Parmar Parmjeet: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParmar Parmjeet: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11665. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PARMJEET PARMAR (National): Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker for the opportunity to speak on the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill’s second reading. I am taking this call to support this bill.It is important to reduce any possible risk to children including the risk of them being sexually attacked and the responsibility for this cannot be left to parents and guardians alone. It is not written on the foreheads of offenders that they are child sex offenders so we need a system to record that: a system that is kept up to date and that serves the purpose of informing people—those who can be affected like parents teachers or other community groups looking after children.This bill is to establish New Zealand’s first child sex offender register. There are conditions around who goes on this register: they should be over the age of 18 should be convicted of a qualifying crime and should be sentenced to imprisonment or a non-custodial sentence with a judge’s direction to go on the register.It is important that we have this register so that there is a process for authorised police and corrections system people to work on this register to keep a record of people because at the moment what happens after child sex offenders finish their sentence is that they go back into the community. But we want to track them; we want to see whether there are any changes in their circumstances that can increase their risk of reoffending.As a member of the Social Services Committee I want to thank all submitters. There was a huge number of submissions with 140 written submissions received by the Social Services Committee. That shows that there was huge interest in this legislation. All submitters expressed concern about this offending and I want to thank the submitters because it helped us understand their points of view. All submitters agreed that child sex offenders pose a serious risk to the community that they choose to live in. There was a wide range of views that came through submissions. Some submitters thought that the child sex offender register should be publicly available while others thought that it could be misused. So there were extreme views on this. But overall a majority of them agreed that it should not be publicly available.The issue of name suppression when child sex offenders go through the process also came up. All acknowledge that child sex offending is a serious problem in New Zealand—it is a significant problem in New Zealand—and that monitoring of child sex offenders in a community is limited by the current legislation. In 2014 alone 451 offenders were convicted of a child sex offence and 307 were sentenced to imprisonment. Once these offenders have completed their sentences they are free in the community—there is no system in place for them to keep in contact with the justice sector. That is what we want to fix through this legislation.Looking at the numbers this register is going to be a substantial register; it is estimated that 472 offenders will be registered in the first year rising to 1541 in the fourth year when an evaluation will be completed. So along with being a substantial register in terms of numbers of child sex offenders who will go on this register this is an expensive piece of legislation because of the system that is required to set it up and then there is the ongoing maintenance of this register that will be required—but we do not want to compromise the safety of New Zealand families especially children. We all agreed that this will not completely eliminate reoffending but this will definitely enhance child safety. So I support this bill and commend it to the House. Thank you.