Mitchell Clayton: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMitchell Clayton: 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:8510. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CLAYTON MITCHELL (NZ First): I rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak to this bill put in front of us today the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill. That is a mouthful. I will just narrow that down to the “Name Changing of Child Sex Offenders Amendment Bill” for the rest of this speech.This is a very very serious matter and one that New Zealand First takes extremely seriously as do all New Zealanders when we are talking about our young children the vulnerable people in our society and those people perpetrating crimes against them along the lines of sexual activity of that nature. We do support this bill moving forward and we do get behind what Dr Jian Yang is saying here. However notwithstanding that there are a number of holes. This legislation is very very wide. You could drive a bus through it but we see that the right place to get down to the nuts and bolts of this piece of legislation is in the select committee process. We would like to hear from submitters—people in the community who have a deep understanding of this situation—to try to iron out some of those issues.We have read the Attorney-General’s report. It is like many Attorney-General reports which do not always support the legislation that is put forward by Government or through some other members’ bills but you have to be objective and look at that and say: “Where can we straighten up this piece of legislation?”.Some of the unintended consequences I think really come down to a situation that encapsulates other crimes committed. Largely those crimes should be collected—you know the murderers assault with intent to rob etc. Then of course you have got indecent assault. Or we do have a situation where there are people captured under the Film Videos and Publications Classification Act relating to publications of objectionable material. I can think of a number of scenarios where you might have a female in a situation where she has got herself on the minor end of an indecent assault or somehow involved negatively in the publications Act who finds herself on that sex offenders register. In a situation where she decides in time to get married and change her name to her husband’s name it will pose what I would consider an unintended consequence. I believe the right place to iron out these unintended consequences is of course in select committee.I think the Attorney-General’s report is a very good in-depth and thorough report delving into some of those holes but I would much rather err on the side of caution. New Zealand First would much rather be supporting this bill because it is a step in the right direction as opposed to not taking that step at all. It does dovetail quite nicely into the sex offenders register which is very very topical at the moment. New Zealand First of course does support legislation that does come down hard on the criminals in our society—those criminals who are perpetrating crimes against other vulnerable New Zealand citizens.I did however take some offence at some of the words that Adrian Rurawhe was talking about and I think a lot of New Zealanders will take offence when we come to the Treaty of Waitangi and the rights of the Treaty of Waitangi. To me that is offensive.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.CLAYTON MITCHELL: Before the dinner break I was just starting off my contribution around Adrian Rurawhe’s contribution. I can understand parts of what he was saying around the very wide-ranging openness of this bill which will allow for this bill to be having little or no effect potentially. However I cannot accept that he was using the Treaty of Waitangi and the rights around the Treaty of Waitangi as a reason to oppose this. I find that deeply offensive. I was certainly aghast when he used the Treaty of Waitangi in this manner.This bill is about child safety and it is a huge concern for New Zealanders and New Zealanders at large. We need to do everything and anything we can even if they are little micro-steps heading in the right direction and we see this bill as a micro-step in the right direction with some ironing out that can certainly come through the select committee process. This bill is about reducing the opportunity. We cannot take away the opportunity from some of these recidivist offenders but we can reduce it. This bill does take that step. We do however need to see a better form of information sharing to make this bill more effective. Thank you.