Young Jonathan: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8512. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth): I am very pleased to stand in support of this bill the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill—it is quite a large two lines of title. It is a relatively succinct bill but it has a very strong intent to protect those vulnerable amongst us in order to stop those who would seek to change identity to remove themselves from the watchful eye of society and the agencies the Government appoints in order to continue to potentially commit offence.This has been a very interesting debate so far. There have been many comments made about the report of the Attorney-General. It is wonderful that he is here this evening. I have it on good authority that our Attorney-General is not encumbered by political concern but writes his reports to address the spirit of the law. He is a true man of the law. He has written a number of things that I would like to address.In paragraph 11—because this is an issue around the right to freedom of expression—the Attorney-General writes in his report: “The right to freedom of expression is to be construed as having a wide ambit in New Zealand and the broadly described examples in s 14 are non-exhaustive. I consider an individual’s choice of name is an element of freedom of expression.”We know that the names that people choose are expressions of their creativity. We name streets. We name companies. We name businesses. We name clubs and organisations. We name teams and musicals. We name songs poems and movies. We name our dogs our cats and our goldfish. We name our plants. Some people name their trees. Some people name their houses. People use names all the time as an expression. But when people change their names—for example if a company that owes a lot of creditors money winds up and changes its name we say that that is wrong because it is seeking to elude justice. What this bill is about is not about stopping creative freedom but stopping people escaping justice or escaping what would be considered to be a reasonable surveillance by a society in the protection of the most vulnerable.The Opposition members say there are holes in this legislation and of course that is what a select committee process is for. It is to go through the legislation to find the weaknesses the strength the intent and the spirit of it and make it workable legislation make it workable law that achieves this intent and purpose. If we were to defend the freedom of expression of somebody who could go about and just change their name because that is their freedom of expression yet we did not protect the freedom of children to grow up and I know we do that in many many ways—in many many ways. But if we put the freedom of expression to change your name as you will and wish first and foremost and we do not—and I am sure everybody in this House would hold high as an aspiration that we protect the ability for young people to grow up and be able to express themselves freely and fully without fear without concern without brokenness without horror and without all the things that happen to young people unfortunately in our country. We have got to think through these sorts of things very very carefully.I am really happy to commend this bill to the House. There are many pieces of legislation that have come through this House to protect the vulnerable and I believe this will add to that suite of laws. Thank you.