Henderson EmilyDr EMILY HENDERSON (Labour—Whangārei): Child sex offending is abhorrent we all know this. As a mum of four kids as an auntie of 14 kids it is one of my greatest fears as I am sure it is one of the greatest fears of every parent in this House every auntie every uncle every nana and poppa across this country. We also know that is hugely prevalent. We know that about one in four girls and one in nine boys—sometimes the figures are a little higher: one in three girls; one in seven boys—over the last 40 years or so those are the figures that have been found consistently across the OECD. Sex offending against people under 16 at some level: very prevalent. We also know that the harm can be lifelong and extreme.I have spent my whole adult life working to make it easier for child witnesses and especially child sex abuse witnesses to be heard in court when they have the absolute bravery to try to tell their story. I have spent my life working on that issue and I look forward to discussing that work and I look forward to the support of the member opposite Matt Doocey when we come to discussing the Sexual Violence Legislation Bill because there is a bill that will actually do something to protect child sex victims and to stop child sex offenders unlike this one.A wise man said to me recently that we should respond not react. I suggest to you now that this is a reaction of a bill not a response based on the evidence and what is sensible. But we are lucky because there is a lot of evidence—there is a lot of evidence because this sort of community notification bill has a long history in the US in particular but also in the UK and there are numerous studies. One of the findings that those scientists have made is that this sort of bill makes people feel good. It is something that raises confidence from the public and people feel like something is being done. The sad sad truth however is that when you investigate the actual efficacy of this sort of bill it has minimal to no impact in reducing offending.Now I rose last week to talk in support of the strengthening of the child sex offender register in this country. I did so because that bill unlike this one was a proportionate evidence-based response. This bill with its blanket requirement of notification to schools is not evidence-based. It may make us feel good; it does nothing to protect children. I strongly suggest to this House that what we need to be doing is not about what makes us adults feel good; it is what actually works.So the member opposite has already referred to the fact that there is in fact already a system to notify schools—Simeon Brown: It doesn't work.Dr EMILY HENDERSON: —as to sex offenders. Now he says that it doesn't work. My suggestion is that that is actually a misunderstanding. Of course there are mistakes. Those are operational matters which are about the guidance given to police. But if you have a look at what this bill does—this bill—this bill is an undifferentiated one-size-fits-all knee-jerk reaction that will do nothing to increase the safety of our children. In the first place it covers all sex offences—not just child sex offences; it covers everything from rape of adults through to bestiality. It is not specific to child offending. And when we do that we are not assisting; we are just making ourselves feel better.The next problem is: it is not differentiated as to whether the person is regarded as a threat. We are going to for example force the notification of sex offenders who are medically incapacitated who pose no threat whatsoever. There will be no judgment. There will be no flexibility. There will be no rationality in the regime proposed under this bill. It is disproportionate. It is one-size-fits-all. It is inappropriate.And when I move on through the research on this I come to the next problem with it: there are no safeguards. When you look at the response here it is not only a one-size-fits-all but there are absolutely no safeguards as to what principals are supposed to do with this information. When a principal is given this information how is it that they are supposed to address it? There is no guidance here. How are they going to protect privacy? How are they going to ensure that their response does not become the nexus and the catalyst for vigilantism? Because that has happened. I would refer you to the well-known example of the Welsh doctor who was a paediatrician whose house was attacked and who was attacked because people misunderstood. There is an unfortunate fact that in the studies—and there are many—of these sorts of responses these sorts of registers between three-quarters and about a third of the information is often out of date and wrong. In the US there are many examples of innocent people being attacked who happen to live in a house where an offender used to live. Is that the sort of thing that is going to protect children? Absolutely not.Furthermore the laws requiring notification as I've said they have a long long history in the US. So let's have a further look at what they've done because the fact is that in those studies we haven't been able to find much of a lift in reconviction for sex offenders. If the intention of notifying the public and the school is to reduce the incidents of child sex offending this is not going to work—and we have over 20 years of international experience to say that. I say again: it might make us feel good; it is not going to do anything.What is going to do something is treatment. We know that treatment works. There are multiple studies including of New Zealand programmes such as Kia Mārama. Now what these studies show is that in the first 300 sex offenders who went through Kia Mārama for example in the first nearly three years there was under 3 percent of reoffending and the conviction rate after five years was at 8 percent. Lambie and Stewart looked at three community-based sex offender treatment programmes here: the overall reconviction rate was 8 percent over four years. Now that's compared to the control group of 19 percent.Now why am I talking about treatment? Because registers are shown to disrupt treatment. The sort of public notification that we are talking about here it disrupts treatment because other studies have looked at what happens to the sex offenders themselves. What it has found is that one-third report job losses housing losses harassment is very common the majority experience the loss of their social supports and they experienced a massive increase in stress and in shame.Now if you talk to sex offender treatment providers—and I have done today; I have spoken to two senior senior clinicians in this field and what they say is that if you are going to shame these people publicly if you are going to put them under stress you raise the potential for them to fall back into offending ways and you lessen their ability to join into treatment. Again it may make us feel good; it ain't going to help.And furthermore what we know about sex offender treatment is that we really need that social support around our offenders if they are to rehabilitate. But do you know what this also does when you end up notifying of a sex offender? It shames their family. So we have multiple children in the US who experienced harassment. We have family members who would otherwise be helping the sex offender to rehabilitate who are instead experiencing social isolation and shame.This is a pointless overreaction. If you want to do something for child sex offenders support the sexual violence bill and support rehabilitation in treatment.DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired.