Walters VanushiVANUSHI WALTERS (Labour—Upper Harbour): Thank you Mr Speaker for the opportunity to make a few brief remarks in relation to this bill at its third reading. I think we've traversed a fair bit this evening in terms of the issues including the prevalence of sexual abuse on child victims including the impact on those victims and we've also of course looked at the reasons why retrospective provisions in this case are justified which I think several of my colleagues including Dr Webb have covered very well. I thought I'd use this third opportunity to speak to this bill by highlighting some of the requirements in the primary legislation. We did talk about the fact that those individuals do need to provide information so I just wanted to talk about the term of registration that people stay on that register for. So there is a term of registration for eight years if the offender has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a class 1 offence or if the offender has been sentenced to a non-custodial sentence for a qualifying offence and has been ordered to be registered by the sentencing judge. That then increases to a term of registration for 15 years if the offender is sentenced with what's called a class 2 offence which is more serious. That increases to life registration if the offender has been sentenced to a term of imprisonment for a class 3 offence. I was looking at those provisions and just reflecting on some comments in the House made both by Minister Poto Williams and by Rachel Boyack earlier this evening about the fact that this isn't about punishment. It is primarily about child safety but also about Government entities being able to reach in and support those people who have been convicted and I am alarmed that without this bill there might be people not just in classes 1 or 2 but also those very very serious classes—class 3—who wouldn't receive that support. That probably lends nicely to the second point that I just wanted to briefly make which was in response to some concerns raised earlier by my colleague from the Green Party about the release of information to third parties. So my understanding is—and this is really a reflection on the primary legislation as well—that Police and Corrections can't release information about a registered person unless there is a need to do so to protect a child or children from a significant threat. The standard is quite high and where information about someone on the register is released there are a number of protocols that apply and indeed there are penalties if that information is released outside of the protocols. So in my view that is a useful justification for the release of that information to third parties but also—just reflecting on what I've just spoken to—it is beneficial for the offender as well to be able to access the support that they might need through other Government agencies. I just want to end on a reflection on some of my experience in my previous life as a solicitor with YouthLaw Aotearoa and a few people have pointed to this as well. The fact is that it is very difficult to get to a conviction. If you think about what a young person has to go through to raise an issue let alone an issue that is so intimate and personal as this it is a significant barrier to cross and then for that young person to go through the court processes that follow it's again a very difficult barrier to cross. When you finally do get to a conviction I think that does place on us an additional obligation to ensure that there is no reoffending—that we look to preventative mechanisms to ensure that there is no reoffending in that case. I won't take up any more time from the House this evening. I commend the bill to the House.