Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Thank you Mr Speaker and it's a pleasure to speak briefly on this bill the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill. I really wanted to just touch on a few points of constitutional significance. I note the Attorney-General's report which touches on the fact that in the Attorney-General's view the original legislation changed the penalty and in fact increased it by the imposition of the register and therefore where there is an increased burden across time the lower of those two penal burdens should be borne by the offender. The register arguably—look it's a register of addresses personal details and so on so that the police can monitor people who are a risk to the community and it certainly isn't intended to be a form of punishment. It's simply there for the safety of the community. So I think when the balancing is done in terms of the burden of retrospectivity such as it is it's very modest indeed. Of course the other point around retrospectivity—and I accept absolutely the importance of the presumption against retrospectivity. The point is that as we look through the decisions of the courts in this case it's been very finely balanced indeed. I think in this House where we've largely come together on the point we accept that the legislature's original intention was that it would capture all sex offending and not only sex offending after the date in question. So that's the first point. Whilst I absolutely accept the retrospectivity point it is a very weak one in this case indeed. I also want to touch on the point that the appellant in this case is excluded from it and I accept Mr Brown's observations that to him it may seem unusual. There are essentially two principles in play here and Mr Penk also observed that. I think he said something like Who makes the rules?" Obviously Parliament in this case is supreme. However there is another strong constitutional principle that I don't think has been identified and that is that when a court has made a decision about rights which apply to a particular person this House should be extremely reluctant to take those rights away. We might not like the rights that the court has accorded to this person. The court has said in respect of this offender that "The law is not retrospective and your name need not go on that register." That's the Supreme Court and that is the final decision of the highest court in the land and we must respect that. So whilst we need to fix the law in respect of those 600 other offenders it is quite appropriate that this House does not go back and rewrite a decision of the Supreme Court. We must absolutely respect the judgment of those lawyers and scholars but—absolutely—at the same time move on and fix it in respect of all of those other offenders who haven't had their particular cases before the court and haven't crystallised that right to not go on the sex offenders register. So I wanted to really take this moment to say that this is actually an interesting and important piece of legislation both because it preserves and protects the safety of our communities and because it is a good and elegant solution to a relatively complex constitutional problem relating to the relationship between this House and our courts. Thank you Mr Speaker."