Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to take a call on the third reading of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Amendment Bill which the National Party will be supporting at third reading. I would like to just begin by again acknowledging Minister Poto Williams for the work she's done in regards to this very important piece of legislation following the Supreme Court decision on 9 March earlier this year. It's a decision which has meant that Parliament has had to revisit this particular piece of legislation again but a decision on which I believe the Minister's made the right call in bringing this to the House and working with the officials so that we can get this done urgently because it is a very serious—a very serious—issue. I'd like to acknowledge with her the officials and the police for the work that they've been doing in preparation for this bill coming to the House. The National Party has supported the use of urgency for this piece of legislation because this is an incredibly important piece of legislation. The child sex offender registration is about ensuring the protection of the most vulnerable children in our community and protecting these offenders from causing more victims in our society and keeping New Zealanders safe. Because of the very real risk to public safety if the 600 individuals were removed from the registry and were not able to be monitored and were not required to continue on the registry for the time that they must stay on the registry as prescribed by the law—because of that risk we have supported the use of urgency in getting this bill through all stages without a select committee in one day and that is the right thing to do in these very serious issues with very serious legislation. It's not something which should be used lightly but in this case it's very very warranted. I have raised concerns in the committee of the whole House particularly around the new clause 11 of Schedule 1 of the Act as set out in clause 5(7) and we do express that we have some unease around the way that the legislation has been drafted in clause 11 and are not completely confident in its application to this particular individual. The real concern is that this individual is not only exempted from the offending in his case in being removed from the registry but also exempted from any other potential offending. So look we do hold some concerns around this and we have expressed that during the committee of the whole House and we will leave that point there. We have also expressed concern over the Green Party's lack of support for this piece of legislation. I will reiterate my comments from the second reading here at the third reading that this is not a debate on whether there should be a child sex offender registry or not. That particular debate was held back in 2016. That was the time to raise concerns over whether that was the most effective tool or the right tool. Parliament should be legislating to try and reduce risk of this type of offending and to keep the public safe. What we are dealing with here is simply the retrospectivity of that legislation and whether Parliament's intended retrospective nature has been given effect to. The Supreme Court has come and said that no we were not express enough in the retrospectivity in the way it was drafted—that's what the Supreme Court has stated. What we are doing here today is saying that actually we want to clarify that retrospectivity so that the 600 offenders and more who would be struck off the registry are put back on the registry. That is about the public safety and I think it's outrageous—whilst I can understand a principled argument when setting up the registry with the registry now in place it is our public duty as parliamentarians to ensure the public safety of New Zealanders and I would hope that the Green Party would reconsider their lack of support for this important piece of legislation and the one quarter of the individuals in the registry who would otherwise be struck off if this legislation was not supported. So the National Party is supporting this piece of legislation as we've outlined. It's an incredibly important piece of legislation. We look forward to its passage through third reading tonight.