Ball Darroch: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBall Darroch: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 02 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11659. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DARROCH BALL (NZ First): I think that about 90 percent of that speech by David Clendon if not 99 percent of it was talking about the offender. If we continue to address this piece of legislation and this problem of child sex offending starting with the offender at the centre and as the foundation of the conversation we are going to get it wrong. We are going to get it wrong not only for the previous victims of child sex offending but also for the potential future victims of child sex offending. We will be supporting this bill because we do agree that at a minimum there needs to be a register. As we have heard not only today but also yesterday throughout the second reading speeches it is a complex and wide-ranging topic in that it encompasses quite a few issues. It is not a simple straightforward one-dimensional issue and that is why we see across the House the varying degrees of agreement or disagreement in opposition.There are a number of issues that New Zealand First has with this legislation and the way that it is implemented—the way that it is written. We have got some concerns and obviously we have got some opposing views as well. The main one for us is that New Zealand First believes that this register should be made publicly available. We have introduced a Supplementary Order Paper that will be discussed further through this process but we believe that it is absolutely essential that in order to put the protection and safety and rights of the children at the centre of this conversation the register needs to be made public.This is not a new groundbreaking piece of legislation. We have registers around the world that work and we have got evidence that shows that they work. Not only are there restricted registers but also there are actually countries that have publicly available registers. So we have 19 countries around the world that have fully functioning working registers right now and seven of those are either publicly available or have variations of being publicly available. A further 12 countries are considering using registers and are in the process of putting legislation through the House just like we are to create a register. This is not new. It is not groundbreaking legislation. Nowhere in those 19 countries that I have mentioned—they include Australia Canada the UK and the United States—is there any evidence that a register does not work. There is no evidence anywhere in those countries that states that it does not work.We heard the advice of the Green member who spoke who said that because there is no evidence that it does work we should not do it—because there is no evidence that it does work we should not do it. The only reason why you would choose to oppose it based on that fact is if you were leaning in favour of the offender. If you had any doubt whether a public register a register itself works—if you had any doubt—then putting the children first you would ensure that you put that register in place. If you have any doubt and the member is wrong and you do not put that register in place—and that member was wrong or that idea or concept was wrong—then who will suffer? It is the children. That is the stance that New Zealand First is taking. We need to ensure that we take that step not only to make a register but also to make it fully public.One of the issues that we have like I said in my opening statement is that this is not one-dimensional. It is not a simple concept. There are wide-ranging issues. But what some of the parties in this House are doing is they are literally throwing the baby out with the bathwater. They are throwing out the entire concept of having a register or the possibility of making it public because there are some issues that surround it or that fall out of having a register or of making it public. Anything that we have heard from some of the members who have spoken previously is only anecdotal; there is no actual evidence that it does not work. Those were the member’s own words—there was no evidence that it works. That was it.We have heard arguments today that have been about the offender’s rehabilitation or the ability for an offender to rehabilitate about reintegration and about issues with vigilantes. We have even heard about the offender’s human rights. But we have heard very little about public safety and the protection of our children which should be at the centre of this conversation. That is a fact—that is a fact. There is a need for a register. What needs to happen is that there needs to be—if the Green Party or other parties in this House want to concentrate on or invest in rehabilitation and reintegration and all of those things that the Green member talked about that is fine. But that does not mean that you throw out the entire concept of a register. That does not mean you throw out the entire concept of making that register public. That is throwing the baby out with the bathwater.This conversation has turned into a perpetrator’s rights versus children’s rights. That is what has happened—the protection of the human rights of the perpetrator versus the right to protect children. We have heard about the issues that have come out. I have got some articles about things that have happened recently very recently that prove there is a need for a public register. We have had—and this is only in the last few months—a number of them: “Recidivist South Canterbury sex offender imprisoned.” He appeared on representative charges of indecently assaulting a female between 12 and 16 and this is a recidivist child sex offender. The judge said “You were convicted in 1991 of very similar offending. I assume it was a less frequent series of assaults.” and his major quote was “It is inescapable it is part of your character.”—it is part of your character.That is why we have got hundreds of convicted child sex offenders being released into society every year and we do not know where they are. In fact I have got the statistics here about just how many. I will be interested to see whether members in this House know just how many child sex offender convictions have occurred in the last 10 years. The number is 4000. In the last 10 years there have been 4000 convictions for child sex offending. That is 400 a year. That is more than one a day—more than one a day.If we are talking about an issue with name suppression there is a misapprehension out there in that people think that there is a huge number of child sex offenders who get name suppression. In fact only 10 percent of child sex offenders get name suppression. The vast majority of child sex offenders do not get name suppression. If we are talking about the reoffending rates of these offenders these criminals we are talking in the vicinity of—because there have been quite ranging numbers and percentages of reoffending rates—around the 20 to 25 percent mark. That means that over the last decade of the 4000 offences there have been a thousand offenders who have been reoffending.I have an article here that actually takes the views the comments and the point of view of the victims. The headline says “Sex offender register should name paedophiles …” and the article says: “Sex abuse victims say a child sex offender register is needed and they want it to go one step further by making the names public.” These are the victims. These are the victims’ voices which it seems no other party in this House is listening to. A victim says: “name suppression protects the perpetrator and not the victim. It hasn’t protected me as a person at all. I live a life sentence they serve—if they do get convicted a few years and then they get out and then they can freely travel wherever they wish and continue to do it they just get smarter. … The Law Society does not support a register and argues the bill before a select committee in parliament takes a blanket approach treating all sex offenders the same. It says the proposed register should be re-designed so that it is aimed only at serious child sex offenders who are likely to re-offend. … Helena Watson said encouraging silence feeds their ability to reoffend.”What an action of not creating a public register does is it is feeding those offenders with the ability to reoffend. At the basis and the heart of this is giving the ability to parents in the community to know where these sex offenders are to know who they are and to protect their children. That is why New Zealand First is putting through a Supplementary Order Paper to ensure that this register becomes public. We are standing up for the victims we are hearing the victims’ voices and we need this register to be public. We will support this bill and we look forward to discussing it in its further stages. Thank you.