Huo RaymondRAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. This must be the thirteenth bill that the Justice Committee has sent back to the House for the second reading and the extraordinarily busy Justice Committee has considered 20 bills this year as well as Estimates annual reviews inquiries and petitions. So on that note and in my capacity as the chair of the Justice Committee I'd like to thank all the members of the Justice Committee. I thank the clerk and his team and I thank officials and advisers and especially the submitters who have taken the time to get involved and played a very important part of this legislative process.As well as the Supplementary Order Paper 185 that Minister Little has just introduced this Crimes Amendment Bill seeks to repeal three sections in the Crimes Act 1961 relating to immunity for spouses as an accessory after the fact the offence of blasphemous libel and the year and a day rule. This is a relatively small straightforward but very important bill. We have received 42 submissions from interested groups and individuals. Most submitters commented only on the repeal of the blasphemous libel offence. A small number of submitters also raised issues about the repeal of the year and a day rule as well as issues concerning the basic principles of retrospectivity.Immunity for spouses as an accessory to a crime after the fact is out of step with modern society. There is no justification for such a protection. Being married or in a de facto relationship or civil union relationship provides no reason to protect those who intentionally obstruct justice. What is worth noting is that this kind of immunity does not apply in New Zealand anyway. For example under the Evidence Act 2006 all eligible witnesses are compellable to give evidence no matter their marital status.The blasphemous libel provision—namely section 123 in the Crimes Act—is little known. No prosecutions for blasphemy have occurred since 1922. We have heard submitters who expressed a view that we may need to protect protection against anti-religious conduct. But the majority of submitters believe that the current provision is an unwarranted restriction on the right to freedom of expression and that it does not align with the values of modern New Zealand.The year and a day rule has attracted much attention. The rule in section 162 of the Crimes Act 1961 is that death must be within a year and a day. The repeal of this section would allow the prosecution of an alleged offender for his or her act or omission that resulted in death more than a year after that cause of death. The repeal could mean in future cases similar to the CTV Building collapse that there would be no bar to prosecution after a period of say 25 years. The Government announced in March that we would remove the year and a day rule from the Crimes Act. The Prime Minister the Rt Hon Jacinda Ardern was quoted as saying in the staff reports that she had made an undertaking to the families of the 115 people who died in the CTV Building collapse in that 2011 quake that changes need to be made. And we have honoured our promise.There are other cases that illustrated the problems with the rule. The issue came to light in New Zealand following the 2017 death of a victim 15 months after he was assaulted. In the United States during the attempted assassination of President Reagan in 1981 the White House press secretary James Brady became permanently disabled from a gunshot wound. He died some 33 years later and his death was ruled a homicide caused by the gunshot wound. However the attempted assassin could not be prosecuted and the year and a day rule was cited as one of the reasons. Other comparable jurisdictions notably the United Kingdom the United States Ireland and Hong Kong have respectively abolished the rule and in other countries such as Germany Scotland and France the rule has never applied. One thing that we would need to be mindful of is that in the United Kingdom there was no statutory basis for such a kind of a rule as it is purely judge-made common law. But in New Zealand we have codified the rule so there are strong cases that we must make such a change through the legislative process. There are some issues regarding the timing of the year as Dr Smith's just outlined more specifically around issues concerning the basic principles of retrospectivity. The short answer is no. Minister Andrew Little outlined his reasoning behind the conclusion. It is fundamentally a principle that is widely accepted. It is also in breach of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 because section 26(1) of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act spells out very clearly as to the reason why retrospectivity shall not apply. We have heard from some of the National members and Dr Smith in particular who have said that they would view that sort of a year and day rule and the repeal of which as a kind of a loophole. With due respect they were in Government and there were plenty of different ways of closing such a kind of loophole—if they genuinely believe it's such a case. They were in Government for nine years and they didn't do it. We have been in Government for just more than 12 months and we have done that. Thank you Madam Chair.