Franks Stephen: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) — In Committee Third Reading 
Franks Stephen: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 6) — In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:609;Page:7091] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT NZ) 
: 
 I am about to admit a failure and the failure is my not having realised Mr Chairperson as you were racing through Part 1 with the obvious approval of most of the Committee that it covers matters on which I wanted to record a position in the Committee stage for the ACT party. I believe that the same issues arise under Part 2. 
Some of these new definitions and some of the parts that are recorded as having been replaced in the schedules or repealed in this part appear to me to be matters that require further attention. In particular I am concerned about the definition of “dishonestly”. The term is used both in titles of things that are to be repealed and in the operative sections of a number of these provisions where previously the word “fraudulently” was used. It concerns me that the new term “dishonestly” appears to assume that anything that is not expressly or impliedly authorised is not honest. I believe that it should be put on the record that that is not the intention of the Committee in passing the bill. There is a huge range of activity in any free society that does not require anyone’s consent and that certainly is not dishonest just because there is no express or implied consent. The existing law the common law definition which is replaced by this part may have been a better definition in terms of what we are doing. 
I have some hesitation in raising this point because I was not on the Law and Order Committee. I have not had the benefit of hearing the submissions. I believe that it would be unfair to expect the Minister to get up to speak to this immediately but it does concern me that the words we have used in that definition do not go far enough to recognise that a lot of conduct—many things that can be done or not done—does not need to relate to anyone’s consent or authority and is not dishonest merely because there is no express or implied authority. 
The second point which is also a belated acknowledgment is that in new section 237 in clause 19 the term “blackmail” is extended to include to “disclose something about any person (whether living or dead)” instead of it being confined to the previous grounds of criminal or sexual conduct. That seems to me to leave it far too wide and to allow threats to be made of blackmail offences in relation to ordinary communication of information to ordinary conditional descriptions of things that people do in their everyday lives. It is perfectly proper for an employer for example to come to someone whom he believes to have been doing something wrong and say: “If you don’t do X if you don’t make this right if you don’t do something I will go to the police. I will disclose.” That was covered in the previous law as potential disclosure of criminal conduct. It may be covered by subsection (2) of section 237 which states “unless … a reasonable and proper means for effecting [the] purpose.” but given that Parliament will not look at this again for a very long time and given that we are now repealing the existing law and making the definition of “blackmail” even wider than it was I think we are doing the wrong thing. We are giving a weapon for the potential suppression of information a weapon for people to connive or collude in conduct they should not connive or collude in simply because they will be fearful of the very broad terms of the blackmail offence that is now being placed into law. 
I thank the Chair for his tolerance in allowing me to put these comments on the record in relation to a part of the bill to which they are not strictly relevant.