Clendon DavidDAVID CLENDON (Green): It was very helpful hearing some comments from Minister Anne Tolley albeit I am going to disagree with much of what she had to say.I would just like to refer back firstly to some of the comments made by Carmel Sepuloni. Although acknowledging Labour's serious reservations about this legislation she suggested that the register might give people some sense of security. In fact I would argue that that would be a false sense of security given that the sad reality is that most offending of this sort—most offending against children—is perpetrated by people known to them. I have recently seen evidence that this whole programme around stranger danger we used to run in schools is to be abandoned because it gives people the sense that the problem is somewhere out there that it is external—somebody hiding in the bushes or behind the bus shelter. The reality is that sadly much of this child sex offending is perpetrated by people known to them; therefore the publishing of a list of names whatever one calls it really does not contribute much to resolving that problem.We have heard very strong arguments as to why this register ought never to be public and that rather graphic example of a fellow who had come out the other side and was working and contributing to his community having his house torched because somebody discovered that he had been a sex offender. It is almost inevitable that this register will leak. If you look at the list of agencies that will have access to it at the number of people working within those agencies it is inevitable that there will be literally thousands of people in New Zealand—and we are a very small community this country. We all know what a small village we live in. Inevitably it will leak and people will be victimised despite their not having reoffended. Despite their living good lives they will be identified they will be stigmatised and there is nothing surer than that those incidents will occur.Some provisions of the legislation almost invite the publication. I am particularly concerned and always have been about the provisions under clause 39. The Commissioner of Police is obliged to develop guidelines for the use of and access to the register—that it must be used for specific named purposes by particular agencies. But all of that gets blown out of the water by clause 39(3) which says: … guidelines may authorise the use of information contained in the register for a purpose other than the purpose for which the information was obtained if an authorised person reasonably believes such use is necessary to— … (b) prevent or reduce a threat to public safety". Nowhere in this document is that notion of a threat to public safety defined. There are no boundaries put around it so it is a very broad wide-open invitation almost for people to use this information for purposes for which it has not been gathered. I think that is a very dangerous clause and I think it is one that will undermine the best intentions of anyone who thought that it might ever remain a private secure register along with as I have said the many of thousands of people who will have access to it.The Minister noted—I think we are still talking about this figure of $146 million over 10 years which was in the regulatory impact statement as a projected cost. That is about $14.6 million a year at a time when we are seeing initiatives like Circles of Support and Accountability withdrawn for the sake of a few tens of thousands of dollars when we are seeing treatment facilities in the community discontinued anywhere and everywhere one looks. Organisations that are doing work in this field are crying out for cash and there simply is not any to be found. I think $146 million is a great deal of money when there is no compelling evidence to suggest that this register will do any good at all.In reply to some additional questions put to them the police came back with an approximate breakdown of what the costs just to them would be. They suggested a $5.08 million capital cost to set up this register and then something like $54 million over 8 years. So 54 plus 5—that is the thick end of $60 million at a time when I am hearing from local policemen on the beat in Northland that they are stretched beyond breaking point. We know that everywhere in New Zealand police are running on empty despite their best efforts despite their hard work and despite their efficiencies. They are doing their level best to perform in the absence of adequate resource and suddenly $60 million goes away."