Penk ChrisCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I won't make a call that is longer than necessary on this notwithstanding the complexity and outright interesting from a constitutional point of view nature of the debate and the discussion. Let me start by giving credit to the Attorney-General. I have said in recent times including on the public record that I believe that some of the section 7 reports produced under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act have landed in a different place than I would have myself. As it happens I think that this particular report that has been produced where he's identified an apparent inconsistency with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is probably correct actually. So credit where it's due in relation to the advice that there may be a double jeopardy and retrospectivity element that would offend those provisions. Duncan Webb—Dr Duncan Webb no less—makes a sophisticated argument around whether the fact of being on a register is in the nature of a penalty at all and that's a very interesting discussion. I won't go into it any further because I think it should suffice to say that even if the Attorney-General is correct in saying that the law is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that is not a reason ultimately finally that Parliament should not make this law. Parliament has the responsibility of passing legislation that it deems taking into account all factors—and not merely that one as important as it is—to the benefit of New Zealand as a whole. It goes without saying that the safety of children their lives and indeed sexual safety—as the phrase is used in the legislation and the judgment—is such an important one that we should not disregard it to put it mildly. Of course accountability is a characteristic that differentiates two branches of Government. If we're talking about the legislature we are rightly accountable at least every three years in a way that the courts rightly are not. One thing I would just add though before I conclude my remarks is that again I acknowledge the point that was made and I had sought to make it before but perhaps I didn't do so particularly clearly. When I said that it is important to acknowledge who makes the rules in our system of Government that is Parliament but the rulings are the decisions—the judgments of the court in respect of specific cases all things being equal of course should stand. I believe that it's worth making a caveat and a disclaimer to that however which is to say that if the court is determining a particular case based on the merits of that case as it comes before the court according to the law of the land as duly passed by the Parliament that is fine. But if it were the case—and I don't say that it is necessarily—in the judgment that is before us that the courts or at least some members of the Supreme Court had determined not that Parliament's intention was unclear but rather that it was unsavoury then of course that would have been unacceptable. As I observed in the committee of the whole House stage comity must go both ways. At that I'll leave my remarks expressing only a hope for reasons connected with the obvious importance of child safety as well as for the sake of our constitution that this argument proves somewhat academic in the case of a person identified in the judgment in question as D. So I'll leave my remarks there and as others have done on this side of the House and it seems across the House in general with the possible exception of the ACT Party or excuse me the Green Party—I do apologise to both—I commend the bill to the House.