Foster-Bell PaulPAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Talofa lava Mr Deputy Speaker. It is a pleasure to take a call in the Statutes Repeal Bill third reading debate. I do want to respond to a couple of the things that were mentioned by the Labour member Chris Hipkins who was speaking before the dinner break.This piece of legislation I think is very useful in that it does serve a purpose and that purpose is effectively spring-cleaning our statute book. It removes some of the clutter and in this day of electronic storage of information where there are no longer necessarily huge rows of statute books sitting on shelves but these things are available electronically one might quite reasonably ask the question: why would you need to do this? But the fact is that if you are a lawyer practising in a certain field of law having additional pieces of legislation—some of which well certainly all of the 137 that we are repealing this evening in part or in total—that are no longer needed that no longer have any effect that have become dormant and that have become certainly in some cases outmoded having to be aware of these pieces of legislation and the possible interaction that they might have with other law is an unnecessary clutter. So this is a useful piece of regulatory reform to consign these outdated bills—such as the Education Law Amendment Act 1933 or the Wellington City Reserves Act 1871 section 4 of that Act and 1872 in total—to repeal them and remove them.I also want to respond to the point made by the member on blasphemy. Now personally I do think it is time for New Zealand to have a good careful look at section 123 of the Crimes Act and I am personally of the view that it is no longer necessary in a country like New Zealand to criminalise thought or speech associated with blasphemy heresy or apostasy; any of those concepts.However I think it is important that the Government approach this matter in an organised and sensible fashion and I would note that it is the Government's intention under our very good justice Minister the Hon Amy Adams to review the Crimes Act and to look at tidying up some of these elements of the Crimes Act in a crimes amendment bill later this year. I do not think it is appropriate that we in almost knee-jerk response to a media case of Stephen Fry being initially accused of blasphemy in Ireland—of course the police have subsequently dropped charges in Ireland. It is not actually appropriate in a statutes repeal bill which is supposed to be uncontroversial to exert that measure at the last minute without any consultation of the public or of interested organisations. So I think it is very appropriate that that be dealt with by the Government in the normal way following due process in the fullness of time. And given there has not been a single successful prosecution—only one attempted prosecution in the last hundred years for blasphemy—it is certainly not an immediate problem. But it is within the Crimes Act so it is quite right and quite proper that it be looked at very carefully to ensure that there will be no unforeseen impacts of such a repeal.So the rest of this bill is very very sensible from the Rugby World Cup 2011 (Empowering) Act—the empowering legislation for the Rugby World Cup special measures—through to the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake legislation all of which are out of date and all of which will be consigned to the history books rather than the statute book. Thank you.