Collins Judith: Films Videos and Publications Classification  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Collins Judith: Films Videos and Publications Classification  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:623;Page:18717] 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I find myself in the rare position of agreeing with most of the speakers most of the time this evening. That is a shock to the system. 
Hon Dover Samuels 
: There must be something wrong. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: It is a shock to the system and as Mr Samuels said there must be something wrong. There is not very much in the bill that I would like to object to except for the fact that United Future should have supported the ACT amendments last night because they were sensible amendments. Everyone else would have sung United Future’s praises and understood why that party is in Parliament because we have no other idea what it is doing here. This would have been the opportunity for United Future members to stand up for a bit of common sense. But they did not— 
Darren Hughes 
: Great! MP Judith Collins on moral issues! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
:—and on a moral issue too. It was absolutely a moral issue. But they did not and it was all to do with United Future’s little rules. But a lot of life is not about rules; it is about getting on doing the job and doing the right thing. 
I was a bit shocked that I kept agreeing with Mr Locke—until he got on to the censorship issue about the reds under the bed when I thought that maybe censorship was OK after all. But never mind! I will not discuss that because I am generally quite opposed to censorship except in respect of things like child pornography and images of the degradation of people rape and things like that. I am personally very concerned about the censorship of let me say impure words because I am frankly very happy we are still allowed to say impure words. It is sometimes a lot better to swear at someone than it is to hit the person. For a lot of people who have not gone through university and learnt fancy words that is how people communicate and it should be legitimate. If we cannot have a good swear in a movie that cuts out just about any movie that is worthwhile watching— 
Darren Hughes 
: This is the family spokeswoman! 
JUDITH COLLINS 
:—in terms of the 1970s. Yes. I tell the member that I would rather people had the freedom to say what they liked than be hamstrung by silly laws written by people who do not like what others say. That is nothing to do with them. 
Darren Hughes 
: What about Disney movies? 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: I stopped watching Disney movies about 30 years ago. Maybe Mr Hughes still watches Disney movies but I have moved on. 
There is one reason why I am supporting this bill. It is not about the silly hate-speech nonsense the Government is trying to push through; it is because of the increase of penalties relating to child pornography. If there is one offence that every single person in this House I hope thinks is revolting disgusting and beyond thought it is child pornography or child sex acts. I am sure we all agree about that. No doubt that is why everyone in this House is shocked to see that we have under-18-year-olds prostituting themselves in central Christchurch in Manurewa and in other places like that yet nothing happens about enforcement. 
I take the good point that Mr Alexander made about the lack of penalties being imposed on offenders in cases of child pornography. It is all very well for us to stand up here and to praise the wonderful work of the Department of Internal Affairs in its picking up of those perverts—frankly I think: “Good on the department!” for doing it—but such people have to be prosecuted and they have to be penalised in some way. 
I am particularly concerned from what Mr Alexander said—and I know it is true—about the children of 15 to 17 years who are accessing this stuff. These are young people with very young minds at very impressionable ages and what they might think of doing when they say: “Let’s have a look to see what it is.” can very easily become what is quite clearly an addiction like any other sort of addiction except that it is an addiction to views of children being abused. I think that is pretty awful. 
When we think back to the days when we had the first bill of this sort back in 1993 we remember that we really did not have total access to the Internet for everybody in the house. Now many homes have more than one computer—let alone just one—because computers have got a lot cheaper over the years as technology has improved. There is also access through libraries schools and workplaces and that is one of the problems. 
A concern I have in relation to this bill of course is that of unwitting possession which Mr Franks dealt with again tonight: the situation where the sorts of pornography we are talking about can be put on to files that we as people who may not be experts in computers can download by mistake. We have often seen and many of us will have found the cookies that are put on to computer websites. One could end up in a particular website and the next thing that happens is that something flashes up on-screen. Normally it is trying to sell some sort of male health-issue drug—which is not something that I need I can tell this House. That is the sort of thing that can happen and I am very concerned that those sorts of things can end up— 
Hon Mark Burton 
: Far too much information. 
JUDITH COLLINS 
: Did Mr Burton want to make a comment about that? He wanted to know all about it. Well I am sure that he can get someone to look at it; I know Dr Paul Hutchison as a doctor will be happy to help. 
On a more serious matter it is of concern that the Government bowed only to the pressure brought on by Denise Ritchie and End Child Prostitution Child Pornography Child Sex Tourism and Trafficking in Children for Sexual Purposes—and I should hasten to add by the work of Deborah Coddington the ACT MP; as the House should know I do not often give praise—which brought to the Government’s attention that it would be soft on this sort of crime again if it said that 2 years was enough as the maximum penalty for possession. 
It is all very well for us to hear after a lot of huffing and puffing from the Ministers that we will now be tough and have the same penalties as the UK and Canada. Well why should New Zealand not lead the world? Is this not something we could lead the world in? Could we not be a little tougher and at the same time could we not be a little more sensible—as Mr Franks urged this House to be in relation to some of the other parts of the bill—as to how we could make this work better in practice? I see Mr Alexander is impressed with those comments. There is no point in getting ourselves excited and pushing this amendment bill through and then having to come back into the House after the first court case when we realise that in fact it has not quite worked out the way we hoped it would. 
Perhaps I can just ask the House to think about the work of the censors the Internal Affairs people and the police—the people who have to work with this child pornography. I wonder how often anyone ever looks at those people and asks how it is affecting them. Do they in fact get some sort of opportunity to do something about whatever goes into their heads? I am very concerned that those people are working with living with and looking at extremely abusive portrayals. I am really quite concerned as to what that does to them over a long period of time. Certainly and the point has been properly made by my colleague Sandra Goudie it can desensitise people to pornography. 
That is something we should be concerned about because I cannot for the life of me imagine why anyone would want to be the Chief Censor—unless they could not get another job!—the Deputy Chief Censor or any other position to do with this issue unless they in fact have a passion towards stopping the sort of pornography we are talking about. I do not know if that is true in the case of the current incumbents but I am sure it is. 
In terms of the penalties and of what happens to the people who trade in pornography I say that the penalties are clearly not enough; otherwise people would not keep on doing it. Clearly there has not been a deterrent effect; otherwise it would stop overnight. The trade is not going to stop until people involved in it can see that the chances of getting caught are really really high—just as high as speeding not paying taxes on time or those sorts of things. The penalty has to be really high; it has to be public; and it has to stick. 
It really concerns me that certainly the Australian experiences and the American experiences tend to suggest that the people who trade in child pornography are from all sectors of the community—the fact that they might swear has nothing to do with it because I am sure they do not—from one end of the spectrum to the other. I really believe there is more likely to be concern because of people’s ease of access to those sites. The concern is about the mentality of people who think they can enjoy—if there can be such a word in relation to this sort of perversion—looking at a child being abused. How could anyone do that? Of course we are talking about people who are often control freaks people who have very secret lives and people who are in positions of power. Those are the sorts of people who are likely not to get prosecuted because they are often a lot cleverer than they should be.