Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): So I have a couple of questions for the Minister in the chair because I am quite confused about some of the time lines relating to the changes in this bill that is before us today that we are now in Committee on under urgency which is essentially to fix up some gaffes in the drafting of the legislation that passed in October last year. On the record Labour is supporting this bill. We supported the bill in October. We can see the logic for it and the importance of it. But when you have to come back—just how many months after—about 4 or 5 months later and correct some quite significant holes in a piece of legislation then you have got to expect to answer some questions about how that came about.My first set of questions is around the definition of conditional release" or "release conditions". I do not know whether the Minister has answered this already because I note that she has and it has been good that she has got on her feet early on and actually provided some explanation. My question is how it was that what seems to be a really quite standard definition—because this bill is actually inserting definitions from the Parole Act so it is a definition that already exists in the Parole Act 2002 into this legislation—as I understand it got missed. Was it missed by the Ministry of Social Development officials or whoever was legally advising them on what needed to be in the bill? How is it that a critical definition like that could be misconstrued or written wrongly or whatever? I do not understand in a ministry as big as that how that is possible and how there was not another pair of eyes or lots of other pairs of eyes dotting the i's and crossing the t's on this legislation. It really does raise questions around whether it was rushed through too quickly or whether there was not the right expertise being provided. So what I ask the Minister is: has that situation been remedied? Is there an assurance that can be given to the Committee that the expertise on legislation like this does reside within the ministry and within the Minister's office in order to ensure that the time of the House and taxpayers' money is not wasted in this way—in having to do some quite fundamental changes to a piece of legislation? I can hear you argue: "Well why do you not just approve it tick the box and let us all get on with it?". The fact is and as my colleague Chris Hipkins outlined I think in the second reading the purpose of the Opposition is to point out these problems with legislation drafting and how the Government simply is not doing its job properly in drafting legislation and ensuring that it is correct legislation. Here we have urgency again with a piece of legislation that is correcting an original piece of legislation. So I would ask the Minister if she can to provide an assurance to the Committee on that because I think it is pretty important. After all as a previous speaker on the National side of the Chamber said earlier on there are currently 1659 sex offenders on this register and 107 who ought to be there but are not who are not captured by this legislation because of the holes in it and that is quite significant.For the public listening it is important that they realise that that is why a piece of legislation is going through under urgency. It is quite a serious issue that just definitional problems—defining a clause incorrectly—can result in such a major impact. [Bell rung] Mr Chair.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Before I give the member the call and she is certainly entitled to another call I just want to make the point that we are looking for some new material here. The fact that every speaker is getting up and repeating the same points over and over again does not actually add weight to anything or expand the gravitas of what we are discussing. So yes the member will get another call and I will call her shortly but she should bear in mind that repeating the same things that every other member has said is not necessarily a call in this stage.CLARE CURRAN: Thank you Mr Chair. My second question relates to the changes in clause 5 which rewords section 8 of the Act to clarify who a "corresponding registrable offender" is concerning conviction in a foreign jurisdiction. My question to the Minister on that is whether this relates directly to policy changes made by the Government I think at the end of 2015 or beginning of 2016 around the deportation [to New Zealand] of Kiwis who have committed offences and how this Government treats them. If it does relate to that—I want to know whether this change that is being made in the legislation today relates to those changes that were made between the New Zealand and Australian regimes—then why was that not sorted out when the legislation was drafted in October last year? There was a gap there of—and I just had a quick look on the "Googleiser" at when those big debates were happening around the Kiwis being deported from Australia. Sort of around February was when things were pretty hot. I know it went back further than that but even if you are generous enough to say February last year that is around 9 months' difference between February and October for there to be input into the drafting of legislation that would get this right. And too it does not seem like a really complicated change is being posed today in this legislation. Why was it then that this could not have been got right back in October last year? Clause 5 in the legislation that we are looking at today amends section 8. It replaces "who has been convicted of a corresponding offence in a foreign jurisdiction and" with "who as a consequence of a conviction in a foreign jurisdiction for a corresponding offence". What I would like the Minister to clarify is what has brought that about. What is the need for that particular change and what has been the problem in that October legislation that has had an impact? Has that related to some of those 107 people who have not been caught by that primary legislation—have they ended up being caught up in that clause not being properly defined? Those are just some of the changes that are being proposed in this piece of legislation going through under urgency. I think it is fair to reiterate that although Labour does support the legislation we are deeply concerned about the need for urgency under these circumstances. If these changes are so fundamental in terms of the definitions and the impact of them they should go to a select committee and we should be able to ask officials these questions. We should be able to get a bit deeper into why on earth this has happened—what has created the fundamental flaws in the drafting of legislation and whether there is a more systemic problem that we need to be worried about and that the public needs to be worried about."