Swarbrick Chlöe; Williams PotoCHLÖE SWARBRICK (Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I am pleased to rise on behalf of the Green Party to support this bill—what I think is a thoroughly sensible piece of legislation. It highlights an anomaly in the law that arose out of a rather fascinating situation where censorship officers were provided a rather black and white response mechanism where they could either ban the book in its entirety or allow it to remain available and accessible which obviously presented a massive inconsistency when the previous classification saw the book as rated R14. So this total ban of about six weeks we believe as the Green Party was inconsistent with Aotearoa's championing of the freedom of speech.Censorship in Aotearoa New Zealand is about 100 years old coming about with the advent of film and as books began flooding the shelves and the minds of New Zealanders. The reasons cited at the time that censorship was first introduced in this country was that the class of moving pictures at present exhibited in New Zealand constitutes a grave danger to the moral health and social welfare of the community."Fundamentally I think it was prompted by a bit of a moral panic which we have not yet rid ourselves of in this modern day. It was a moral panic in response to the dissemination of ideas especially those that challenge norms or the status quo which we still see to this day and as I believe was the situation that we saw in this case with this book.This is a crucial tension to highlight when considering censorship. In doing so in censoring art or literature or otherwise are we quashing the potential for robust thorough debate to challenge our experiences and reflections of reality? Are we stifling critical thinking or a potential critical response?It's these seemingly small things like the situation that we saw with Ted Dawe's Into the River that can have flow-on effects in terms of potentially opening the door to the stifling of democracy. With regard to the case that prompted this legislation the board of review report highlighted I believe an incredibly worthwhile point which is that "The Board considers the book is likely to educate and inform young adults about the potentially negative consequences that can follow from involvement in casual sex underage drinking drug taking crime violence and bullying. The Board considers that the book serves a useful social purpose in raising these issues for thought and debate and creating a context which may help young adults think more deeply about the immediate and long term consequences of [the decisions] they may be called upon to make."So the context that is being referred to here is such that this book was taught in schools. That context is one of education. It is a safe space where teachers guide children through different and challenging ideas. This I believe is the very purpose of the education system as a public good to be the critic and conscience of society and to ensure that we are raising young people who are able to challenge social norms in such a way that leads to our social evolution.This contextual consideration is something that I think we need to continue considering because I assume that later as the years and decades pass we will see the changing nature of media as we already have. I've had a few people in the Green Party notify me of the fact that I was born in the year that Sony Betamax tapes were first introduced. Now we are seeing kids growing up with the internet. This prompts the issue of modern access and perhaps raises the point that censorship doesn't mean what it might've traditionally used to. For the time being the Green Party is absolutely happy to support this bill because it is a very sensible bill that fixes an anomaly in the law but we would like to highlight that there will be more coming down the pipeline in this modern day that that we will need to consider.As time allows me to continue on this point of idealism and theorising I would like to note that the ideology behind the support of freedom of expression is one that is socially liberal. That's something that many of the contemporary members in this House have in common. But where I think many of us diverge as has become quite pertinent and obvious as a point of debate today and in days previous is on our economic thinking. On this point I'd like to invite Chris Bishop and other members of his party to consider that economic ideology because these social and economic ideals are at odds fundamentally. Whilst we may be advocating for art and literature and those things to be out there in the world accessible to people the fact of the matter is that whilst society is unequal those goods those ideas that education are not accessible to all.So on that point I will leave it. I would like to commend this bill to the House and would like to say that we're looking forward to the developing technology and the House's response to it.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Poto Williams): I understand this is a split call. Matt King—five minutes."