Garcia PauloPAULO GARCIA (National—New Lynn): Thank you Madam Speaker. We are in a situation where sex offending against children is rampant it is global and it takes very many forms from organised and sophisticated large-scale planned offending which surely feeds into individual offending to offenders who are opportunistic because they find themselves in close proximity to their victims for some reason maybe by authority or by relationship being a family member or being in a relationship with a family member in charge of children.It is fitting that the member across the House Greg O'Connor having been in law enforcement himself and having had a lot of experience dealing with situations like this is the member who brings this amendment bill into the House. Surely he would have seen the very situations where offenders would have disappeared into the darkness when they moved to travel overseas. This gap is what has been identified—surely through experience and the knowledge of what happens in this space of child sex offending. This is the very gap that this bill seeks to close down—that when offenders travel overseas they walk into the darkness and become invisible.So the specific requirements of the amendment bill aim to keep registered offenders in the light and visible. There are three main steps. Additional information—when offenders intending to return to New Zealand leave the country they must report where they're going where they will be living and when they will be coming back or departing from the country that they are headed to. Offenders must also provide information if they do not intend to return to New Zealand—where they will be staying. The information that offenders carry that help identify them will need to be provided—the passport the addresses the full names place of issue expiry—so their identities are able to be kept in the light.It is a great advantage to offenders that after they leave they are not able to be followed or sought and that brings opportunities for them to reoffend. Child sex offending is known to be very difficult to reform and with the opportunity of being in proximity to someone else particularly in cases—which the member across the House Greg O'Connor has identified—where family travel to be with family overseas then the opportunity for offending continues. In New Zealand we want to be able to show our determined effort to prevent child sex offending and to put in place protection measures in this country that will help other countries prevent harm as well.So the bill seeks to ensure that we in New Zealand demonstrate our determination to protect children from sexual exploitation—by highlighting this move to reach out and be ready to provide information that is critical to protecting other children overseas. It establishes our clear intent to collaborate and cooperate with overseas jurisdictions to prevent offenders from walking into the darkness and disappearing.With this bill we also demonstrate our dedication to democracy and providing that extra protection that our day and time allows us to provide—so innovation and smart use of information and technology which may not have been available in former times. The bill tracks offenders movements in ways that we could not have done before. Armed with this new technology and data sharing we want to show the world that we are determined to stop or make it more difficult for offenders to keep on offending in other jurisdictions.We also show the world that we are very concerned about our children and the safety of other children in the world. The strict reporting requirement of the bill shows that we hold zero tolerance on child exploitation and that we are prepared to assist other law enforcement in other countries where we know our registered child offenders may be travelling to. So it is essential and natural for us to be concerned about others. Again the hideousness of the possibility of a child sex offender who has offended against children in his proximity possibly within his family travelling overseas to be with other family members is a frightful concept that we must exert every effort to ensure that we do not allow this to progress as easily as it could have in the past without the smart data and technology that we can use in terms of information sharing.With the awareness that this law change could impinge on human rights of registered sex offenders in terms of exposing them to more punishment there have been steps proposed and accepted by the Justice Committee to ensure that all registered offenders are aware that this bill is going to happen. So there will be a delayed commencement time to allow police to fully inform everyone affected by this change. By allowing the bill to explicitly retroactively affect all registered offenders there can be no one staying in the darkness. We commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: This call is a split call—Dr Tracey McLellan.