Doocey MattMATT DOOCEY (National—Waimakariri): It is important to take a call in this Committee of the whole House on what will be New Zealand's first child sex offender register for child sex offenders over the age of 18 who have committed crimes against children under the age of 16. I want to start by looking at clause 48B which is around the issue of child sex offenders and their ability to change their name legally. I just want to acknowledge my colleague Jian Yang who had a member's bill around this pulled out of the ballot. Unfortunately it was deemed that with human rights—it was not able to proceed. But part of the essence of his bill has now been embedded in this bill and quite rightly so. On saying that I probably did have some sympathy for his bill not allowing convicted sex offenders to change their name. But I think we have got a very practical and right process now under this clause whereby the offender would apply to the Commissioner of Police and a decision would be made as to whether the offender was allowed to legally change their name.Clause 3 outlines very much the purpose. We had Su'a William Sio come into the Chamber and say that he was unsure how this register would reduce risk and would reduce offending. I think it was very much a rhetorical question. If he had bothered to read the bill he would know that himself before coming into the Chamber.We also had Stuart Nash who tried to play I suppose spokesperson politics around this bill by arguing the zero-sum game around the resourcing. We heard very clearly through the submission process about the $150 million. It was an increase and Cabinet approved that—around $35 million for the technology part of this legislation—but there was a lot of operational expenditure that was already within budget and that will be reconfigured around this register. So instead of playing politics and thinking about bobbies on the beat"—this is very much at the heart of the issue of what we are trying to address: tracking offenders through a register.I think that when you look at it it is around supporting the professionals. It is supporting the police officers corrections probation and social services. I just want to acknowledge the work they do in a very difficult space. We have heard very clearly in contributions from both sides of the Chamber that this is not a silver bullet but what this register will do is provide the professionals with a tool. What it is about is capturing the data managing the data and analysing it. That will then inform decisions made to protect ultimately the community and protect our children. When we look at it it is not about treatment it is not here to replace punishment but again it is supposed to be informing decisions that will mitigate risk and mitigate reoffending.I agree with some of the contributions so far—the evidence base is still developing in this area—but it was very clear from the advice that we received that this register and this legislation once it is enacted will go some way to reducing four to 34 sexual offending convictions over the next 10 years. So when we look at that cost-benefit analysis bearing in mind that 90 percent of these offences are undisclosed and unreported I think it is very clear around the cost and the benefit.But I think another area we need to focus on is the parents—giving them certainty that authorities are tracking these offenders and putting systems in place to monitor them because ultimately it is about putting young people at the heart of these decisions. I had a town in my electorate of Waimakariri where there were accusations of a child sex offender moving into the area. A lot of parents were very concerned that there was no central register and in an age like today with social media things can go viral very quickly. It builds fear it builds concern—"