Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of ACT and speak to the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. I really appreciate that this has been brought to the House. It’s an issue that many parents are very worried about, and it’s important that laws keep up with technology and that we’re protecting our children and our young people from great harm that can happen. No longer is it just past the fence and down the street that your children are in danger; it can actually be on the screen in your child’s bedroom. So I think it’s really important that we deal with these issues. ACT supports this bill and supports the direction it’s going in to protect our young people.

Now, as a parent myself with four children, a few years ago I was really concerned about this kind of thing with my children and what they were seeing online and what they were doing. As a parent with multiple children, it’s really hard to cut off internet access to just one without punishing the rest. So one may be misbehaving online, and you’re saying, “I’m going to cut off the internet.”, and the rest are kind of feeling punished for that behaviour.

So there are multiple things that parents can do on top of what the Government can do to deal with this issue. There are devices you can buy which will allow you to monitor what your children are seeing and doing online and how much time they’re spending on certain sites, in order to keep them safe.

So online grooming involves predator behaviour from people who often disguise themselves as somebody else. With social media and gaming platforms, this can be quite dangerous for our young people, where they don’t know who they’re speaking to on the other side and they open themselves up and they’re very vulnerable. The consequences of online grooming can be very devastating. It can lead to children being groomed for physical harm, sexual harm, and it’s just something that we need to acknowledge is an issue and we need to try and get ahead of this so that we can protect our young ones.

There’s only so much that the Government can do. We can put things in place to try and prevent or to make people think twice before they’re behaving in inappropriate manners, but it’s also up to society as a whole to make sure that they are aware of what their young people are doing online. If they see that their children are upset when they’re coming off the computers or if they’re isolating themselves, ask the questions. If your child comes to you and says that somebody has been inappropriate or wants to meet with them and wants to do something that they feel uncomfortable with, as a parent don’t hesitate—ring the authorities and let them know that this is happening, because we don’t know what we don’t know, and authorities can only deal with this if we’re coming forward and standing up for our young ones. If we see behaviour from people online, the way they are talking to younger people online, it’s also our job to say, “Hey, mate, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that.” We need to be treating each other with respect online.

So this is all about technology in the digital world, which many adults are kind of stand-offish about because we don’t understand it as well as our young people do. But we need to understand that this can lead to fatal consequences for our young people. When they go and meet somebody without knowing who they’re meeting, we don’t know what could happen to them if that meeting happens. So this bill actually deals with that and makes sure that we are making this behaviour illegal and that anyone over the age of 18 that interacts with a person under the age of 16 is held accountable for inappropriate behaviour in the digital world, and it’s about time. Too often, we’re hearing about the pressures that our young people are going through on social media, cellphones, text messages, and even on the online gaming platforms that seem to be taking over at the moment.

So the sexual grooming offence will now align with existing offences in the Crimes Act—which can only be a good thing. It will also allow police a better ability to do their job without crossing any lines that would cause them to not be able to do their job, and so I think that’s really important too, making sure that the in-person behaviour doesn’t actually have to happen before consequences start to kick in. If the intent is there—if you are grooming a young people online and the intent is there—then you will be held accountable, and so you should.

So I’m really happy that this bill has been brought to the House. I’m hoping that it will make a difference when it comes to dealing with people that are behaving badly towards under-16-year-olds online. I hope this also brings to parents’ attention how important it is to actually know what your kids are doing and saying online. So thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call in relation to this very important bill. I want to start by making some acknowledgments and the first is actually the previous speaker, Karen Chhour, who delivered, I thought, an excellent speech and made some very good points about what needs to happen once—we hope—this bill is passed. She said we need to ask the questions. That is really powerful and that is, of course, something that we’ll all need to think about post this bill passing within this room but also out in communities.

I want to acknowledge the member who brought this bill to the tin, Ginny Andersen—now the Hon Ginny Andersen—and to just recognise her work in this area. By that, I mean this is not the first piece of work she’s brought before the House that concerns the lives of people who are vulnerable, so I am just acknowledging her, and acknowledging the member who is ushering this bill through the House, Angie Warren-Clark, because she is another member who in the past has done a lot of work in the family violence space, including with Women’s Refuge in the Bay of Plenty area. So just a fantastic team who I think is appropriate to bring this bill before the House.

In 2010, the word “catfish” started being used more frequently, and I suspect that was because there was a movie by that name that was circulating at the time. The term “catfish” really is about people who create a fake identity or sometimes multiple fake identities online. Interestingly, for some background, the term derives from the fact that they used to ship codfish in tanks from Alaska to China, and they’d keep them in vats in a ship. And by the time the codfish reached China, the flesh was mush and tasteless. So someone came up with this idea that if you put catfish in the vat with them, then the catfish would keep the cod agile, they’d keep them on their toes, they wouldn’t know what was happening. And so it was this terminology that encapsulates actually quite a broad group of people.

For some people, it’s purely about anonymity and having an anonymous identity online to be themselves. For other people, it’s about fraud, and there have been many people who’ve been subject to various types of fraud because of catfish-type behaviour. For others, it’s more sinister and it’s important where it is more sinister, especially where children are concerned, that our legislative schemes are responding accordingly.

This is a really fascinating bill in many ways, because it’s a bill that entered the Justice Committee actually looking quite different from the way it looked when it came out the other side. So I must also thank the Ministry of Justice officials for coming back to us several times and working with us to identify the true legal gaps in play so that we weren’t duplicating in terms of legislation.

So the bill as it came into select committee, did three things. It introduced two new offences: new section 126A, in clause 4, which would make it an offence in certain circumstances for someone over the age of 18 to digitally communicate with a young person under the age of 16. And the older person would have to have intended to mislead the younger person about their age and subsequently arranged to meet them. It also introduced new section 126B, which would make it an offence for someone over the age of 18 to digitally communicate with a person under the age of 16, intending to cause harm to the young person or being reckless as to whether the young person is harmed. And the third thing it did was it proposed to amend the penalty for an existing offence in the Act that relates to actually meeting a young person following sexual grooming—to increase that penalty from seven years to 10 years.

Now, we had a number of really thoughtful submissions before the select committee, and I may come back to a few of those if I have time. But, again, I really want to credit the Ministry of Justice advisers who came back to us to ensure that we understood the existing offences under the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act. I think what became clear to the committee as we traversed that space with the ministry officials is that much of what was in the bill at that stage was already covered by existing legislation. So the challenge for the committee was twofold. First, we had to identify the actual legal gap that we wanted to address, and we had to decide whether we were comfortable with criminalising something which up until that stage, and indeed this stage now, was, essentially, pre-offending conduct—so the act of grooming. The second test that we had to think about was our comfort level about the scale of penalties and whether they were comparable in terms of other like offences.

We did identify a gap, and one big gap in the existing law was that the law required an individual to travel to meet with the person that they’d groomed or arrange to travel to meet with them, or they needed to already have provided inappropriate material to that young individual. The committee’s view was that grooming, itself, should constitute an offence. The second issue was that the legislation that had been developed up to that stage, particularly under the HDCA—the Harmful Digital Communications Act—was geared to the changing online environment and, actually, the Crimes Act provisions were also geared in that direction. The committee had a long discussion about whether in-person grooming should also be a criminal offence, and this was something we received submissions on. We landed on the fact that it should—it very much should.

The committee worked very hard—again, with the advice of officials—to replace clause 4 of the bill, which had provided for the two new offences, with one new offence. The new offence would, essentially, make it illegal for someone over the age of 18 to communicate by words or conduct with a person under the age of 16, and, in committing the offence, there would need to be an intention to facilitate the young person engaging or being involved in conduct that would be an offence either in terms of the crimes against morality and decency, sexual crimes, or crimes relating to sexual exploitation of the person. So that was the narrow gap that the committee had decided that we were going to criminalise.

We did also look at the penalties scheme. So the initial penalties that we had proposed for the two offences imposed two penalties—one of five years, one of seven years—but when we looked at like-penalties under the Harmful Digital Communications Act, it was very clear that the appropriate scope of penalties was a maximum term of imprisonment of three years. So we amended our new proposed offence so that it would have a maximum penalty of three years. And in addition, we recognised that purporting to lift the penalty for the offence that was already a criminal offence from seven years to 10 years was inappropriate. So we, essentially, proposed deleting that clause in the bill.

A novel issue that we discussed in the room was the fact that we needed to ensure that police officers who were profiling themselves as under-16-year-olds to enable them to gather evidence counted as under-16-year-olds for the purpose of the bill. So that is in there as well.

Now, to close my remarks in relation to this bill, I just want to go back to the point that Karen Chhour made. YouthLaw Aotearoa made the very valid point that the big issue from here is going to be reporting. A lot of young people will not report. They will not report because they have been groomed. They will not report because some of them may have photos circulating of them already or held, and they will be in fear of those being released more broadly if they report. There is an obligation on our policy leadership, on our community groups, on our parents, and all those who support out there to ask the question exactly as my colleague has suggested.

I’ll close by again thanking the members involved. This is an extraordinarily important issue and bill. I thank the committee for their wonderful work in relation to this bill, and I would commend this bill to the House.

This is a shared call—five minutes.

E te waha kōrero o te Whare taupatupatu nei, koutou ko ngā rārangi raiona taika hoki ki tēnei whare, rarau mai. E mihi ana ki te Pirīmia tawhito, ahakoa kāore au i tino hāpai i tō ake kete aronui, hoki ora atu ki tō paharakeke kia pūrena tō kapu e te aroha pūmau.

[Mr Speaker, and the many lions and tigers in this House, take root. To the outgoing Prime Minister, whilst our philosophies diverge, return to your flaxroots so that the cup of family love can embrace you.]

Tā te Tari Taiwhenua whakapae, ka nui ake i te 450 tāngata kua kite i ngā kaiwhakawā mai i te 2015 mō te kawe te hanga te toha atu rānei i ngā whakaahua, me ngā hara e kōrerotia nei. Ko wai ka hua ko wai ka tohu te nunui hoki o tēnei mānukanuka. E ai ki a Manatū Wāhine me NetSafe me ō rāua karu whakarongo, 70 ōrau ngā taitamariki e pāngia ana e te kōrero kāore i whakaritea e rātou. Heoi, 20 ōrau i tonoa ki tuku atu tō te whakaahua ā-tinana kirikau, tata ki te kirikau rānei. Ka koromingomingo au i te rongo.

[According to the Department of Internal Affairs, there were more than 450 suspects who have faced court since 2015 in relation to possessing, making, or distributing objectionable child sex materials, sexually grooming minors on the internet, blackmail, and indecent communication. Who knows who can tell how extensive or large this problem is? According to a survey between NetSafe and the Ministry for Women, seven of 10 teens have experienced at least one type of unwanted digital communication in the past year, and one in five have been asked to share a nude or nearly nude image of themselves. I am disturbed by these materials.]

Tā tēnei pire kaupapa, he whakatahuri i ngā hara hou i raro i te ture nei te Crimes Act 1961 mō ngā tāngata hara pakake ake i te tekau mā waru tau, e whakamahi ana i ngā rauemi matihiko pērā ki a Pukamata ki te whakararuraru ki te whakanewhanewha i ngā taiohi pakake iho i te tekau mā ono tau. Kei te rārangi 126A me 126B e kitea ana tōna takotoranga e hāngai ana ki ngā hara mahimahi onioni nei. Ki tō mātou whakaaro, me aro atu ngā hara hou ki tō te utu hara e rure ana ki te ture i tēnei wā—arā te rārangi 124(a) o te Crimes Act, me te rārangi 22 o te Harmful Digital Communications Act. Me hāngai ia ture ki ia ture, kaua e noho wehewehe rangirua hoki.

[This bill’s purpose is to amend offences under the Crimes Act 1961 regarding persons over 18 who have used digital communications like Facebook to trouble or mislead young people under 16 years of age. The proposal includes sections 126A and 126B, which more closely aligns with the sexual crimes section of the Crimes Act. In our view, any new offence should carry a penalty that aligns more closely with penalties for existing offences—e.g., section 124A of the Crimes Act, and section 22 of the Harmful Digital Communications Act. Laws should generally maintain consistency, not ambiguity.]

Kua roa tātou e kite ana i te mahi tino hangarau, tino kino rawa ki te hunga tamariki. He wai kei aku kamo, he riri kei taku rae, i te rongo ki ēnei momo kōrero ki runga pouaka whakaata ki runga reo irirangi rānei. Me manaaki tātou i ā tātou tamariki, mokopuna, kaumātua hoki. Tahi rā au ka whakaritea a Qustodio ki ā māua pūru taitama tokorua.

[We have spent many years seeing poor behaviour towards tamariki. Tears come to the eyelid, and anger to the forehead, when you hear about this behaviour by way of television or radio. We should care for our children, grandchildren, and elders too. I just coordinated Qustodio on my children’s devices.]

Kei te piki haere te tokopae tamariki e whai ana i ngā rauemi matihiko, ahakoa ngā mānakanaka o te utu ora. Āku taitama, he kaha nō rāua ki te hono atu ki ō rātou hoa mā te rorohiko, he kaingakau hoki ki ngā kaiwaiata me ngā kaiwhakaari ki runga i a YouTube me ērā momo paetuku. Ka rawe hoki te kemu Minecraft me Roblox, heoi, ka ngana hoki ki te āta mātakitaki te āta rongo ki ngā reo i te kaiwhakaatu a Rewi Attenborough mā. Heoi, he tūraru nui kei te pupu mai i ēnei mahi arā te mahi kirehe a te tangata e hara ana ki ngā kōhungahunga, rangatahi hoki.

[There is an increasing number of young people who are accessing technology, despite rising cost of living. My own sons are eager users of technology to engage with their friends, watch songs and other entertainment on YouTube and similar websites. They enjoy Minecraft, Roblox, and even the sultry tones of David Attenborough. However, there are also many risks and exposures of despicable behaviour by strangers.]

DEPUTY SPEAKER: You’ve now spoken for three minutes. I’d like you to now speak specifically to the bill, please. You’ve spoken in generalities so far. You actually now need to speak to the bill.

TAMA POTAKA: He take nui kei te haere, me pēhea tātou o te ana raiona nei ēnei tātarakihi kohete e whakamaru, e karo, e whakapau hoki i ngā mahi hara ki a rātou. Mārakerake ana ngā tamariki ki ngā kōrero a tēnā, a tēnā. Ka taea e te hunga nei te whakahoahoa mā te rorohiko; ka taea hoki e te hunga nei te uru ki te kapua pōuri, ki te kapua hara hoki.

[A big issue is going on, how do we of the lion’s den shelter and defend our chattering young ones, and also end crime against them. Children understand everyone’s statements. These people are able to socialise via computer; these people can also fall into misfortune, and also into crime.]

He hara nui te whāwhā tamariki mā te rorohiko, mā te rauemi matihiko hoki. Mā ēnei momo pire e whakarure mai i ēnei mahi hei hara i raro i te ture kia piki ake ngā ture whakamarumaru i te hunga tamariki. I tēnei wā, kāre he ture motuhake mō te whāwhā tamariki mā te rorohiko, kāre e taea te here atu i ngā tāngata hara katoa nā te rārangi ture. Tautoko te pire kia whakaputa ki waho moana. Kaua e riro mā ngā moana nehu o te tai pari, engari hoki whakateuta kia mana te kawe atu ki tōna tauranga. Kei te tautoko te Rōpū Nāhinara me te pāti kahurangi nei ki tōna, takoto ai. Kia ora tātou. 

[Child molestation via computer, and via digital resource is a huge crime. These kinds of bills will throw these activities under this legislation as a crime to improve the legislation that protects children. At this time, there is no specific legislation for child molestation via computer, and not all criminals can be apprehended by the range of legislation. Support the bill so that it makes it to sea. Don’t leave it for the rough seas of high tide, but instead return to shore so that the landing at its mooring is endorsed. The National Party and this blue party supports this bill. Thank you.]

Thank you, Mr Speaker, for the opportunity to take a call on this, the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. Can I also acknowledge Ginny Andersen—the Hon Ginny Andersen now—for bringing this bill to the Chamber but also honouring and acknowledging Angie Warren-Clark, our fabulous chair of the Social Services and Community Committee as well, for ushering it through to this stage, too.

It is an important kaupapa, and while I’m not on the Justice Committee, this is the second time I’ve been able to speak on this bill. As I did then, I would say now that, as a mum of three—and my kids are 12, 10, and seven—the online world for a parent is scary. I’ve said this before, and I’m sure every parent says this every year, but now, in 2023, to be a parent and have to deal with an online world is scary.

That’s what this bill does. It helps to keep our kids safe online—well, safer. It also makes sure that for those who set out to harm our children there are harsher penalties. Hopefully, those harsher penalties will act as some kind of deterrent to those that are wishing to go online, groom, and hurt our babies.

My children, just like everyone else’s, while they’re great and love to go out and play sports, they also love to go YouTube, they love to go on Facebook, they also watch rugby and things like that online, and they also game. Generally, they game with their cousins and their friends—but there are other people in those rooms; those groomers that this bill talks about, those people that are out there pretending to be their peers, but who are actually predators who go in to make relationships with our babies, with our children, in order to hurt them or get them to do something that’s not appropriate and can hurt them.

I think you can do everything you can—and Karen Chhour spoke about this—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Ms Ngobi, like the previous speaker, we need to speak to the bill in front of us, rather than generalities.

TERISA NGOBI: Thank you, Mr Speaker. Karen Chhour spoke about the bill and Vanushi Walters spoke about the bill as well, in terms of making sure that we’re keeping our kids safe—and that’s what the bill specifically talks about; it specifically says, “protecting our children” from those online groomers. Like Karen Chhour and Vanushi Walters said, in terms of teaching your children everything you can in terms of NetSafe, in terms of the tools that they need, there is that online world where you can only do so much and [Phone alarm rings] you’re relying on other people in there to be able to make sure that we’re able to—some digital stuff going on on the side here. We are relying—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: At this stage, you tell us how we’re going to do that in the bill, please, Ms Ngobi.

TERISA NGOBI: Yup, so we’re talking about that as well—we are, Mr Speaker.

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Well, we are going to or we’re going to sit down.

TERISA NGOBI: Yup, Mr Speaker, I will. So yeah, as I talked about, one of the things that we are doing is changing the penalties, as I talked about at the start of this bill, as well, and we do talk about the NetSafe, because the NetSafe is all in the bill. But one of the things that we did do is lift it from seven to 10 years. That, again, hopefully, will make it a deterrent for those that are looking to groom.

One of the other things that we did talk about and the Justice Committee chair talked about was that in terms of people reporting—our children reporting—there is that mā, there is that shame around it. I spoke in the first reading of this bill about one of my whānau members being caught up in this, thinking she had a boyfriend, and, at the end of the day, it was someone older. She felt embarrassed to report, and that was one of the issues that they talked about in the Justice Committee, as we heard Vanushi Walters talk about.

It is about making sure that as parents, and when we do usher this bill through, we remember that and make sure that there’s a safe space for our children to be able to report. The bill addresses some of the penalties for that, but maybe we should be looking at how that pastoral care goes in there as well, to make sure it’s accessible and children are able to be supported. This is a great bill, and I commend the bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Well, I’m pleased to be standing and speaking on the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill in this, its third reading. Of course, National supports the bill.

As we’ve heard, the bill creates those two new offences under the Crimes Act 1961, regarding the person over the age of 18 using social media or some form of digital communication to communicate with an under-age child—someone under the age of 16—with the intent to mislead that young person or to, indeed, cause harm to that young person. As we’ve heard, it is that act of grooming, that pre-offence behaviour, that now is being dealt with in this legislation. It would, I guess, have been a real catch-up to, rather than waiting—having to wait until an offence has occurred. Of course, none of us want to see that happening.

It is vitally important to keep our children safe. We’ve all talked about our children or our grandchildren being much, much more au fait with the digital platforms and the digital communications than those of us that are older are. I watch my four- and five-year-old grandchildren on their devices, and we can easily see how it could be that they could be groomed without having any idea that this is happening to them because—presumably under 16—they would be flattered by attention, and they would not know to think or look further as to whether that person might be intending to mislead them or cause some harm. They would be taking on face value the communications that they were getting.

I would have to say, there is some good work going on out in the sector on educating young people. I was at the Community Trust South, and we gave funding to organisations with the intent of educating young people on what to look for, what to be concerned about. So that ties in with this legislation now—that if they do identify something, then it is an offence and there can be penalties for it which are greater than previously. I was very pleased to hear an MP from the Government side saying that they would expect these harsher penalties to be a deterrent. That hasn’t always been the attitude of the Government about harsher penalties, but, certainly, we would hope that harsher penalties would be a deterrent for those committing crimes, and especially crimes like this.

So we are mindful of the need for this legislation. We are mindful, though, that it is only part of the task. As Karen Chhour and Vanushi Walters talked about, it’s the implementation, it’s the how this is going to happen for young people. So that education component will be incredibly important, that asking the question of our young people will be incredibly important because, quite frankly, having it written on a piece of paper isn’t going to necessarily mean that young people know how to report this happening—they won’t know how to deal with it if they think it’s happening, they won’t know how to get over the sense of shame or the issues around it if they have been caught up in this kind of behaviour.

So we are pleased to be supporting it, but, like others, we note that there will be work to be done afterwards. So we commend the bill to the House. Thank you.

Kia ora e te Mana Whakawā. It’s always an honour and a privilege to make a contribution in the House, particularly today on this bill, the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the member who initially brought this bill to the House, the—now—Hon Ginny Andersen. I want to acknowledge Ginny and the work that she’s done, but, at the same time, I’d like to acknowledge Angie Warren-Clark, in whose name the bill now is. She is shepherding this bill to its, now, final reading, and I am the last person to make a contribution on the bill.

I will take time to read out what is says about grooming for sexual conduct with a young person. I want to remind you, Mr Speaker, in case you think I’m reading my speech, that I’m going to read what’s in the bill so that everybody understands what it means. I acknowledge everyone who has contributed on this bill. One of the things that is really scary in the contributions is we talk about digital harm and the popularity of the internet and digital harm to children in their bedrooms with little or no adult supervision at all. In terms of that challenge, the challenge is for all the caregivers, parents, and all us adults to get to know how to keep our children safe in terms of using the internet.

I will now go to some of the evidence that was provided as to the reasons why this bill is needed and why we need to make this into law. As I’ve said before, the popularity of the internet increases harm to children, especially when they are experiencing it now. A survey conducted by NetSafe and the Ministry for Women found that seven in 10 teens surveyed have experienced at least one type of unwanted digital communication in the past. The words that we need to take note of there are “unwanted digital communication”. It also found that nearly 19 percent of teens surveyed experienced an unwanted digital communication that had a negative impact on their daily activities, and the most common of these involved being contacted by a stranger. Nineteen percent of young people surveyed have also been asked to share things like nude or nearly nude images of themselves. This bill makes it a crime to do that.

I want to read section 131AB, “Grooming for sexual conduct with young person”, which is inserted by clause 4. I believe that it’s important that it is noted in the House, and those who are listening will understand what that actually means. So section 131AB(1) talks about “A person aged 18 years or over is liable for imprisonment for a term not exceeding 3 years, if”. So that’s states that that’s an adult—over 18 years. It then goes on to say, “(a) they communicate by words or conduct with a person under the age of 16 years”. So that is defining what a young person is. And paragraph (b) states, “they do so intending to facilitate the young person engaging or being involved in conduct that would be an offence against this Part, or against any of paragraphs” and they are stated. It also states in subsection (2), “It is immaterial whether or not a response is made to the communication by the young person.”

I have read that because I believe it is important that people understand what an adult is—a person over the age of 18 years, and a young person, which is a person under the age of 16 years. And I spoke about the new offences because it’s important that we know that.

The bill as tabled in the House, and in the select committee, had proposed amendments. It increased the penalty from a maximum of seven years’ imprisonment to 10. However, that proposed penalty does not align with similar existing offences in the Crimes Act and the Harmful Digital Communications Act. So the select committee considered that in terms of the new section I have read out.

Today, we are going to hear a former Prime Minister of New Zealand—the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern—make her valedictory speech. I want to quote the former Prime Minister, because this is important in terms of digital harm, protecting young people online. The former Prime Minister said in many of her speeches, particularly the one at the United Nations in New York, that “We want to make New Zealand the best place in the world to be a child.” The reason I say that is because the Labour Party supports this bill, and it is one of the many things that contribute to keeping our and young people safe online.

I would like to take this opportunity to again summarise some of the changes and why we support this. As I’ve said before, I think, if I look around the House, we ourselves don’t know many of the friends and pages that we like on Facebook. We don’t know what’s behind that page. And the challenge that I mentioned in my opening remarks is that it is important that we as adults, we as caregivers, as aunts, as uncles of children and young people, know how to keep our children safe online. When you go online, there are many places that offer tool kits for parents as a guide to keeping children safe online. But the one I particularly liked was FamilyTime. Previously in the House, people had mentioned the question of reporting harm. I think there’s a duty on caregivers and adults to actually know how to keep children safe online. And in order to do that, we need a tool kit because we have to keep up with technology.

So I ask those who are listening to go to familytime.co.nz. It is an online safety tool kit for parents. It is friendly. It has lots of pictures. I know that many of us do a lot of reading, but that website is parent-friendly. We talk about child-friendly, but that is parent-friendly because it has to keep your interest to go past the first page. It is parentfriendly, and I urge everyone to go online to equip themselves so that we can all keep children safe.

So, in summary, our online spaces are increasingly becoming a space, an area, where this harm can occur. As I’ve said before, online surveys give us evidence that children are being harmed online. And I want to go back to acknowledging the Hon Ginny Andersen for her work in this area, shepherding this bill up to the second reading, where she became the Minister; and Angie Warren-Clark, who chairs the Social Services and Community Committee—the bill is now in her name.

As I’ve said before, I acknowledge the former Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern. As a Tongan living in Aotearoa, the Pacific people refer to this former Prime Minister as “the daughter of Niue”. And as I speak, I’m being emotional because she has done us proud as a Prime Minister, and it is an honour and a privilege for me to be in her leadership, and I hope that everything else I do is a reflection in terms of the leadership of our former Prime Minister. This bill, the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill, is an important bill and I commend it to the House. Mālō ‘aupito.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.