Barclay Todd: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarclay Todd: Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 02 December 2015. Volume:710;Page:8509. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]TODD BARCLAY (National—Clutha-Southland): It is a privilege to speak in support of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Preventing Name Change by Child Sex Offenders) Amendment Bill in the name of Dr Jian Yang. I just want to commend the member for bringing this bill to the House. I do not think for one minute that anybody expects this to be a silver bullet for preventing sex offenders from committing crimes against vulnerable children but it is part of a suite of reforms that have been taking place over the past 6 to 9 years. It is an important part of that. I think it is a bit funny for the Opposition not to support a piece of legislation that prevents sex offenders from reoffending and reoffending again. It is not the first time that they have been on the wrong side of a particular piece of legislation that puts vulnerable New Zealanders first and I am sad to say it will not be the last.With regard to the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which the Labour Party is hanging its non-support of this bill on—Jacinda Ardern: Did you read it?TODD BARCLAY: Yes I have. It is actually a fine balance between either supporting vulnerable children and providing for their ability to go through life with relevant agencies and their families having access to information that could put them in harm’s way or else balancing the needs of people who have actually made a decision who have offended against children and who have made those choices for themselves around their access to privacy. I think that if you are going to make such a move against a vulnerable child or any New Zealander in such a way you lose part of that liberty.What we need to be focused on is how we prevent these people from falling into this position of reoffending. Part of it is by preventing them from changing their names. What is the motivation for changing their names? Yes there are a lot of people in that situation who have probably been rehabilitated. They want to get on with their life and they do not want to have this scar on their CV or on their life going forward but there are others who want to be able to reoffend again. I do not think we can be naive looking at the fact that there are some people who will use this as a loophole—an opportunity to reoffend.I was working in the office of the Minister of Education at the time when the ministerial inquiry into the sex offenders in schools was launched—it was a few weeks after the Minister became the Minister of Education. You would be surprised at the number of sex offenders in our schools and across this country. There are over 50000 people who work in the education sector and there are a lot of people who are in the position where their names come up again. We have heard a number of examples today of people who have been in that position who have offended in schools once and they have offended again. It is not just schools. What we are trying to do though is to add to the suite of policies that prevent people from reoffending to prevent the likelihood and the ability for them to reoffend and also to protect vulnerable children because that is what it is all about.We know that in 2014 there were 451 offenders convicted of a child sex offence; 307 of those were sentenced to imprisonment. Last year there were 294 sex offenders who were released back into the community. There is a good chance that most of those will probably not offend again but how do I know? How do you know? How does anybody know which of those offenders are likely to reoffend or which ones are not going to reoffend? Most of them have probably undergone some form of rehabilitation while they have been in prison. Who knows to what extent that has worked but it is down to the individual who is being released into the community. We simply do not know that. The fact is that we cannot be putting these people back into the community with the best will in the world without knowing for a fact that they are not going to reoffend again. It is simply not good enough to say: “Oh well they’ve undergone some form of rehabilitation. They’ve said they’re not going to reoffend. We trust them. We’ll just let them loose into our community.” It could be my neighbour. It could be your neighbour Mr Deputy Speaker.Mr DEPUTY SPEAKER: Do not drag me into it.TODD BARCLAY: That is the point I think. We need to have a level of security and safety in our communities. That is what this piece of legislation does. It adds to that. It is not the silver bullet but it is part of a wide and impressive suite of reforms that have taken place over the past 6 years. So I would like to congratulate the member and look forward to following this bill through a successful passage through the House.Debate interrupted.