Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): It is my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to speak on the third reading of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Bill. I will be addressing a few points of the bill. We will be supporting this bill. I will be addressing some of the points that we do agree with. I think it has mainly been said by previous speakers that New Zealand First would have liked this register to become public and publicly available to parents and to communities in order for them to be able to protect their children. Before I do that I would just like to highlight something that I did highlight in the second reading and in the Committee stage as well and that is something that is in the departmental report. It is about all of this research and the evidence that we have been hearing that a public register does not work and in some instances we have got some members who have been saying that a register itself does not work. I would just like to read this. It says: There is a wide range of international research available … against the effectiveness of sex offender registers. However most of the evidence that is available comes from the United States which is not a jurisdiction that is fully comparable with New Zealand. … There is little evidence available that pertains specifically to child sex offender registers in like jurisdictions." It is talking about "like jurisdictions" being New Zealand because we are quite unique in the way that we run our jurisdiction compared with other jurisdictions that run child sex offender registers whether they be private or whether they be public. I cannot stress that enough because even after I mentioned this in the second reading there are multiple members from the Labour Party National and the Greens standing up and directly quoting research and evidence from the United States about how ineffective it is for a public register but it is right here in the departmental report. I would just like to say that first. Secondly a number of the Labour members also talked about this not being as important as rehabilitation and reintegration. That may be true but this is not what this discussion is about; this is not what this register is about. This register is a monitoring tool that will be used in conjunction with a myriad of other tools that are being used. If the Labour Party and the Greens want to concentrate on investing in and expanding the current rehabilitation and reintegration programmes that there are then that is fine but that is an absolutely totally mutually exclusive issue to this register and what this register is intended for. The purpose has been mentioned about what this register is about. When it boils down to it it is about protecting our children. It is about ensuring that our children are safe. No matter which way you spin it no matter which way you look at the register it is about the information. It is not about how the information is collected or what the information is necessarily; it is about the information. The information is what keeps the children safe. At this stage and the way that this legislation is written the officials are making those decisions based on the information in that register to keep our children safe. What New Zealand First is saying is: why is it only the officials have access to the information to keep our children safe? Why can parents not have access to the information to keep our children safe—because that is what it is. The rest of what the Labour Party and the Green Party are talking about is the fact that it is a register. What we are talking about is that it is information that parents have the right to know to ensure that they make proper decisions about the protection of their children. I for one would want to know if a convicted child sex offender was living next door living down the street living next to one of my daughter's or son's schools or living in our community. I would want to know—not because I want to go down there and beat him up not because I want to go down there and burn his house down not because I want to hurl abuse at him and not because I want to name and shame. The only reason why I would want access to that information and to know where they live is to protect my children. I challenge anyone in this House to stand up and say anything different because everyone in this House would want to know where the child sex offenders are in their communities—not for any other reason but to protect their families and protect their children. I also mentioned in past readings—and Alfred Ngaro mentioned this—that we had 147 submissions and 125 of those wanted this register to be public. They could see the need to have that information available to them to protect their children. But more than that we had a number of victims of child sex abuse give evidence. Every single one of them bar none wanted this register to be public because they knew what they went through and that if their parents had had the information publicly available to them they may have been protected. They were firm on that. We also had a number of convicted child sex offenders give evidence. Every single one of them bar none did not want a register. They did not want this register made public. Too often we have comments from the public that politicians are out of touch with what the public wants and what the public needs. Here is demonstrable evidence that there is overwhelming support and need for a public register. Every single other party in this House apart from New Zealand First continues to be out of touch and ignoring them. This is not about rehabilitation or reintegration it is not about punishment and it is not about naming and shaming. It is about listening to the public it is about listening to the victims and it is about ensuring that we put the protection of our children first. The only way that can happen is if this is a public register. There are a couple of issues about why there is actually a need for it to be a public register. I would just like to highlight that not every single convicted child offender will be on the register only those who have been given a prison sentence or a non-custodial sentence that is directed by a judge. That means that the only offenders who are on this register are either high-risk or they have committed a high-level offence. Yet we have got parties and members in this House who do not even want a register of those high-level high-risk offenders who are living in our communities. In addition one of the great concerns that we have is the fact that the offenders themselves are the ones who have to update their own information. They are the ones who have to let the officials know where they are where they are travelling or which children they are going to be associating with if they are. In fact it is not until something happens that the police or the officials need to react to that anything is done. It states here in the actual bill itself that if the Commissioner of Police believes there to be an offender who "poses a threat to the life welfare or sexual safety of a particular child or particular children" affected persons such as parents guardians or teachers could be informed. But not until that child's safety has been put in danger does this monitoring tool or this register actually fulfil its purpose whereas if it were public the public would be the eyes and ears for those officials and they would know who offenders were and what they were doing at all times. This register will not work if it remains the way that it is written in this legislation which is that the register is restricted from the public. I would just like to finally say that at the moment we hear arguments against it being public because there is some sort of ideology that the rights of the offender to privacy or the human rights of the offender come anywhere near the rights of the child. What New Zealand First is saying is that if we are serious about this issue of child sex abuse then we must make the child the centre of that conversation and the only way we can do that is if we make this one public. Thank you."