Logie Jan: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 24 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1881. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a short call on the second reading of the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill. The Green Party is supporting this bill. This legislation seeks to do five key things. Firstly it seeks to increase the maximum penalties for the possession import and export of objectionable publications from 5 years’ imprisonment to 10 years and to increase the maximum penalties for supply distribution or making an objectionable publication from 10 years to 14 years. Secondly it creates a presumption of imprisonment for repeat offenders involved with child exploitation.These first two points the Green Party does have concerns about and I will talk about that a little bit later but the next three points we totally support. This legislation also amends the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act to clarify that possession includes the intentional viewing of indecent material even without downloading or saving it. The fourth point is that it removes the requirement for law enforcement agencies to get the consent of the Attorney-General before prosecuting while maintaining that need for consent for private prosecutions. The fifth point in the bill is that it creates a new offence under the Crimes Act of indecent communications with a young person. The young person is defined in this legislation as 16 and under in this instance.This bridges the gap between objectionable publication restrictions which prohibit recording communication with a young person and the other legislation that we currently have of a sexual grooming offence where an offender takes a step to meet a young person. So we saw that in the law there was a gap around that indecent communication online. We did not have an offence in that space until this legislation and we believe that this is a very important gap to be filling.I clearly recognise that the intent of this bill is to improve the safety of children and young people in New Zealand as a primary driver. And clearly there have been gaps in legislation such as defining intentional viewing as counting as possession and the crime of knowingly indecently communicating with a child under 16.It is of course important to ensure that our legislation matches the modern world that we live in and enables identified harms to be appropriately responded to by our law enforcement agencies. We should be doing what we can to protect children from predators and also creating an environment to ensure that adults engaging sexually online are actively encouraged to check the age of the person whom they are engaging with. This legislation helps to create that environment.I do however want to sound a note of caution about the increase in penalties and the presumption of imprisonment. We share the concerns raised by the Law Society and the Legislation Advisory Committee. We are not opposing this legislation but we do believe that the impact of these changes should be carefully monitored. There is certainly some evidence that increases in penalties for sexual violence have not helped reduce the incidence of sexual violence. Indeed we have quite a lot of anecdotal evidence that at times they have created a barrier to reporting. We want this to be carefully monitored. It is important though to note that the increases in penalties do provide for a new maximum and it will be up to judges to decide. The current legislation requires the court to take into account as an aggravating factor the extent to which the publication exploits children.I also reinforce for this House the urgent urgent need for more treatment services for sex offenders and children engaged in harmful sexual behaviour. It is not enough to get tough on crime. We need to ensure easy access to support services and treatment services and of course ensure we have a functioning justice system that will enable convictions and appropriate consequences. We owe it to ourselves as a country to ensure we do everything we can to prevent sexual violence.