Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Speaker for an opportunity to take a short call on the Corrections (School Notification of Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill. I've sat here and I've listened to the contributions from members in this debate and I am astounded by what I'm hearing. I just want to start by acknowledging my colleague Matt Doocey for bringing such an important piece of legislation to this House to put in place a requirement for Corrections to notify schools when a sex offender is placed within 5 kilometres of that school. He's put the argument very clearly. He's shown the evidence that this is not happening. It's happened seven times. We heard just from the member across there that there's a balanced approach being taken by Corrections. Well a balanced approach wouldn't just happen seven times when there are hundreds of sex offenders being released from prison into our community and I am astounded by some of the comments that have been said by the Green Party tonight where not only have they said that they think this won't work but they've said that this piece of legislation is callous. A callous piece of legislation—a piece of legislation which tries to support schools families communities and most importantly protect our children from sex offenders who are placed back into our communities; a piece of legislation which tries to give principals the information they need so they can provide the support that is required for their community. Matt Doocey provided the very unfortunate situation which happened here in Wellington where a primary school principal was not notified when a sex offender was placed within this community with 62 children living nearby. That person then had to be moved to an undisclosed industrial area. These are the types of mistakes which get made when you don't have a balanced system. When you don't have a balanced system people don't get notified and young children get put at risk and as a parent of two young children—of two young girls—I'm not going to stand by tonight and say no to a piece of legislation which is going to make the community safer for my daughters. I find it absolutely abhorrent that the Green Party has the audacity to come in here week after week and vote against legislation which protects our children from sex offenders. I know that people have a right to defence lawyers but I'm going to stand on the rights of children and families and communities and that's far more important. That's something that I'm so proud to be standing up on this side of the House for. This is an important piece of legislation. It's not callous; it's about making our communities safer and it's about making sure that we hold our corrections system our corrections department accountable so that they are actually doing the job that they should be doing which is keeping New Zealanders safe as their number one priority. I'm not going to listen to the people on the other side of the House who make apologies for offenders who say that every offender has been a victim. I find that absolutely offensive. When there are victims out there in our society they are the ones who should be at the heart of our justice system and they are the ones who we should be putting first and then we should be making sure that we don't have new offenders being created because of the decisions which get made because we're not notifying schools and we're not doing the job that the Government should be doing. So I commend this bill to the House. I reject the Green Party calling this a callous piece of legislation. I'm sick and tired of them standing up on their side of the House standing on the side of the people who are offending in our community and not on the side of victims. I'm sick and tired of that sort of behaviour. That is the truly callous behaviour which I think needs to be denounced by this House. I hope Parliament votes for this bill and sends it to the select committee so we can hear from parents we can hear from schools and we can understand what the situation is out there because I would say we're only scratching the top of the surface with the number of cases and situations awful situations which are happening out there. We need to be able to have the opportunity to ask the questions of the officials so we can get the answers and hold them to account so I commend this bill to the House.