Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Madam Deputy Speaker. Today is a historic day for the Parliament because the Parliament is going to unanimously apologise and pass legislation which allows men convicted of homosexual offences prior to 1986 to wipe those convictions from the statute book.I want to acknowledge first of all the Minister of Justice for his ongoing leadership in this area but also the Hon Amy Adams the Minister of Justice who introduced the legislation in the previous Parliament. But more importantly I want to acknowledge Wiremu Demchick and the 2111 others who signed the petition that brought that issue to the Justice Committee—or the Justice and Electoral Committee as it then was in the last Parliament—and all my colleagues on that committee who considered that particular petition. I also want to acknowledge Kevin Hague who I'm sure is watching the debate tonight because it was Kevin who presented the petition on behalf of Mr Demchick and I know we're joined in the House tonight by Georgina Beyer as well. It's fantastic to see you in the Chamber Georgina and I acknowledge you for your leadership over many years on issues like this and others.It's 32 years since homosexual law reform. It seems hard to believe really—32 years—and sadly this Parliament doesn't have very many members left who were around at the time. But I've talked to the Hon Annette King who's just left us and I've talked to Trevor Mallard—I haven't talked to Winston Peters about it but I have talked to Trevor Mallard—and it's hard for people of my age and generation to get their heads around the vitriol and the hate and the anger and the sense of controversy at the time. Eight hundred thousand people signed a petition. It turned out that a lot of those 800000 were dead or they were children or they weren't actually real people but regardless of how you measure it hundreds of thousands of people signed petitions asking that Fran Wilde's bill not proceed. It's hard for people of my age—I was three at the time or perhaps four—to understand the hate and so New Zealand has come a long way since 1986.I acknowledge Louisa Wall and her contribution to our next steps on the evolution with the marriage equality legislation in 2013. This I believe is just a further progression of trying to create a New Zealand where people of all backgrounds all sexualities and all genders are welcomed and embraced for who they are and for their own individual humanity.Of course it was Venn Young who introduced the first legislation in 1974 to decriminalise homosexuality between consenting adults aged 21 years and over.Hon Christopher Finlayson: And Norman Kirk opposed it.CHRIS BISHOP: And Norman Kirk opposed it." says Christopher Finlayson. But people in this House have made efforts over many years to try and put right what is wrong and this legislation is a continuation of it.So what does it actually do? Well in a technical sense it allows people who were convicted of specific offences under the Crimes Act relating to sexual activity between males aged 16 years and over to apply to the Secretary of Justice to have those convictions expunged. There are five specific offences: section 141 indecency between males; section 142 sodomy; section 146 keeping place of resort for homosexual acts; section 153; and section 154 an attempt to commit an unnatural offence. We think about a thousand people were affected by these offences prior to 1986 so it allows people who were convicted of those offences to apply to the secretary.It's done on the papers. The secretary is responsible for determining applications on a case by case basis. The law is modelled on overseas jurisdictions like the United Kingdom where it's known at Turing's law of course and various parts of Australia. The Justice and Electoral Committee actually travelled to Australia in the last Parliament to hear from other jurisdictions as to how they did it and we've made some technical amendments to the legislation to reflect that. But in general the bill as introduced was a pretty good one because it reflected what's happened in overseas jurisdictions.So in a technical sense it's a fine piece of legislation but the most important thing that it does is it puts right wrongs from the past. It is the Parliament saying unanimously "These laws should never have been the law." it's Parliament saying "These laws were wrong and we are going to express our condemnation of those laws by allowing people who were convicted by those laws the ability to expunge them from their own records." and it is Parliament saying to the rainbow community and those who were affected by the laws "You should not have to bear the stigma and the shame and the hate any more because now you have the ability to wipe it from the books and make sure that ongoing sense of shame and stigma does not continue."At its core this bill has a very simple notion: putting right what is and was wrong. In my speech on the first reading of this bill I did say and I did admit that I did struggle with the concept for some time for a couple of reasons: one I thought it would very difficult to unpick conduct that everyone now agrees should have been legal from that which was not legal and should never have been legal and there was some advice and evidence that the police were often not exactly particularly picky about what particular offences they chose to charge people under. It turns out that we can move through that and it turns out that enough records exist to be able to unpick that. But I was worried about that.I was also worried about the concept of rewriting history. I was worried about the Parliament looking back and saying "Essentially these laws should never have existed." I think we do need to be wary as a Parliament about when we do something like this; we do because it is essentially recasting history. Whether we like it or not—and we obviously don't—the laws that existed prior to 1986 were the law; that was the law of the land and people were convicted. But the thing is when you talk to the people who were affected by the laws when you have the conversations and you hear the evidence—and we did at the select committee and I have done through my engagement in the community—and you listen to the experiences and you listen to what people went through you reflect on "How can that be the New Zealand—how could that have even happened in New Zealand?" and you just have to acknowledge that this is the right thing to do for the Parliament.It's the right thing to do to say to our rainbow community "Your individual and collective humanity is affirmed and solidified by this legislation." These laws should never have been in place. They did do harm they did cause grief they did cause dissent and they did cause hate. The Parliament is now making a unanimous stand for tolerance and equality and diversity. I am so very pleased to commend this bill to the House."