Sepuloni CarmelCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I am just supporting all of what the last Labour speaker said and also most of what the chair of the Social Services Committee Alfred Ngaro said as well. This bill does address a really emotive issue and the submission process and the submissions that we received on this bill were at times incredibly emotional. We got submissions from a range of different people: people who work with sexual offenders people who have been convicted of sexual offences people who have been victims of sexual crimes and people who work with those victims. So I think the submission process allowed us to actually explore this area quite thoroughly and we all got to the point where we thought that OK this is one measure but as Alfred Ngaro said it definitely is not a silver bullet to resolving the issues that the bill seeks to address.I need to say that one of the things we need to keep in mind here is that the purpose of this bill is to decrease the chances of reoffending. The concern that was raised the whole way through the consideration of this bill is that we are actually talking about a very very small group of people in the scheme of sexual offending. We are talking about the fact that only 1 percent of sexual violence cases will actually lead to a conviction so we are talking about a very small group of people who have actually been found out for having committed a sexual offence.The concern when we were discussing this was really that we do not want to give people a sense of false security—that actually somehow their children will be protected because of the fact that we are now going to have better data-sharing between Government departments. In fact the reality is that although we all hate to acknowledge this the real risk lies with close friends and family who have never been convicted or suspected of a sexual offence. That is something that we need to ensure that families remember—that it is not actually the ones who have been convicted who pose the biggest risk; it is the people in our own circles who pose the biggest risk to our children. So we do support this bill with reservations as has been mentioned before.We support it now because it is much clearer around the fact that this is a register that will be about data sharing between Government departments. As has been raised earlier it would not do us any favours if we had a public register. The research and evidence show that that actually does increase the chances of reoffending and we do not want that to happen. I know that there are lots of people out there and many in the general public who would think they want to know and that there should be a public register so that they can find out.Of course we can understand why people would think that. But we have the privilege of getting information of having the evidence put in front of us and we have to make the decisions that are best for New Zealanders and actually do protect the people whom we are setting out to protect. That means actually that it should not be a public register. That is the conclusion that the committee got to and that is definitely what the evidence that we were presented with said. So we are at the point where we agree that it is just a data-sharing register between Government departments and that is OK with us. It is just that we need to be clear as Alfred Ngaro said that this is not a silver bullet and it is not going to have very much of an impact at all. There may be a nominal impact but it will have very little impact in respect of reducing sex offending against children. We did raise the concern around the false sense of security—I have spoken about that.But also there were other concerns and one of them was actually just the sheer amount of money that is going to be put towards this. Looking at it the budgets that will have their base lines affected are these: $70.6 million from the corrections system $14.1 million from police and then $380000 from the courts system. So that is $14.1 million. It is a lot of money for something that actually as I said before may have a slight impact but will not really do much in terms of reducing actual sex offending against children.We needed to take that into consideration as a committee when we were considering this bill particularly in light of the fact that it was not that long ago when we had the inquiry into the funding of the sexual violence sector. So many recommendations came out of that in terms of what should be funded how things should be funded so that the sector can be more effective and address the needs of the people concerned. Unfortunately there was very little that came out of that in respect of Government action and Government taking up the recommendations that came out of the inquiry and so that is disappointing.Poto Williams: A missed opportunity.CARMEL SEPULONI: It was a missed opportunity as my colleague Poto Williams has just said. It was a missed opportunity and we have seen I think a slight injection of funding into the sector.Poto Williams: About $10 million over 4 years.CARMEL SEPULONI: About $10 million over 4 years but here we are taking about a data-sharing register that is actually going to cost $14.1 million—[Interruption]—a year Poto is telling me. It is $146 million over 10 years. So Poto Williams is part of this process too so we are just having a conversation as I do this speech in the House.Sue Moroney: Talk amongst yourselves.CARMEL SEPULONI: We are talking amongst ourselves. So $146 million over 10 years is a lot more than the $10 million that we have seen injected over 4 years for actions that actually have been advised on and that we have evidence to support would actually be much more effective than this particular measure. That is disappointing.I am not completely disregarding the work that the select committee has done on this bill to bring it to this place because as I said we will be supporting it. It is just when you weigh it up with regard to the other actions that could have been implemented and the need for that sector to have a much larger injection of funding then of course you cannot help but wonder how we reconcile these two things a little bit. That was a concern.Our other concern was that the submitters did articulate the need for the Government to place a high emphasis on investing in research and evaluation of other means of reducing offending such as specialist offender treatment primary preventative education as well as working with children young people families and communities about recognising harmful behaviour. That all makes sense to us but there is money required in this sector to ensure that those things can be done better.I am going to leave it at that and just say that I actually really appreciated going through this process with the select committee. I think that we did a good job considering this bill. We do support it with reservations and I have explained why and you know if it does have a slight impact then even a slight impact with regard to our children and what this is attempting to do is worth something. Thank you very much Mr Speaker.