Webb DuncanHon Dr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Kia ora Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on this bill. and my congratulations to the member for both getting this bill drawn and to this late stage in the House. I know that he would want me to thank everyone who's worked on this bill but especially the officials. I think he might have been a bit flustered because he was so busy discharging other duties and rushing to his seat that it might have slipped his mind so I'm passing on that message from Greg O'Connor that he's very grateful as am I and all of the committee members for the diligence and assistance of officials advising us on this bill.I do really only want to touch on one aspect because other speakers have very articulately gone over the nature of the bill and exactly what it does and its objectives of extending the register to the movements of child sex offenders to overseas travel and the details of that. But I do want to just touch on the human rights aspects because I do think this House should absolutely pause when the Attorney-General says The proposed measure in my independent and considered opinion is not a justified limitation on human rights." and it should be only with the utmost gravity that this House puts that to one side and adopts that measure anyway.As the member who just spoke Rima Nakhle noted the key consideration there was the suggestion that for a person who has been convicted and sentenced a harsher sentence is now being imposed but because there is now this additional measure that didn't exist when the crime was committed. I think that there is something we need examine there. One of the observations or one of the statements or reasons of the Attorney-General in the report was that there is actually modest evidence of a strong link between prevention of child sex offending and this register and I think that's a gap that we need to fill. We should only infringe on liberties where there's evidence that we're doing the right thing. I understand that Waikato University is doing work on that; I look forward to seeing that.But I guess the reason I am happy to see this bill progress is because I do believe it will prevent harm. But I think we need to carefully examine—and I know I'm disagreeing with the Supreme Court on this and I don't do that lightly. The Supreme Court did find in I think it's "D" v Attorney-General that the child sex offender is part of a punishment or a penal regime. I think we need to kind of reframe what goes on in the Corrections framework because some of what Corrections do is punishment. It's that kind of marking out conduct as entirely unacceptable and imposing things like imprisonment or home detention or whatever to say "That's so bad we're going to make your life more uncomfortable."Certainly the purpose of this register is not punitive; whatever the court sentenced that has happened. This is to protect children from people and that's the primary objective but also to put a framework around offenders and their behaviour—in a sense protect them from themselves. I think we need to recognise that as abhorrent as the historic offending is what we're really doing here is saying "We want to not have future victims." It's not about saying "Because you were a bad person we're going to make your life more uncomfortable." In fact I hope the police make this as easy and seamless as possible so that it is complied with absolutely by child sex offenders who then recognise that their movements are monitored in some degree and don't put themselves in situations where other people are at risk. The outcome of that is that there will be fewer victims of child sex offending—fewer children who are victims of sexual offending. That's a good thing. That's not part of a punitive regime; that's part of a careful community that protects its children and also at the same time assists people with problems to not offend. I think that's how we need to reframe some of what we're doing in Corrections is to say that there's always going to be a punishment aspect but let's not conflate punishment with protection and improvement of everyone's lives.That is why I am very happy to support this bill. I did want to talk about the rights issue because I certainly didn't want it to be glossed over and I wanted to make it absolutely clear that the Attorney-General's view is not lightly disregarded but it was very carefully thought about at committee and of course I'm sure it will be considered by other members in this House as well. Kia ora Madam Speaker."