get her life together, the predator once again reposted the screenshots and the woman was victimised again. She was re-traumatised, she was harmed all over again, and yet the police could do nothing because under the current law—as we’ve heard today—if harm or intention to harm are not proven, then the police don’t have the grounds to prosecute. This misuse of intimate visuals can be done, as we’ve heard, to make money. It can be done as some kind of a sick joke. It’s often part of relationships which break up. In each case, whatever the reason, the posting of these images is just plain wrong, and, thankfully, that has been recognised across this House. So there is no public interest defence, there’s no threats to freedom of speech.

As a former journalist, it’s really interesting to me to see how my views on media freedom have shifted over the years. That shift parallels the shifts in the social media landscape and my experience seeing the real harm that can be done by unfettered media posting, and I’m thinking here of other digital media harms that have occurred: the harassment of TV personality Charlotte Dawson, or the intentionally harmful behaviour of bloggers such as Whale Oil. Actually, these examples were mentioned in this House by my predecessor in Dunedin South, the Hon Clare Curran, who did a lot of really excellent work in the digital space when the primary legislation was introduced into the House in 2015.

The posting of intimate visual recordings is at the hard end of harm, and research shows that the impact of image-based sexual abuse on mental health is similar to that of sexual assault, as we’ve heard this afternoon. Netsafe has been saying this since January 2019—including at the Justice Committee hearing on this bill—urging people to become aware of the dangers that this activity poses and urging us as lawmakers, actually, to do something about it. As we’ve heard today, the intimate images often go viral—I think I heard one of the speakers mention something like 35,000 views for one of them—as does the naming and shaming of victims, as do their contact details, and the public sharing of contact details puts victims at even greater risk of bullying, of harassment, and of physical assault. The harm of posting non-consented digital images causes harm to dignity, to privacy, to sexual autonomy, and in law these are collectively known as cultural harms. As Rural Women New Zealand told the select committee, the non-consented posting of intimate images is a form of control—a form of coercion—and often people feel so humiliated as a result that they can’t leave home. So they become prisoners to shame and humiliation through no fault of their own.

Now, we’ve heard these numbers a couple of times this afternoon, and they’re worth repeating. The Netsafe survey in 2019 found that 5 percent of New Zealand adults, or 170,000 people, had been the victim of online image-based sexual abuse, and 40 percent of the time that had occurred through perpetrators who were ex-partners. Now, the rainbow community is particularly at risk, according to the advocacy group InsideOUT in its submission to the select committee, and women are also particularly at risk, and the ages of victims are getting younger. I thought 15 years old was pretty devastating, and now the Justice Committee has been told by support agencies that kids as young as 12 are experiencing this extreme form of bullying.

Overseas research has found that 51 percent of victims of image-based sexual abuse have contemplated suicide. Now, we don’t have that research in New Zealand, but we do have one of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD. We all know that one of the main causes of that is bullying, and that’s according to the Mental Health Foundation. We need to change that, and we are changing that with this law.

As Netsafe says, the law needs to keep abreast of technology. So the effect of Louisa Wall’s member’s bill is to provide a legal restriction on posting intimate images without consent that does not need to prove an intent to cause harm, and in doing so, the bill recognises that the non-consensual publication of an intimate visual image is harmful in and of itself. So harm is implicit in the action, or the actus reus, as Ginny Andersen has referred to.

It makes it very clear that the posting of intimate visual recordings of another person requires voluntary and informed consent, and full knowledge of how the recording will be used, and it removes the requirement to prove that the posting has caused serious emotional distress. So this bill will help protect victims of image-based sexual abuse and enable perpetrators to be held to account. The maximum penalty for offenders has been increased from two to three years in prison, or a $50,000 fine, which it’s hoped will make people think twice before they actually post.

It’s been referred to, and I’ll turn briefly now again to Supplementary Order Paper 82 in the name of Louisa Wall, which amends the bill’s definition of victim. It ensures the law catches the situation where an intimate visual recording of one person is sent by that person to another person with the intent to cause harm, so that captures a situation where someone sends an unsolicited nude picture or picture of their genitalia to another person. There is a name for it that I won’t mention—thank you; everyone will get my point. I want to thank my colleague Louisa Wall for shepherding this bill through the House from whoa to go. Like others, I want to thank the submitters, especially the individual people who shared really tragic personal stories to the committee. I read some of them—thank you for your generosity in helping us as legislators to get this bill right.

Back to Tarryn Flintoft. I wanted to thank her for her bravery for sharing her story. It turned out that there were multiple other women who’d been harmed by Jake Bezzant in very similar ways, so her story flushed out theirs. Tarryn and the other women may not have justice, but they can take heart in knowing that they’ve contributed enormously to ensuring others won’t go through what they went through; or if they do, that their tormentors will face the full force of the law. So I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. And I’d ask, Mr Speaker, that you’d just allow me leave for a minute as the Opposition police spokesman just to thank and acknowledge the New Zealand Police. We’ve all watched today, as parliamentarians, the distressing images around Parliament—something that has been festering now for three weeks. The police decided that it was time to act, and I fully support them in that decision. What started as a peaceful protest with genuine Kiwis with real issues, I’ve watched over the weeks turn into something more sinister, where people attach themselves to the protest with an obvious intent of looking at a confrontation with the police. And I noticed yesterday on the way back to my apartment that there was definitely, without a doubt, a growing gang presence inside that protest.

I want to acknowledge the actions of our police. We have got a world-class police service in this country, and they have shown professionalism, they have shown restraint, but they’ve shown intent and confidence in the way that they’ve dealt with this protest today. And I’d have to say that if there are any police officers injured—and I understand that there have been some police officers injured, and I understand that there’s been some members of the public injured as well—can I just say that I sheet home any injuries, any violence today with the protest, because the police from day one have been very clear from the start to please leave, comply with their instructions, and leave the area. They have failed to do that. They’ve stayed, and they’ve stayed for one reason, and that is because they’ve wanted a confrontation with our police officers. So I just want to say that I’m extremely proud of the way that our New Zealand police service have conducted themselves today. They have still got ongoing challenges for the rest of the day and into the night, and I’d ask that members of the public support them and comply and help here in Wellington as they continue to try and dampen down what is a small group that is still looking for ways to cause trouble, violence, and confront our police service.

Thank you for allowing me to make those comments, Mr Speaker. Can I just say in relation to the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill—I have spoken to this bill on previous occasions—that I just want to again acknowledge and congratulate the sponsor of the bill, Louisa Wall, who, as other members have noted, has actually made a very big contribution through our Parliament with the members’ bills that she has brought to this House. It is an important one. I think that all of us as members of Parliament have had cases come to us from constituents with sometimes terrible cases of online bullying. And I actually can’t think of anything worse in terms of creating humiliation, psychological harm, depression, and sparking the worst possible outcome—and that’s suicide—than having an intimate image of yourself put out digitally on the internet.

The only comment that I would make, and I certainly tried to impart this lesson on my own children—I’m sorry, but it’s just a very pragmatic one—is that when we think about writing an email or sending an image or doing anything like that, the minute that you press send, the minute that you hand it over, then to a large extent you lose control of it. And so always just be very, very careful and thoughtful in terms of what could be the long-term implications of what you’re doing. In saying that, it is inexcusable and I fully support the intent of this bill and the powers that it introduces in terms of making sure that people are held to account for intentionally publishing intimate images on to the internet or digitally. Thank you very much, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise in support of this bill, and I’m very proud to do so. Sadly, I do know about the prevalence of this behaviour. I’ve brought up three children in a world that’s changed. And this is very, very common in that particular age group and it does irreparable harm to it. But I don’t want to stop with that age group because I think that this does irreparable harm to many people. And what I would make the comment about is that although this is something that has affected more women in the past and has affected the rainbow community, it’s also very likely affecting men too.

It’s really important that we see that bullying moves in its type, it changes shape as new tools become available. This is absolutely despicable behaviour, and we need to educate our young people as to the consequences of it. A good law doesn’t necessarily mean everyone gets imprisoned. A good law actually teaches people good norms and values. It says this is utterly unacceptable behaviour. And so those fines of $50,000, that possibility of sending somebody to jail for two to three years, is, hopefully, something that doesn’t need to happen because people change their behaviour and they see what they were doing is utterly unacceptable.

I just wanted to talk about that breach of trust that occurs because it is something that I think we need—you know, I heard one of the speakers earlier talk about how one of the submitters had “reluctantly participated” in the behaviour, in a way that seems to me what we always do in these situations, we talk about the “reluctant” participant. It doesn’t matter if the participants are reluctant, it’s absolutely fine that you are participating in a sexual act. It’s absolutely fine that this is going on. It’s not actually a problem. What is a problem is the breach of trust that’s happened in a relationship that is intimate and special. And, actually, when somebody does this to you, that is totally unacceptable. So there is no excuse and it isn’t about reluctance, it’s about actually accepting that we live in a different world and, actually, at the base of what is happening here is a behaviour that is an abuse of power. That is exactly what is happening.

So I wanted to just talk about what Dr Emily Henderson talked about, which is how this actually impacts and reinforces on the rest of the law. Because the words that we were using in the law, the need for intention, the need for harm—these are concepts that didn’t come from nowhere. They came from their own time, when actually those were the sorts of prejudices that fed in to our law in this area. So what this law does is it reinforces something really important—that our norms and values have already changed and that those things were no longer working for us.

I wanted also to talk to the fact that this is often used as a tool to blackmail people, because what we have actually got is people who have had this happen to them who start in a state of shame—which is why it was very important to me, in this discussion, to talk about the fact that there was no shame attached. Because if this has happened to you, you shouldn’t be starting with shame and you shouldn’t be worried about blackmail and you shouldn’t be worried about the things that could happen. You should actually feel that you are affronted, and we should be angry at this behaviour.

So I am very pleased to commend this bill to the House, and I’d like to congratulate Louisa Wall for putting something forward which is actually really significant for people out there. I am very thankful for her doing it, I’m thankful for the people who actually came and talked about what had happened to them, and I hope that we can see the line within this, the universal issue which is that, actually, bullying is not acceptable any more. It cannot just change form, it’s got to actually be dealt with. It’s an ethical issue for us all—we need to stop abusing power. That is in this area of people’s lives and many others. That is what the heart of this bill is about. I commend it to the House.

Kia ora koutou, Mr Speaker, and to the House. I thank you for an opportunity for me to speak on the Harmful Digital Communications (Unauthorised Posting of Intimate Visual Recording) Amendment Bill at the third reading. Again, as most of those this afternoon have said, I just say thank you to Louisa Wall for championing another piece of legislation to protect people, to care for people, and to ensure the whole wellbeing of someone who often is vulnerable in this space. This piece of legislation seeks to amend the Harmful Digital Communications Act 2015. And, very much, this bill is about introducing a new offence of knowingly posting a digital communication that is an intimate visual recording without the consent of the person who is the subject that is being recorded. We’ve heard this throughout the day.

Now, as a person who has worked with young people for many, many years, I understand the challenges that we’re facing in this modern world, and I was reflecting on it earlier. On my bookshelf, I probably have about five or six photo albums from all of my life before social media. I probably have taken more photos this year on my phone than are in all of those photo albums. We’re living in a different world, and as legislators, as leaders, we need to ensure that we are tracking, ensure that we are often playing catch-up—I’d like to say ahead of the ball for most things—but sometimes, particularly with things like cellphones and social media, it very much is a game of catch-up. For most people in this Parliament, we didn’t grow up as teenagers with a cellphone in our pocket and the ability to connect with the world but also the ability to be bullied, the ability to be harassed, the ability to take photos, whether consensual or not, and then what was done with those photos, which this piece of legislation is looking at.

As I reflect on our history and where we are, as a male speaking to this piece of legislation, I realised that we as men must speak up. I was going to say to our children how we live our lives better and how we do this better, but I realised, actually, I need to be talking to my peers, I need to be talking to my seniors, and I need to be talking to my friends about the fact that “Boys will be boys—it’s just a joke” is no longer acceptable in the 21st century. The whole phrase “boys will be boys” is just something that should be no more, and I believe that the taking and then the using of intimate photos is just another one of those often clubroom gags, it would be seen, or sharing it around with your mates. And, of course, as this legislation is about, it’s not stopping people from sharing intimate images; it’s actually around ensuring that they aren’t shared and they aren’t used to bully—they aren’t used to blackmail.

I was reading earlier from a survey—it was back in 2016 in New Zealand. It was looking around abuse and harassment within New Zealand. It said that 52 percent of women have experienced some frame of online harassment. This number rose to 72 percent amongst those under 30, and the same was for men—that the numbers under 30 were far higher than those over 30. So it shows that our online worlds have changed massively, that our under-30s and so on are so used to, now, the online world that we need to make sure we are here to support and we are here to ensure that people are protected. Looking through this research and reading notes about this piece of legislation, we also looked into the fact that this kind of abuse, this kind of sexual abuse and harassment, has mental health implications, and they’re very similar mental health implications to that of sexual assault: feelings of depression; feelings of helplessness; feelings of being violated or abused; feelings of being afraid; and, of course, feelings around suicide—and that’s what shame does, that’s what fear does, that’s what stigma does, and that’s what guilt does.

So this piece of legislation is around ensuring that people are safe online. There’s a lot more work to do; this is one piece of it. But it’s ensuring that people are kept safe online, and if I choose to, if someone else chooses to share an image, that can’t be used against them. I’m grateful to be part of a Parliament that is working hard for the wellbeing of all people but, in particular, of younger people. Again, looking at young people I’ve worked with over the years, at the age of 14, 15, 16, or 17 the consequences aren’t always thought through so much; the consequences aren’t reflected in terms of what could happen in the future. So I want to thank Louisa Wall. I want to thank the members of the Justice Committee, and those that have submitted. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.

Sitting suspended from 5.58 p.m. to 7 p.m.