Smith StuartSTUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): Thank you Mr Chair. It's great to be back in the House and on my feet as it's my first opportunity to speak in this year—2019. This Crimes Amendment Bill has quite a theme running through it really with the Minister of Justice's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 185 picking up Ian McKelvie's member's bill around stock rustling. Going back—as was mentioned—to Mackenzie's days it was punishable by capital punishment in fact and it was taken very seriously. Somewhere along the way during the lawmaking process it got left out in the way that burglary and other theft crimes were picked up and it really was left out on its own. We were struck through the select committee process by the submitters who came in and we saw how threatened some of them had felt in their own homes when a car or a truck could be heard out somewhere or maybe a shot—what do you do? In the dark do you go out by yourself—or the worst case again would be to go out armed—to try and protect yourself? That's obviously a slippery slope when we start to go down that path to try and protect our own goods and our own homes. Good on Minister Andrew Little for picking this up and putting it in an SOP and into the Crimes Act. We struggled with this in the Primary Production Committee. We had lots of submissions that were heartfelt as I said and then advice saying Well this isn't going to work. You're not really going to change much. As it's written it's not going to work. If we try to change it we'd be outside the scope of the bill." We were all frustrated by the fact that we all wanted to do something but it was quite evident that the vehicle for doing that was not going to be that member's bill. But picking it up as an SOP and putting it into the Crimes Act was actually the way to go with it. Then when we look at the spousal immunity for being an accessory to the crime I imagine that dates back well before Mackenzie's time that law. It's way past its use-by date and it's great that this Supplementary Order Paper has been picked up and that that will no longer be the case. It's right and proper that that comes on. I just think it's ironic that again it sort of links back to days well and truly gone. And blasphemy and libel—I imagine there'll be lots of blasphemy after your stock's been rustled I'm sure—that dates way way back and most cultures have a version of blasphemy and in our case it's a Christian blasphemy and in others it's of course the other religions that are prevalent in those countries. And it is a huge imposition on freedom of speech. It's outdated. It should go and I'm really pleased to see that it is going. But I am concerned that the new blasphemy that's becoming very popular in the Western World today is hate speech. And again I'd really caution—and I'd be very concerned if we ever move to try and impose a modern version of blasphemy in the form of a hate speech law to impose on people's freedom of expression. It is something that's key to our democracy. So while it's good to see this in here I just caution all members: let's be careful that we don't end up in a position where we try and reinvent this blasphemy-type law in another form. So I think that that's absolutely critical.I want to spend the last few seconds I have on my feet to talk about the year and a day law as well referred to in Supplementary Order Paper 192 that's in here. I think Dr Nick Smith's SOP is absolutely critical in this and I think it's also—CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): I think that's in Part 2.STUART SMITH: Yes I realise it's not in this part; I'm just linking it back in terms of the period these things all come from and I think it goes back to 1200 or something like that. So all of these SOPs have a link in time if you like—not back to exactly the same time but it is ironic that we end up with our Acts that get outdated over time. It often takes a very long period for us to come to the conclusion that we need to change them. This Crimes Amendment Bill is doing that across the board really. I think it's a fantastic and timely bill and I commend it to the House."