Williams PotoPOTO WILLIAMS (Labour—Christchurch East): Firstly I want to commend all those fantastic women and men who work in the sexual violence prevention sector because there is no doubt that their job is one of the hardest jobs there is—supporting the victims of sexual violence to be able to feel whole and well again after the trauma of what is probably one of the most horrific personal crimes that can happen. So I send my awhi and my aroha out to those people who work in the sector. Secondly I want to say that child safety is paramount and that this Parliament should ensure that all of its efforts go into the most important of jobs and that is protecting our children. In this regard as a party we are supporting the efforts with regards to this particular piece of legislation. But we have some significant reservations around the full impact of this legislation and the cost. There is nothing that is more emotional to a parent than the harm that can come to their child. When we look at the impacts of recent news events about sexual offenders who have been housed in the community—and I reference Māngere and the Hutt when I am talking about that. The news reports that we got about the emotions of those parents who were concerned about having an offender within their community. They were very compelling. They were very compelling stories. But the perception of safety that a register may give to a community does not ensure the safety of that community. When we look at the impact of spending $146 million on a list that gives us an idea of people who have offended in the past but does nothing to support the prevention of future harm we have got to question the validity of that wisdom. It is very difficult to move past that hugely emotional barrier of thinking that a list that has someone's name on it is going to keep your child safe when the evidence was not compelling at the Social Services Committee. What was compelling was what our sexual violence prevention sector told us about what they could do with $146 million. That was compelling evidence when we consider what is actually being funded to our sector. I had the privilege of hearing part of the submissions that were made to the inquiry into funding for the sexual violence sector. The hundreds and thousands of people who work across this country—not only to rehabilitate offenders so that they can become fully functioning members of our community but to actually prevent the harm from happening in the first place. What has been missing from this debate—and I really support my colleague Kelvin Davis because he brought this into sharp relief—is where the money is to support the children who are victims of sexual violence. Where is the money to support the children who are victims of sexual violence? I do not see evidence of that. There was limited discussion by the Government when we were looking at this bill but there is the opportunity that has been sadly missed by us all. Unless we do everything we can to help these children get some relief from the trauma of their experience those damaged children will grow up to be damaged adults and we will perpetuate the cycle of sexual violence in this country. Where is the $146 million that we are committing to our children who are the victims of sexual violence? That is the missed opportunity. When we talk about public registers what we are talking about is the ability to identify people who have offended in the past. When we looked at some of the evidence that was presented to the select committee it told us quite clearly that reoffending rates do not warrant the register of sexual offenders—reoffending rates do not warrant it—and that actually what we do know is that the harm of sexual offending comes from people who are close to that child whether they are family members part of that social circle or people who are professionals who work close to the children. My colleague Kelvin Davis spoke about the incidents that happened in Northland. We know that there are teachers coaches—people who are close to children—who harm our children who will never make it on to a register but that will not prevent the harm from happening in the first place. In summing up I want to call on this Government to actually put its money where its mouth is and do the right thing by putting money into the prevention of harm into the rehabilitation of offenders and into supporting our children who have been victims of sexual offending. We are supporting this bill. It will have some small measure but $146 million could do so much more in preventing this from happening in the first place. Thank you.