Dean Jacqui: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1753. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki): I also want to commend the previous Justice and Electoral Committee in the Parliament before this one—the 50th Parliament I think it was—for its work on this bill the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill. I am not surprised to see that Labour is supporting this bill and I want to congratulate the Labour members of the select committee. As the previous speaker Jacinda Ardern did mention there were several Labour members—the Hon Maryan Street in particular who I know made great contributions to this kind of legislation during her time in Parliament.This Government as all Governments of course do takes child abuse very seriously and is working hard to do everything we can across a number of spheres to combat child abuse. Members will recall the Vulnerable Children Act which was passed in the last Parliament sponsored by the Hon Paula Bennett and which put children at the front and centre of the consideration of the Government agencies of police justice social development education and health. It provided for better communication and more joined-up services by those Government agencies and provided a stronger focus on protecting young children from harm. Of course that Act and a lot of the work this Government does is around child abuse. In this bill we are talking largely about online abuse and cyber-abuse of children and indecent and objectionable publications. But I think in the wider context it would be fair to say that this Government has done a lot of work supported by parties around the House. I do acknowledge that this is an issue that does cross party boundaries.It is interesting to know and gratifying that the number of children abused in the year ending in June of last year fell by 12 percent from the previous year. OK that is just 1 year of figures and these things do vary but it is gratifying to know that the work that is being done by Government agencies on behalf of us all and on behalf of the Crown is making a material impact on the level of child abuse in New Zealand. Long may that continue. That is why it is important that we keep our attention on this issue and keep bringing decent pieces of legislation to the House so that we can attack if you like this issue across a number of fronts.There are just a couple of other things I want to mention because they are really assisting in making a material difference to children and that is the Social Workers in Schools programme. That covers all decile 1 to 3 schools now. That is affecting and contributing to the safety and the well-being of around 140-odd thousand children in New Zealand and I think that is—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! I think the member has now had about 4 minutes. It would be good if she could come to the bill that we are debating.JACQUI DEAN: Thank you very much Mr Assistant Speaker. Am I dressed OK too? Thank you. Good. Good. As is the Social Workers in Hospitals initiative—I am going to move on very quickly but I always think it is important to provide a bit of context—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): You are not commenting on my ruling are you?JACQUI DEAN: —and having done that I will now move specifically to mention the purpose of the bill which quite simply is to increase penalties for the production trading and possession of objectionable publications. That includes images depicting the sexual abuse of the children. Maybe Mr Assistant Speaker it is that I simply did not want to come to the matter in hand because it is a hard matter to speak about but speak about it we must.The bill does amend a number of Acts those being the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act the Customs and Excise Act of course and the Crimes Act. There will be a Supplementary Order Paper breaking the bill into five separate bills amending legislation on films videos and publications; customs and excise; crimes; accident compensation—that covers off cover for mental injury through indecent offences so that is why the Accident Compensation Act is being amended; and of course there is the Vulnerable Children (Children’s Worker Safety Checking—Indecency Offence) Amendment Bill. If I might say so speaking to relevance my words around Social Workers in Schools really do relate directly to the amendment contained within the Vulnerable Children Act so I am just tying it in I hope for the Assistant Speaker’s satisfaction.The main provisions in this bill include increasing the maximum penalty—those penalties have been considerably increased—for the importation or exportation of an objectionable publication which currently sits at 5 years’ maximum penalty. That is doubled and the penalty for that will be 10 years of imprisonment. The bill is increasing the maximum penalty for distributing or making an objectionable publication. The penalty for that currently sits at 10 years and that has increased to 14 years’ imprisonment. If you think about that term of imprisonment it is a menu from which a judge can choose to protect children from an offender by incarcerating the offender in prison but it also on the upside gives the opportunity for our corrections system to provide some rehabilitation and corrective training to those offenders whilst they are in prison. It is notable that rather than just incarcerating people for however long—up to 14 years but maybe 11 or 12 years—that it is a good period of time for a prisoner to undergo a number of programmes to address his or her offending as the case may be.That is the other half of the equation. We know that that prisoner is ultimately going to be returned to society under parole conditions and maybe under court orders—none the less it is one thing to lock them up and increasing the penalties is a good move—but of course ultimately these offenders are going to go back into society. When one has a look at the work of the Parole Board perhaps you see that offenders who have been released come back in front of the Parole Board because yet again they are hanging around a city mall yet again they have got hold of a cell phone and are beginning to contact young children and beginning that whole ghastly process of grooming young children yet again.We need to take the issue of reoffending very seriously indeed. There will be under this bill the presumption of imprisonment for repeat offenders. Those repeat offenders include any person convicted of a child exploitation material offence for a second or later time. So that is for repeat offenders. From what I have come to learn around this area there is a strong incidence of offenders planning to reoffend giving a good deal of their time when they can to grooming and planning to reoffend. That is why the multi-pronged approach that this Government is taking to these offenders by increasing the penalties and also at the same time providing for rehabilitation is making a difference and will continue to make a difference.The bill makes it clear in the Films Videos and Publications Classifications Act that possession of objectionable material includes intentionally viewing material over the internet without consciously downloading or saving it. So the internet seemed like a good idea at the time I am sure but as we all know a large percentage of internet use is not googling for our speech notes. The bill is also creating a new offence of indecent communication with a young person—that is a person under the age of 16 years. So indecent communication with a young person can occur in a variety of old media and new media and of course nowadays there is text messaging picture messaging Instagram—Paul Foster-Bell: Snapchat.JACQUI DEAN: —Snapchat all the new technologies that are so very attractive to increasingly younger and younger and younger children internet chatting and of course the telephone. This we have in this legislation. We are futureproofing child protection by recognising that the technology is changing and the use of technology is changing very rapidly. Mr Assistant Speaker thank you for your indulgence; I know I have strayed a little. Thank you for your indulgence but this is an important bill. I commend it to the House.