Paul TamathaTAMATHA PAUL (Green—Wellington Central): Tēnā koe. Kia ora koutou katoa. I rise today to speak as the Green Party's justice spokesperson and to outline our position which has changed since the first and second readings of this bill. I will begin by talking about what we believe in in regards to keeping our children safe and then I'll talk a little bit about how we came to change our position on this bill.We have always been extremely clear that we want to live in a world and contribute to the leadership of this country in a way that makes sure that children and everybody—but particularly children some of the most vulnerable people in our society—can live free from sexual violence and harm. We know that we have to strengthen the work to prevent sexual violence from ever happening in the first place. That is why we are so proud to stand here as the party with the first ever Minister for the Prevention of Family and Sexual Violence. People who have sexually violated children must be accountable for the heartbreaking and enduring harm that they inflict on people on children knowing the devastating trauma and harm that that causes for those children's entire lives. Offenders must be accountable and supported to stop their violent behaviour and there must be restoration and reparation directly to victims and survivors and their needs.We wish to state our position unequivocally because the research and evidence spells out very clearly where the real levers for protecting our children are. And I would like to think that in the work that the previous Government did together on Te Aorerekura the first ever cross-Government strategy to eliminate family and sexual violence from our communities—this work to prevent violence against children is in the heart of Te Aorerekura.The way that we came to change our position on this bill is because when the first and second readings of this bill happened and myself and my colleague Kahurangi Carter—who is the spokesperson for children—realised that we were the only party that was not supporting this bill we had some serious questions and it didn't make sense to us. We felt that as new MPs without the guidance of our previous MP Golriz Ghahraman who was very staunch on her opposition against this bill we had to revisit those reasons and ask ourselves whether that was the right decision to be made or not. We had lengthy decisions amongst our caucus around why we have the stance that we have and why we might want to change it. We felt strongly that supporting this bill is an important measure towards protecting the rights of children and the safety of children. So I want to mihi to you Greg for your work on this bill and the work that you have done throughout your career to protect children and families—to live free from violence. And I want to thank Erica Stanford as well for her work on improving aspects of this bill.We said in the first reading of this bill I believe that if Minister Stanford's amendments could be incorporated into the bill we would consider supporting the bill. We've done that; we are supporting the bill now. It's great that we've got unanimity across the House in taking this important step.So the issue of ending violence against children has been a longstanding priority for us. As I said before we are very very proud of the work that we have achieved together on Te Aorerekura. Even during the election last year—I mean across parties whether it was Labour National or the Greens—everybody agreed that Te Aorerekura is a blueprint for how we might deal with these really difficult issues like preventing violence in our communities. Te Aorerekura identifies and responds to the drivers of violence requiring accountability from people using violence and supporting them to change because that is a really important piece of the puzzle. It's not just identifying who has created harm and following their movements and actions to make sure that they don't cause further harm; it's actually getting at the root cause of that behaviour and trying to reduce that. Because that is a service to the future in that we're preventing future harm from occurring.So this bill amends the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act 2016 to require registered child sex offenders to provide additional information to police before travelling overseas. This information includes addresses of all places they will be staying—all of these things have already been stated in this debate.I think the key thing that we really want to emphasise is that registers by themselves do little in and of themselves to reduce offending. We understand that there are steps that can be taken through this bill to hopefully add some more protection especially now with the improvements that I mentioned before thanks to Minister Stanford.We also stand by the very important submission made by the Attorney-General on the impact that this bill has on human rights and the Ministry of Justice who were at pains to highlight that this legislation is inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (NZBORA) and therefore risks a dangerous precedent. But that wouldn't be the first that we had supported a bill that had some warnings against NZBORA. We do so because we believe in the rights of children to live free from violence. The Justice Committee's own report noted the statement of the Attorney-General that evidence is limited as to the effectiveness of sex offender registers in improving public safety. The report quotes that he"—the Attorney-General—"considered that the intrusion on that right"—to benefit from lesser penalty where penalties change—"was not in due proportion to the importance of the objective of the bill and could not be demonstrably justified."Now we do in this House weigh up public interest and public benefits whenever we have to consider breaching the New Zealand Bill of Rights. So in this case we should all be clear that we are voting in public interest and—for the Greens with the improvements made to the bill since the first reading—that we consider those reasons in the interests of the public.So in closing I repeat: the Greens want a world where all children here and across the world live safe lives free from sexual violence and abuse. We know we must strengthen the work to prevent sexual violence from ever happening in the first place. We want to see justice for all victim/survivors of sexual violence and abuse especially for children. People who have sexually violated children must be accountable for the heartbreaking and enduring harm that they have inflicted. Offenders must be accountable and supported to stop their violent behaviour and their must be restoration and reparation directly to victim survivors and their needs. Thank you Madam Speaker."