O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I say this somewhat tongue in cheek to the speaker who has just sat down Greg O'Connor and I think he shared the blasphemous libel saying of Stephen Fry. We haven't actually repealed this yet so that might strictly still be blasphemous and libellous but I understand we are under privilege here so it's all OK.In all seriousness I'm very pleased to take a call on this bill the Crimes Amendment Bill. As we heard from the Hon Louise Upston just a little earlier National is supporting this bill.Look we've raised this and I have as well a few times—our concerns about the bills that are being brought into this House. This bill while important for the reasons that the previous speaker's just articulated—and I'll touch on some of those—is a bill which the National Government was progressing has been investigating and in effect had put forward. And yet here we are seeing it as a bit of fill-in legislation effectively now. So I just challenge the Government again to bring some fresh solid legislation to bear. It's not to say that this Crimes Amendment Bill is a poor bill in any way. I think the three areas are important but when we look at what is a new Government with a whole lot of new ideas we'd hope we might actually get something a bit more substantial to get our teeth into.I'm also hoping that we're not going to get an instruction at the end of this bill asking for a truncated period of discussion. I'm very concerned with what's just happened earlier in the House that the people in Auckland and which I represent in Tāmaki have had their voices silenced.This bill is fixing three areas within the Crimes Amendment Bill. The first we know is around the place of spouses and partners. There's effectively a defence on the books at the moment that you can aid and abet something that your spouse has done. As was noted a clever lawyer—and sometimes not-so-clever lawyers—can use that. I mean in some ways you can understand why spouses act in the way that they do but that effectively a criminal's identity is locked into that of their spouse is a bit of a problem. I would hope that the select committee does take quite a bit of time reflecting on this though and the potential unintended consequences when again a spouse is acting in what they believe is the best interest—in other words the crime is not the first element in their mind; it's the relationship to their wife husband spouse partner whatever.The year and a day rule: I have to say I thought the member—granted he shares the surname as myself so maybe I'm just a bit sympathetic but his example I thought was very good in terms of how an act can occur a criminal act but the death itself may be longer than a year and a day. It was well illustrated by what happened in the CTV Building.The last thing I want to touch on is that whole question of blasphemous libel. I believe 1922 was the last time there was a prosecution—I think unsuccessful; I have to go and look into that. Our colleague on this side Paul Foster-Bell was actually a big advocate of this and I think he will be particularly pleased to see this in front of us now. To me it makes sense that it's taken off the books though I'd just point out two elements. The first is that in the modern parlance there's a new dogma of blasphemy out there at the moment. You might not be liable if you will in the statutes or on the books but certain people if you go out and say certain things now against a new dogma—that of progressivism—you find yourself in a very blasphemous position and tried in the kangaroo court and pilloried. So that's an interesting element.The other thing is that I'll be fascinated to keep the Hansards close because all of those tonight particularly those who love to introduce hate speech legislation who want to limit free speech—it'll be good to remind them of what they say here tonight in support of removing blasphemous libel because this basically sits within the framework of freedom of speech and the chance to be able to say what needs to be said. So I'll just be watching closely in the future because I've heard a number of people in this House not just to this Parliament but past that want to limit free speech and who believe there are elements now blasphemous". I believe very strongly that people should be able to put their thoughts forward even in a blasphemous context and actually have that engaged with. As I'm indicating there are already signs in society at the moment that certain things just are not allowed to be said anymore and I think that's a bit of a problem.But in terms of this bill we have a very good bill here. Again it's something I think that the Government really should be progressing through very fast. I don't think that's going to be the case; I think we're going to see quite a bit of filibustering and so forth but I don't intend to be one of those. I commend this bill to the House."