Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill

Members, the House is in committee for the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill. Members, we now come to Part 1. This is the debate on clauses 4 and 5, “Amendments relating to overseas travel reporting”. The question is that Part 1 stand part.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I seek leave for all provisions to be taken as one question.

Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is objection. Therefore I call on Part 1 to stand part.

It’s a real privilege to stand and speak on, I think, this term’s very first committee of the whole House stage for a members’ day, so it’s good that it’s a good bill from a good man. As they say, good things take time, and I think this bill has taken its time to progress its way through the House to where we are now. I understand it was actually pulled out of the ballot, probably, back in early 2022—Mr O’Connor is in the chair and he could possibly correct me if that’s incorrect. But it seems like it was drawn in 2022 and if we just go back to that very first reading of the bill and understand what it’s actually about, we see that, fundamentally, this bill is about one thing: it’s about keeping children safe.

In this particular bill, we are looking at what requirements and what restrictions we, as a public, like to put in place for registered child sex offenders who have served their time in our prison system, are subject to the registration system and are then, as a right that they have, are entitled to travel to some countries abroad; and, when they do undertake this travel, what restrictions and what rules and what requirements we can put in place, as a Parliament, on their movements, on their activities, in order to make sure that when they are undertaking these activities, this travel, they are keeping themselves safe and that we are also ensuring that the children in our country and around the world are also being kept safe.

So that is what I understand is the purpose of this bill from Mr O’Connor, and it, essentially, requires a couple of things. It requires these individuals to provide additional information to the authorities about the date they intend to travel out of New Zealand; the names of the country that they intend to travel to; and, if they don’t intend to return to New Zealand, statements around that intention. That is what we’re looking at in Part 1 and around clause 4.

Then, of course, clause 5 actually incorporates Amendment Paper 175 from the Hon Erica Stanford, who worked with Mr O’Connor through this process, and there was an agreement reached to incorporate that Amendment Paper into this bill. That Amendment Paper is around sharing of information between agencies and disclosure of personal information. So I think at last point we were discussing this during the second reading stage, the paper may have sat on the Table still but it is my understanding that that may have been withdrawn because it’s been incorporated into the bill now.

So I wanted to go back and actually look at some of the information the previous Justice Committee actually received during consideration of the bill. One of those was a piece of advice from police, and it, essentially, gave the committee some advice as to what happens in other jurisdictions—because it’s important that we are aligning ourselves with comparable jurisdictions around the world when we’re looking at what restrictions and requirements we place on registered child sex offenders.

So the committee won’t be able to see this because it’s in teeny, tiny little font on half an A4 page, but we were provided with a summary table around what happens in countries like Australia, the United Kingdom, Canada, and New Zealand—and we’re actually out of step with those countries on a lot of things.

So, for instance, there is a requirement in Australia, the United Kingdom, and Canada for registered offenders to provide information on where they intend to travel. That existed in those other countries—didn’t exist in New Zealand. Timing of notification prior to travel: in Australia, in the UK, and Canada, actually, it was about seven days—in New Zealand, we were requiring it to be 48 hours. So part of what I think the member is intending on doing—from his experience and years working with the police—is align some of our requirements of what we place on sex offenders when they are wanting to travel; align that with other countries so we make sure we’re aligned with those jurisdictions.

The other thing that we’re wanting to do is align it with our own domestic requirements, because there are some requirements in law about what information is required by registered sex offenders when they travel nationally. They have to provide information about where they’re staying, what they intend on doing, how long they’re going to be away for, and, essentially, what they intend to do. That is, of course, in order to protect and make sure that we keep children safe and make sure that we’re aware of where these offenders are intending on going and what likely exposure they may have to previous victims or other vulnerable individuals who may well be subject to people who slip in their rehabilitation.

So part of this bill is actually aligning those requirements to what we actually already require of domestic travel, and it only makes sense that we do it for international travel as well. So I was actually quite surprised—and we mentioned this in the second reading and previous contributions—that we didn’t already do this, so this bill solves part of that problem.

There are a few other things I’d like to talk to later on in the committee of the whole House stage, but, hopefully, we’ll look forward to some more contributions from other members as well.

Members, the time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume in committee at 7.30.

Sitting suspended from 5.59 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.

Members, before the dinner break, the committee was considering Part 1 of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) (Overseas Travel Reporting) Amendment Bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, I had intended to stand and summarise the bill but Mr Meager has done that for me very well—far quicker off the mark than I am, these young blokes. You’ve got to be pretty quick, I tell you.

I would also like to thank Mr Meager. I think he and his committee have done a very good job of bringing this to this stage of the bill, helped by Vanushi Walters in the previous Parliament. Also, I’d like to welcome and thank the officials who have worked on this bill, who are back here after dinner; we’d sort of thought they might have got home before dinner, but a bad case, perhaps, of filibustering seems to have broken out in the Chamber. You never know when it’s going to happen. They can come like a fly, like the flu, like COVID-19.

Look, this is a very serious piece of legislation; a relatively simple piece of legislation but many of the speakers who’ve spoken in the previous stage have expressed surprise that we didn’t have this before, because what this does is bring into line the requirements that a sex offender in New Zealand has to report their absences and where they’ll be, what address they’ll be, and, importantly, whether there’s going to be children at that address. If an offender in Wellington wants to go to Hawke’s Bay for the weekend, that’s what they’re required to do. However, they can jump on a plane to Sydney, to Nuku’alofa, to anywhere else in the Islands, to Queensland, and they’re not required to make the same disclosures. In fact, I’m advised that about 20-odd offenders do that each year.

I was up in the Cook Islands earlier this year and I mentioned this piece of legislation to the Cook Islands Parliament. They were very interested in it because they see people—family members, generally—who are coming back; they see a vulnerability there. This legislation isn’t about the “stranger in the park”, which we tend to think about when we’re thinking of a sex offender; the person hanging around the school. That’s not the “why” for this legislation—when those people are caught, they’re relatively rare. This is for the 90 percent of the cases where the offender and the victim are known to each other, often because the offender has targeted, has through predatory behaviour put themselves in a position. But even that’s relatively rare. Often it is actually a close family member who will be the offender. This is my experience as a detective when I’ve interviewed these people, and a lot of the time they’re not the heinous criminals they are often portrayed as; they’re often quite pathetic individuals.

The best thing about this legislation is it’s removing them out of harm’s way, which this legislation is intended to do—to ensure that we know where they’re going to be, which is one of the best defences we have, and that does work. They don’t want to go back to jail. It’s a heck of a time for a sex offender in jail—some would say rightfully so—but they don’t want to go back. By making sure that we as a country are protecting our victims—and it’s all about protecting the victims—we are also making sure that they don’t put themselves into that position.

So the bill has come here. This is Part 1, and Part 1 amends section 21 of the principal Act, and it simply means now that section 4 requires that a registrable offender who intends to return to New Zealand would need to report each address at which they intend to stay while overseas, the dates in which they intend to travel to and out of the country, and information will be required for each country the offender intends to travel to and remain in for more than 48 hours.

Anticipating, perhaps, some of the questions: one of them may be about how enforceable this is. Well, like each of the Australian states—each Australian state has its own legislation—while there’s no requirement on the host jurisdiction to actually do this, what we do have is good cooperation between police forces. We have liaison people in Sydney in the Police. When I say “we”, old habits die hard. The Police have liaison people in Sydney and in Canberra, as they do in a couple of places in the United States, the UK, Europe, who, through their relationships, will be able to ensure that inquiries are made when necessary. I’m happy to answer any questions, particularly on Part 1.

It’s great to stand up in support of Greg O’Connor’s member’s bill here, and, as we did in the last reading, we salute his passion and dedication to this cause. As I think we noted last time, members are almost unanimous in our support, other than the Green Party, who have voiced reservations.

I’ve got a couple of questions. They pertain to Part 1 of this bill, and one is around the reporting time of 48 hours. The explanatory note to the bill says, “Section 21 … sets out when registrable offenders must report their travel plans to the Commissioner of Police, who maintain the Child Sex Offender Register. If they are travelling overseas for more than 48 hours, they must inform the Commissioner at least 48 hours before travelling (unless there are exceptional circumstances)”, and so the first question is: why do they have to be overseas for more than 48 hours? A lot can be done on the East Coast of Australia within 48 hours.

The second one is: how does it actually look on the ground? Looking at the purpose of the amendments here, which is to allow the New Zealand Police and the New Zealand Customs Service to use their networks to better protect children in countries where offenders travel and to identify cases of sex tourism, noting that these amendments would align reporting requirements with domestic and international travel—but how does that actually work on the ground?

We know that this is about improved international cooperation and protection, we know that this bill goes some way to demonstrate New Zealand’s leadership in protecting children from this exploitation by highlighting our protective reach beyond our borders, and we know that it establishes international cooperation and prevents offenders from using travel to avoid detection, but how does it actually work on the ground as far as a registered offender who intends to return to New Zealand would also need to report each address at which they intended to stay while they’re overseas, the dates on which they intended to travel in and out of the country—and, again, there is the 48 hours for reporting it to the police. How does that actually work—is my question—around the international agencies?

On the ground, what does it materially look like if that information is given to New Zealand Police 48 hours before they travel, and does that information follow them over the border to the New South Wales Police? Is that information held in reserve, and if an offence is committed or reported, they go back to New Zealand and seek what information they have sought at the point of travel?

So my two questions are around why have we put more than 48 hours, and why not just say that it is for those travelling overseas—period? What is the logic behind that, and how will the agencies between countries interact with that information at a material level, such as when the registered child sex offender travels, does New Zealand alert the next country, and if an offence occurs or an allegation is made, does that host country then contact New Zealand and obtain that information?

So I’d just be interested in exploring those two issues with the bill’s sponsor, Mr O’Connor. Thank you.

Yes, certainly, interesting points. As far as the 48 hours go, the 48 hours was in the original bill—as in the primary legislation, which it seeks to amend. It’s two 48 hours. It’s advising 48 hours before travel—before travel for 48 hours. And not having been involved in the writing of the original bill, and I’d take advice from the officials if I’m incorrect on this, I’d imagine that if someone had a job, perhaps, travelling to the Wairarapa or travelling around, going back and forth, it would probably be a little more onerous or unmanageable, so the 48 hours is simply, now, with an amendment, moving it from the original Act.

As part of the second question, it doesn’t actually change any requirements internationally. My understanding is that the way it works is that currently an offender will notify someone who’s a manager of the register and the manager of the register locally—bearing in mind each police district, I understand, has a register—will then notify, for international, the national office headquarters, who would go through the Interpol office, and Interpol would then be liaising with their equivalents in the country the person was going to.

As far as, yes, each jurisdiction—and the Canadians have just done the same thing requiring this—unless you have an international treaty—and there are some international treaties on cooperation—specifically it would require cooperation between agencies, which, I’m pleased to say, is considerable. Our liaison officers—you may have noticed I mentioned in my opening that our liaison officers exist and do develop those relationships. It’s likely to be that if the New Zealand—and bearing in mind if an offence is committed, there are offences here that, were this to be suspected, it would be relatively simple to get the agency’s cooperation to get it checked to see that they are where they said they were going to be.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually, it’s good timing, because I was going to raise a point around enforcement. The member Greg O’Connor referred to this, about there being some questions and some discussion in the Justice Committee about enforcement of the provision. There were some concerns raised that we may introduce these changes and introduce these laws, but the enforceability in another jurisdiction may be hard to undertake or to enforce. Of course, then we did have officials advise us that there are issues sometimes with enforcement domestically. So I would have thought that enforcement is not necessarily a terminal barrier to this bill progressing, because there are reasons that you would want to pass this legislation which aren’t to do with the enforcement and the enforceability of it.

Having the requirements in and of themselves may be a deterrent for the offenders. In terms of maintaining their commitment to any programmes they might be undertaking to maintain the conditions of their release, and having some requirements on them to do the reporting process—failing to do the reporting and the consequences of that may be in and of itself a deterrent, so it helps with that factor too. So the enforceability is not as critical a point. I wondered whether the member could comment on that because he, I believe, approached that issue during the select committee stage and had some pretty reasonable arguments about that as well.

Of course, part of the reason why we’re doing this is so that law enforcement agencies do have knowledge of offenders’ movements. I had looked at some of the original advice from Police about how the enforcement mechanisms are undertaken. When it comes to non-compliance domestically, it is dealt with on a case by case basis. Some of the consequences may be offence provisions, but some of the consequences are also contacting case managers and making sure that case managers engage with the offender. Because non-compliance could be a sign that their rehabilitation may be slipping, so, actually, it could be a good intervention point to make sure that whatever programmes the offenders are on, based on their offending, are being upheld. So I wonder if the member could address that point, and just clarify for us his views on the enforceability mechanisms with other jurisdictions and whether that can be comfortably overcome.

The other thing I wanted to raise was—just going back to my original contribution, not having time to finish this off—with some of the other differences from existing jurisdictions and trying to bring them into line. For example, other countries do have quite significant safeguards in place that we don’t have. Australia actually requires the passport of the individual to be sighted upon return. Now, that’s not a requirement that we have suggested putting into here, but it goes to something that I want to talk to you later on in Part 2—I’ll probably touch on some of the implications of section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—that there were some concerns about how some of the provisions may touch on the rights of offenders. I just wanted to make the point that in this part we have not gone as far as some other jurisdictions may have gone. So that goes some way to limiting the impact on the rights.

For this part of the contribution, I just wanted to ask the member his views on the enforceability of the provisions and whether or not he is comfortable with what we can do at the moment around liaising with our international partners, and, also, whether or not in the future there might be some things we could do domestically to make sure that the compliance of domestic offenders, and the requirements here for their travel, can be properly enforced as well.

I’ll just do that question. Yeah, look, it’s important—sex offenders actually have one of the lowest reoffending rates of all classes of offender. There’s several reasons for this. One of them is that often they are caught later in life for historical offending, so they may be imprisoned or punished later on in life, where perhaps some of those triggers for their offending may not be existing any further. The second thing is they’re heavily monitored. It’s also important to remember that where an offender is under probation or corrections monitoring, that will override these provisions. So some of our more serious offenders are still under supervision orders, and some of them quite strong supervision orders as well. Bear in mind, we’re talking about people on the register, which generally means their offending or their punishment has been dealt with.

I think I’ve also mentioned, in relation to the internationals, that this doesn’t compel. But I’m also advised, or reminded, by the officials that there is a transnational crime unit as well. I’ve seen that the interjurisdictional issues we often have with Australia or other countries also exist within Australia, within the states. It’s only in the latter years that they’ve even had joined-up intelligence systems, fingerprint systems—things like that. So when we talk about Australia, we actually talk about the states. Canada is a little different. Canada has one criminal code, where the Australians have, I think, eight criminal codes. So it’s important that we do understand that.

But as far as the enforceability goes—I mentioned before about offenders who perhaps go on sex touring. It’s important to remember, we do have on our statute book—I haven’t got it in front of me—if you do commit an offence, child sex trafficking in, say, one of the Asian countries, for example, you can be convicted of that offence here. In fact, ironically, it becomes then a qualifying offence to go on the register. As I’ve been at pains to point out, there will be people who, hopefully, will be caught by that, but, really—and I do ask the member to think about this—the danger is much closer to home than that. The danger is someone going to a family wedding in Queensland, from here. The Australians will let them in to do that; families, these people, haven’t offended. But making sure that they know that we know—I think that we can’t underrate that, and that’s really the purpose of this.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to thank, again, the member Mr O’Connor for bringing this bill to the House. As Mr Meager said, I think New Zealanders would be somewhat surprised that this regime doesn’t exist. I think this is a very important bill to actually close a gap in our criminal justice system and bring protection to these children or ensure increased protection for children in these sex offender cases. I also was lucky enough to be on the Justice Committee that inherited this, and I hope the member thinks that we did his bill justice in our consideration.

I also just want to talk a bit about Part 1. Obviously, we’ve talked quite a lot about the requirements that are going to be put in place for when sex offenders travel overseas, and the kind of information they’re going to have to provide. I’m interested in hearing from the member—because I think this will be interesting for people—how this is similar or different to the requirements when sex offenders travel within New Zealand. I note that we did actually discuss that in the committee and kind of contrasted the obligations for a sex offender travelling within New Zealand.

It’s important, because we acknowledge that there was some enforcement—and we were just talking about enforcement earlier. We noticed that there were some enforcement difficulties for cases of offenders travelling in New Zealand. So when we, obviously, considered the kinds of obligations we were going to be putting on people and the types of information and then this very important discussion about enforcement, I think it is interesting to hear how it contrasts these new provisions with what exists currently. So thank you—that’s my question.

The whole point—thank you, Madam Chair. The whole point is to align with overseas. So the whole point of the bill is to take what we currently do have and to ensure that it is actually used internationally. That’s the whole point of the bill.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to speak today on this bill and ask some questions, so thanks to the member. So rights, by nature, rub up against each other. We’re always weighing up rights of one group over another, and by nature they do this. So that’s why we have things like the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to help guide us.

I want to understand, in relation to the report of the Attorney-General, which found that the bill was inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, has the member considered the inherent tension between children’s rights and their right to be free from harm, which we all are dedicated to, and the right to the freedom from double imprisonment? Does he consider that children’s rights, in this instance, outweigh the principles of natural justice and the inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act?

Protecting children is important to us all. And I can see everyone here is very passionate about it, including the member whose bill we are speaking on. We need to bring bills that protect children, not just make us politicians feel good. So I want to know and really understand, has the member seen any evidence which shows how many children this bill is likely to prevent sexual harm to? What stakeholders and experts did he engage with from the sexual violence sector in drafting this bill to ensure that it does effectively minimise harm to children?

Of course we want to protect children from any kind of harm, and especially from sexual harm. So what advice has the member had on how to ensure that the bill is targeting higher-risk offenders and the sharing of the information between Police and Customs targets those offenders who are highly likely to reoffend? Has he seen evidence on similar schemes in Canada which only target those offenders who are high risk? And did he consider a similar scheme for this bill?

Rehabilitation is a vital part of protecting children and ensuring members of society are functioning once they are released back into society. Has he received any information or assurances from the Government that extra resources will be provided to Customs to ensure that they have the tools to work with offenders who have been on the register and are at risk of reoffending? Has he received any information or assurances from the Government that extra resources will be provided for rehabilitation of offenders on the register domestically to prevent harm to children? Because that’s what we’re all here to do, while still ensuring that they are not subject to potential hefty fines for the rest of their life or facing double punishment.

With one more reading in the House, there is a possibility that the Greens could support it. It’s my understanding that some level of travel reporting requirements for offenders on the sex offender register already actually exists. Could the member please share any detail about those travel reporting requirements and why the introduction of new ones will achieve reduction of harm to children? And did the member receive any advice on how child sex tourism or harm to children overseas from offenders in New Zealand could be better prevented without creating new inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act? Thank you for your time.

Look, a couple of issues there. I think one of the most important ones there—you talked about a threshold around serious offenders. Can I just say, if you have a look at the legislation and look at the list of offences in the Schedule which are qualifying offences, I think you can be satisfied—or certainly I’m satisfied by looking at—that that you have to be a serious offender to get on the register on the first place. This is not a randomised population. These are people who have qualified for the register by—and I’m happy to share with the member what the qualifying are, but there is quite a list of class 1.

And the actual definition, broadly, is that a person is a registrable offender who’s been convicted of a qualifying offence—which is those offences I’ve spoken of, but I won’t go through in detail—and has been sentenced to imprisonment or has been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence and has been made subject to the registration order. In that case, an extra decision has been made by the judge that this is a person who, even though they haven’t gone to prison, still needs to be on the register. They’re not a registrable offender if at the time of the offence they were under 18. And these qualifying offences—which I think is the basis of your question—are class 1, class 2, and class 3 offences, as defined in the Crimes Act, and cover a full range of offending where the victim is under 16. So, again, without going through the list, it covers those serious offences in the Crimes Act.

Also of note with the international, a corresponding registrable offender is a person who as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction—and this may relate to some of the questions previous—has been sentenced to imprisonment or, essentially, would be eligible for an equivalent child sex offender register in their own jurisdiction. So, for example, if someone in South Australia was eligible or on their register, came back—and this could be the case with the 501s we hear so much about—they would go on to our register. So it’s a fairly high threshold to get on to this register, and it’s not permanent either.

Now, the other question you asked, as far as resource. Well, Customs currently, and Immigration, passports are checked, just to answer that question that came from my right before. There is actually a requirement to check the passport when they come back to New Zealand for offenders. As far as much of that work that member’s talking about, no, it is already done when the bill was originally written and conceived and has come to what we have today. So this is an amendment bill that really just speaks to those provisions that where the requirements of an offender in New Zealand which, by the relatively low rate I spoke of before for sex offenders, would be good evidence that it is probably working. There is no better evidence than that that these offenders have the lowest offending rate.

I think that covered all your questions. If there was anything else, I’m certainly happy to answer another question.

The Hon Mark Mitchell, then I’m going to come to you, Rima, because you’ve been waiting for a while.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Look, I feel fortunate that I happened to be in the Chamber when the bill came up, because, in the last term, I was on the law and order select committee that dealt with this bill.

The reason why I wanted to take a call is to acknowledge Greg O’Connor. Greg and I don’t always agree on everything, but if there’s one person in this Parliament that understands the risk that children face with these types of offenders it is Greg O’Connor. He was a highly respected police detective with an outstanding career, and he specialised in this area. In fact, I think—I may need to be corrected—had he been required to give evidence in court, his evidence would be considered expert evidence. So, when he stands in this House, he stands from a place of deep knowledge and understanding in terms of the threats, and he’s brought this bill because he understands that—he knows that.

It’s not a frivolous bill; it’s an extremely important bill, in my view. I’m pleased to see that it is passing through the committee. It was nice to see that the Greens member Kahurangi Carter indicated that they may even support this bill, and I would encourage them to do that.

I think that one of the questions that was put to Mr O’Connor was, “What evidence does he have in terms of how many children could be affected or impacted by this?”

💬 Hon Karen Chhour: If it saves one.

Minister Chhour makes a very good point—it’s the same one with me. Is one enough? Is just one enough? Because I think it is. I think that if all his bill achieved was saving one child from being subjected to a sexual predator, that is enough. And that should be enough for all of us in this Chamber.

So I just want to acknowledge you, Mr O’Connor, in bringing this bill, and I feel fortunate that I could actually take a call on it. I know that this is actually a bill that is going to make a difference and I believe, personally, that it is going to stop offending against our kids—and our kids are the most vulnerable people in our society. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Madam Chair, thank you. Look, again, I’d like to add my thanks and my gratitude to Mr O’Connor for championing this bill, and not only that but for having the foresight to see how important it is to make these changes.

As I mentioned during the first reading, to me, sexual abuse against children is a different level of abhorrent, and the child sex abuser is not merely an offender, but he or she is a life wrecker, a youth destroyer, and a thief of innocence. And so, for me, personally, yes, children’s rights in this instance do outweigh natural justice. And, as Minister Mitchell just said, if we happen to save one child from the abhorrence of sexual abuse, then I feel our job is done to a great extent.

So, Mr O’Connor, what I’d like to just explore, if you can please not really reiterate but expand more upon a couple of things. In the first reading, one of the members from the Green Party said that this only captures convicted, known offenders, and my colleague across the House kind of alluded to that just now in her kōrero. Can you just expand, please, your thoughts on that, on how, in light of what you said earlier that the thing with sex offenders is, yes, they’re one of the lowest reoffenders, but one of the reasons is because they haven’t actually been monitored before they’ve been caught? So, for me, I wonder: the lack of being caught, does that mean as well that by putting in these extra regulations, we’re almost certain that this will prevent sex offenders—will they think twice, three times, before going out of the country and trying to sexually abuse children?

The second thought I’d like, please, from you, Mr O’Connor, is to just expand on that example that you mentioned earlier—and we’ve spoken about in private before—about the possibility of sex offenders popping over to countries like Australia and about 90 percent of sexual abuse happening at the hands of people that are known to the victim. So can you give us maybe another example of how easy it is for sexual offenders to go under the radar under a pop-out visit from New Zealand?

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, well, I’d say that that’s the essence of sex offending—that it is under the radar and because it happens in families. Again, without the risk of moving off the topic at hand, I remember when I worked in Porirua—in fact, I established a sexual-abuse team out there in the 1980s—and we had several cases where offenders from families in Auckland had been moved on down to Porirua because of the shame in the families. They’d been found out in families, but rather than be dealt with, they’d been moved to Porirua. And three in about a fortnight came in, and in the case of each one of them, the victims disclosed the offending to school friends, and it came through the school. We work backwards on some of their offending. So these people do exist in a world where, as I said, when they do get found out, it’s so important that we do have them in a system that monitors them, because, as I said before, many of them are quite pathetic individuals who don’t respond to a lot of the same stimuli in life as the rest of us do, and so they need to be under this system of offending.

I go back to the question by our Green colleague about this balancing of the rights, and one thing I can assure is that with the register now, the monitoring that takes place in the register by the teams is commensurate with the risk. So the more serious offenders, those deemed more likely to offend, will have greater requirements placed on them by those administering the register. So it’s not just a one-size-catches-all, and that takes into account that—you know, people—even with the 48 hours and the questions asked earlier—are better off having a job. We don’t want it so onerous that they can’t ever work, so that may require them to move around. That’s where the 48 hours pretty much came from, I’m led to believe.

Kia ora, Madam Chair. I move, That debate on this question now close.

Madam Chair, thank you. It’s really good to see Dr Webb get to his feet. He had a number of contributions to make at the Justice Committee and I’m sure he’d be raring and ready to go to support his colleague in his member’s bill, but I’m sure he probably also supported it at his caucus as well. So I’m sure Dr Webb would have a lot to add and contribute to the committee of the whole House stage as we move forward. I feel like we’re just getting started, so I’m looking forward to a lot more contributions in Part 2, which he seems very, very keen to get on to.

I just wanted to do a little bit of admin as well. I wanted to just raise a point with the member Kahurangi Carter, who seemed to indicate that the Greens may not be supporting this bill anymore. My understanding from reading from the Hansard was that they actually voted for it at second reading, so if the Greens have changed their mind and if there is something in the bill that they don’t disagree with and they’re going to vote against it now, can they elaborate on that? Can they explain that to us and maybe offer some amendments? Because this is the only stage where we can change the bill in order to get it fit for purpose so that they would support it. So if the Greens are considering changing their mind from second reading, I’d ask them to make a contribution and explain why, so that we could perhaps make some changes at this late stage.

Then I’d just also like to point out that we have a section 7 report to consider. Part of the original Attorney-General’s report did talk about clause 4 and some of the concerns around clause 4. Coincidentally, we actually have the author of that paper in the Chamber with us today, so if the Hon David Parker had a contribution to make on the section 7 report and whether or not the changes that have been made in the select committee have dealt with some of those issues, I’d really appreciate that contribution. Because if Greg O’Connor is the expert in this particular area, then we must have the grand expert of section 7 reports sitting opposite us. So I’m sure the member would love to explain his view on this now, and whether or not he thinks that the changes that have been made in clause 4 are sufficient to overcome some of the concerns in the section 7 report that the Attorney-General at the time, the Hon David Parker, made and wrote and we considered during the select committee.

Of course, this is the last remaining chance to make amendments to this part of the bill, and so I did want to ask a question of the member. Given that the child protection aspect of it is the key part of it and we had submissions from a couple of submitters, including one from Piki Kotuku Mahuta, who, basically, outlined that child sovereignty is child safety, and child safety is child wellbeing. Did the member have any thoughts about expanding the protections given in the bill?

In particular, I want to look at this idea that we’re going to put some restrictions in place on registered sex offenders from travelling overseas. Was there ever any consideration of going a little bit further and maybe considering some requirements on prohibiting some forms of travel completely? That would provide the ultimate form of protection from those close family members, for those children who are family members of registered sex offenders who live overseas.

I would be interested in the retrospective aspects of the bill which will come up in Part 2, because that deals with some of the definitions. I believe, in the Attorney-General’s report that was presented to us, he had some concerns that if the provisions weren’t made clear that they were retrospective, he would probably have to issue a subsequent report. Now, I know that’s not within his purview anymore, but he is sitting in the Chamber and I would certainly respect the views of the member, given that he has very strong views on a lot of things in this House. But if I could ask the member whether or not he considered any further amendments to expand the scope of the bill, even at this late stage, that the committee could consider.

Look, a couple of things. In relation to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act, it’s important to remember that the same New Zealand Bill of Rights Act concerns were brought up from the time of the original bill—in fact, through two further amendments until now. Essentially, the balance that Kahurangi Carter brought up, that they have been balanced against each other and the rights of the offender versus the protection of the child—that’s been a constant through all debates on this issue.

As far as further—no; I mean, the reality of it is that, again, we’ve talked before about the people who are the most serious offenders. Many of them are still on Department of Corrections restrictions as well. A lot of it is family and going to family weddings where, perhaps, the ability to travel—a family member getting married or a funeral. It may be actually they that will suffer through not having a family member there as well. So I personally think, currently, a case, essentially, needs to be made, if not here, certainly when they get into the border, given what I’d spoken about before about the Interpol notifications. So it is about 20 offenders a year. I understand it virtually stopped—well, obviously, it stopped and even immediately following COVID, but it has slowly started to build up again, so this is not a theoretical piece of legislation; it is a very real piece of legislation which actually will be used.

I’m going to take another call from James Meager, but I think at this point we’ve all established that we want to protect children, and the member has made a very good effort to answer the questions. So any new details around the actual workings would be the things that I’ll be looking for from here on in.

Absolutely. Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to ask a question around clause 4(2)(c), and it’s a clause which outlines that “if the offender does not intend to return to New Zealand,” they must make “a statement of that intention; and” they must name the country that they “[intend] to generally reside in after leaving New Zealand.”

So I’m interested as to why we have inserted that provision into the bill. What would be our concern about the risk to people, and why would we want to basically have to have on record that the offender isn’t intending to return? Are we going to be passing that information on to the country of destination? I assume that would be the case because that’s why, in (ii), we’ve asked for the name of the country that the offender intends to generally reside on. Would we be using that as some sort of early warning system for the intended country of destination so that they can put some protections and some measures in place?

Because otherwise, if the offender intends to leave and does not intend to return, what would be the reason for us as, a country, as an authority, to need to know that? That a person is, for want of a better way of putting it, no longer our problem onshore? There must be some connection with the overseas authorities. Was it a recommendation made by officials? Where has that particular amendment come from?

I just very much wanted to finally touch on clause 5, “Section 43 amended (Information sharing between government agencies in interest of public safety)”. I just wanted to point out that in Amendment Paper 175 put forward by Erica Stanford, the wording is slightly different but the substance of it has been incorporated into the bill. So I wanted to assure all members of the committee that if that Amendment Paper has been withdrawn, it has been incorporated in here so that agencies do have the ability to share information. The reason it might look a little different is because we removed some of the specificity about particular agencies that needed to share information with each other, because the drafters and the officials—and I think the Parliamentary Counsel Office—advised that the way that it has been worded here will meet the intention of Erica Stanford’s Amendment Paper.

So just that question around that clause about intention to return, having to notify authorities here and having to provide the name of the country that they will generally reside in. In fact, having brought up that point, why would we not make some sort of amendment—or why did we not make it clearer that it may be the country or countries that they generally intend to reside in? Are there any further restrictions we can place on that? Because they might say one thing and do another, and I guess that goes to the enforceability point. But I’d appreciate the member’s thoughts on that point as well.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I think I have touched on this, but we don’t have any jurisdiction. This bill doesn’t allow us—and there are no bills, unless there’s, essentially, an international treaty involved, that can compel any other country unless they agree they will. But there are such provisions, not specific but certainly those cooperations generally done through Interpol and other agencies.

And, yes, the whole intention is that, if they don’t intend to come back, the best we can do is let the country that they’re going to know where they’re going. I think with modern passport monitoring, it’s generally fairly easy to track where people are going—so we’re notifying the country that they’re ultimately going to that they now have this offender. Even, of course, there will be occasions when offenders will be deported. Of course, that will be—and I talked about it earlier; if someone is deported here and they’re eligible, they’re on the register in that country, they can go on the register here under the existing law.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, sir, for the work you do. Having worked with many victims of sexual violence, it is a part of their life that stays with them for a very long time. And so often, as you have rightly said, the perpetrator was someone very close to them, someone whom you would never think would do that. And so, for me, I always focus on the victim. And whilst someone may not go overseas with the intention of doing this, it may just happen. Whatever we can do as a deterrent, I feel, is important.

💬 Rachel Boyack: Repetitive.

And I will get to my point. So when I look at what the information is that they have to give over, it is their address—each address. I suppose I’m wondering: is there any more information that can be asked of them as a further deterrent? For example, do they have to give names of whoever they will be staying with? Do you have to cite travel documents? Do you have to actually physically go to the Commissioner of Police to give that information? Anything that maybe was reversed during this process in the amount of information that had to be given just to pose as an additional deterrent to stop someone who makes a really bad decision and affects the life of an innocent child or person. Thank you.

I think, again, additional information, I mean the information of pretty much where they’re going to be staying, given that what I’m trying to achieve with this amendment is to, essentially, give to children living in their family home in Queensland or Apia the same protections as someone living in Napier or in Oamaru has, which currently is the whole intention of the bill.

I think we could sort of put more reporting requirements on, but, again, in my experience the more you ask for, the more it’s likely to be in the breach. Whereas, never forget what we’re trying to achieve here—well, certainly what I’m trying to achieve here—which is granting overseas children, in particular, the same protections that New Zealand children get from people who are on this register. That’s the essence of this bill.

Point of order, Madam Chair. Thank you. I can’t remember the Standing Order that we’re supposed to refer to, but I understand that all members are entitled to five-minute calls, and I wondered whether you wanted to grant the Opposition a chance to take some of their five-minute calls, because they haven’t had a chance to contribute yet.

Well, I think that this part of the debate so far—if you don’t count the bit before dinner, we’ve been going for close to 50 minutes now, and I think it has been a relatively good question and answer session, rather than a five-minute call session. As Chairs, we are encouraging people to get into the question and answer, so I think we’ll stick with the question and answer, and now I’m going to take a call from Rachel Boyack.

I move, That debate on this question now close.

So I really want some relevant calls here, because just remember that the Chair can also make closure motions. They need to be new questions about the enacting of Part 1.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question has to do with Part 1. So, first, on Part 1, I understand from Mr O’Connor that the most usual case which the bill seeks to prevent is offending from people who are known to the children that they violate and cause violence to. And there’s a possibility that there would be families connected to them in New Zealand as well as overseas.

And the question that I have for Part 1, because the bill specifies that we should monitor their movements and that they are required to provide their addresses and all of their details as they leave and where they will reside, what accounts for situations, Mr O’Connor, where they have given addresses for where they are headed but they will be on the move regardless? And on the move—I understand that you did mention that these are, you know, low-life types who may not be super-sophisticated and who prey on children that are within their reach, particularly those that are known to them. But could they be on the move, and how is it that the bill could address that kind of movement from the addresses that they have already provided?

Also speaking to Part 1, my question has to do with providing the Police with the opportunity to prepare and inform offenders that this will be put in place so that there will be an opportunity for everyone to be informed and to move accordingly and proceed on the basis that they are completely informed and have the opportunity to comply and be aware that the registration and the requirement for tracking their movement overseas will have already been in place. Thank you.

I have some questions on clause 5, which we have barely, barely touched in the past 45 to 50 minutes that we’ve been up here. And it is, of course, the clause around privacy. And I had two questions for the member. The first one was that I’ve been through the submissions, and I can’t recall seeing anything significant from the Privacy Commissioner. Now, we are dealing with a proposed section which would involve the sharing of personal information, so I wonder whether the member had any insight as to whether or not we didn’t receive some advice initially from the Privacy Commissioner—or “Priv-a-see” Commissioner, depending on who you ask in the House these days—because, of course, those parts of the submissions were done in the previous term where many members weren’t here. So if the member has any knowledge of the views of the Privacy Commissioner on that particular clause, I’d be very interested in that.

And then, secondly, just on clause 5(1)—and it’s an interpretation question, really, and I’ll read it out for you. It reads, “A specified agency may disclose personal information”, and then it lists a range of purposes, and the purposes include “monitoring … whereabouts:”, “managing … risk or threat to public safety.”, and “managing … risk that the offender may commit further sexual offences against children:”, and I wondered whether or not we may have missed a beat here when we say that the agency may disclose personal information. Should that or could that not be “must disclose personal information”?

If the purpose of this clause is to manage risks or threats to public safety, to manage the risks to offenders, and one agency requests or requires that information, currently the only obligation on the agency that holds the information is that they may disclose it, and there is no actual obligation on them to disclose it. It’s not the mandatory; it’s only permissive.

So I wonder, in the time remaining that we have officials with us, whether or not the member could possibly consult his officials as to whether or not a change would be appropriate there, because the risk I think we find with this is that while we have a lot of confidence in our agencies and we have a lot of confidence that they work well together and would share information where appropriate, it may be that there are some tensions between two agencies where one thinks that it is not appropriate to share that information, but the other thinks it is incredibly important to receive the information for monitoring, for managing risks, and for managing risks against children.

So I wonder whether or not to change it from “may” to “must” would be appropriate. And I think that this is the only stage that we really do get to consider that particular issue. And I know that we are possibly drawing towards the end of this of the part, but if the member could respond to that first question about privacy, then, perhaps, that gives officials 30 seconds or so to offer a view as to whether or not a change would be appropriate. And if a change was appropriate, I’m sure Dr Webb has plenty of blank paper at his desk that we could scribble on a quick amendment to table in the Chamber and then consider that amendment. But I’d like the member to at least consider that.

Yeah, look, I haven’t had a specific interaction with the Privacy Commissioner on this. However, in relation to clause 5, remember it amends section 43 of the Act, and the criteria of the Act enables “(1) A specified agency” to provide “personal information in the register to another … agency for …(a) monitoring the whereabouts of the offender: (b) verifying personal information reported by the offender:”—which is all very important material to monitor it—“(c) managing the risk that the offender may commit further sexual” offending, and “(d) managing any risk or threat to public safety.”

So I think, when you look at the criteria that are met, they pretty much cover what we’re looking to do, or what I’m certainly looking to do, with this bill, because that is the criteria applied. And any of those four criteria will trigger the release of that information. Bearing in mind this is information that the agency has, which is not on the register already; it’s the type of information you’re talking to. And that’s the criteria that is applied. It’s fairly comprehensive, really, as far as ensuring—and that was certainly what gave me the comfort, shall we say, that the member’s discussing.

💬 James Meager: Madam Chair.

I’ll let you ask a quick question while the member’s just getting his head round the answers that have just been put in front of him.

Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. Maybe I could clarify my possible slight concern. It’s not that I don’t believe that agencies would apply this section correctly and would release information where they are entitled to. My concern would be that if an agency requests the information and another agency which might not be as much of an expert in this area—and I’m trying to think of a good example off the top of my head. But, say, if the police requested information held by the health department for the most recent address of the offender, and in that instance, the second agency, or the requestee, is not obliged to provide the information despite the fact that those other qualifying criteria are met, the agency may provide it, but they are not obliged to provide it, even if requested to. So I wondered—and, hopefully, the member has some advice there—because I wouldn’t want to get into a situation where agencies are trying to obtain information for the purpose of managing risks and threats to public safety and another agency declined them, not because they didn’t think that it was possible to meet that end, but because they’re not required to.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to my personal information, I’m wary of “musts” because “musts” means lots of information, which means that it’s more likely something pertinent will be lost. My personal preference in these things is to make sure that you’re going to get the relevant information, and as soon as you start putting “musts” in there, then you come into a whole different criteria. You’ve got a whole different monitoring regime, but lots more information, which, when there is probably an operation failure—again, my experience is that those operational failures go looking for where there’s been a breach, and that’s where it will become the end in itself, rather than the protection.

So, again, look, there is no right answer to these things. Don’t lose sight of what we’re trying to achieve here. We just want to make sure, and certainly in relation to that, that there is the ability—and this is why I think the Justice Committee chaired by yourself, Mr Meager, actually did some very good work on that. In incorporating that, you referred to the fact that the Hon Erica Stanford had an amendment which was more specific than it needed to be, and so I believe that you were the chair of the committee that made the decision that these provisions would actually be sufficient to cover that.

Part 1 agreed to.

Part 2 Amendment to Schedule 1