Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. I rise in support of this bill and I would say I probably will take a very short call because it does take care of some overdue changes to our criminal code in just bringing it up to the 21st century.The first change that I would address is the removal of blasphemous libel and I'd like to acknowledge my friend and Labour Party MP Angie Warren-Clark for first introducing her member's bill to do this and the Government has made us all proud by picking it up in this Government bill. Of course in any modern secular democracy it would be bizarre and a little bit perverse to have the crime of blasphemous libel. It breaches our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act it creates discrimination and it sends the wrong message about the kinds of values that we're upholding in our justice system. In fact happily it hasn't been prosecuted since 1922 so this bill this change really just reflects modern practice in New Zealand and our proud culture of secularism in our democracy. I'm particularly happy to see this removed given I've lived under a theocracy in Iran and seen the very damaging effects of this kind of religious law leaking into especially the criminal justice system where sanctions are so serious for individuals being prosecuted—shouldn't really hang over anyone's head.The second change is about spousal immunity in terms of giving evidence and that's another one that's really amusing almost in its outdatedness and something that I remember used to come up in films where people would quickly get married—or join in civil union as it might be now—where then you would be free from prosecution or free from being made to give evidence against your partner and that of course impedes the work of police in taking away their ability to sanction someone for being an accessory after the fact for example to a crime. So it's time to probably clean that up.Lastly the big other change is removing the year and a day rule which prevents prosecution for death caused more than a year and a day after the charge would be brought—again an incredibly outdated time frame though of course we do need some acknowledgment in our law and we do have it that very lengthy delays in prosecution cause unfairness. That's where this law comes from; it's the idea that no one should have prosecution hanging over their heads for many years. Of course we have undue delay as a defence now where for example witnesses could've died or evidence destroyed when a very lengthy amount of time passes but with the kind of evidence that's available now to our courts with DNA evidence other scientific types of evidence—and we've seen in very recent cases: the horrific case of Malcolm Rewa that just went through the courts now and the exoneration of Teina Pora who'd been wrongfully imprisoned for that murder for over two decades. We only have that now with evidence that's been able to be preserved and analysed so many years later. So this law really is not only outdated but again would impede the proper administration of justice in New Zealand and so we are removing it again to reflect modern-day reality.Of course we also have had some impassioned talk of the effect this could've had or did have on the CTV tragedy prosecutions. It did stop them at the time and it is a shame that this law wasn't changed over the nine years of the National Government as we might have seen other prosecutions go ahead. Of course the suggestion that we pass law now to apply retrospectively would breach a fundamental constitutional norm which says that no one can be liable for a crime—especially a crime but any type of legal liability—that didn't exist at the time that they did the act for which we are holding them accountable. So that really is some perverse politicking from the Hon Nick Smith just now. We won't do that because we do respect the rule of law fundamental human rights and our justice system. They didn't change the law when they had the chance and they want us now to change it in this very perverse way. What we're doing is securing the rights of New Zealanders in securing prosecutions in future in the way that lawmaking should work. So I commend this bill to the House.