Radhakrishnan Priyanca; Williams PotoPRIYANCA RADHAKRISHNAN (Labour): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It is an absolute honour to stand and take a call in the second reading of the Criminal Records (Expungement of Convictions for Historical Homosexual Offences) Bill. It was also an incredible privilege as colleagues of the Justice Committee have said before me today to be part of the select committee that considered this bill that heard the submissions to this bill and that received advice on it as well. Many people I speak to talk about the fact that at times things are rather adversarial in this House and again as other members have pointed out I wish they could have actually seen us in action at the Justice Committee because that's absolutely how it should be. It was such a pleasure to work with members from across the House on this bill in refining this bill.As has been said already this afternoon this is a piece of legislation that will introduce a scheme to wipe convictions of historical homosexual offences. It is a progression of change and it's one that as a new MP I'm incredibly proud to be part of. It follows on from the Homosexual Law Reform Act back in 1986 that was passed by the fourth Labour Government. You know the previous piece of legislation that actually criminalised homosexual men has ceased to have any meaning; it ceases to have any meaning for us legally today. But of course we've heard from those who have suffered for many years as a result of those convictions.It also follows on from the passing of the Marriage (Definition of Marriage) Amendment Act 2013 that allowed same-sex couples to marry legally and of course the apology that was given by the former Minister of Justice the Hon Amy Adams. At this point I too want to acknowledge the work that she has put into the bill and of course also our current justice Minister the Hon Andrew Little for carrying on with this piece of work as well.So this bill this piece of legislation goes to the heart of the hurt and stigma that so many have experienced over the years: young men we've heard who have been arrested and convicted for just being who they are; people—men—who have lived in constant fear of law enforcement the health including the mental health implications of this fear and the convictions as well all for just being who they are. And this is really what this piece of legislation does; it celebrates and it allows us to celebrate who we are by lifting that stigma and that hurt.So how does this bill work? We've actually heard about the fact that men with convictions for historical homosexual offences can apply for those convictions to be expunged. Basically what we're saying here today is that it never should have happened and with this piece of legislation it will be as though it didn't for the purposes of applying for a job and from the legal point of view. It won't completely be deleted from records because this is a record of something that's happened and really something that we're not proud of—a collective shame in fact.I'll touch on one aspect of submissions that were considered by the select committee that members haven't actually alluded to so far and that's the fact that some submitters—and I think the Human Rights Commission was one of them—suggested that it be an automatic expungement. That was considered by the committee but the advice that we received was that that automatic expungement wouldn't actually capture everyone who was affected by the convictions and that proactive application was a better way to go to ensure that a wider group of people or more people who were affected by this could actually apply to have them expunged. We worked incredibly hard to ensure that it went a lot further than the Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act as well such that it wasn't just that it wouldn't be recorded but that the effect would be that it ceases to exist in essence from a legal point of view. As was mentioned before this does apply to New Zealand law and—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): Order! The member's time has expired.