Kuriger Barbara; Meager JamesPart 2 Amendment to Schedule 1CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): Members we now come to Part 2. This is the debate on clause 6 amendment to Schedule 1 and the Schedule. The question is that Part 2 stand part.JAMES MEAGER (National—Rangitata): It feels like just a moment ago we were discussing Part 1 but now we're on to Part 2. Part 2 is our part around the amendment to Schedule 1 which inserts the parts set out in the Schedule of this bill as the last part. Of course the Schedule being inserted in new Part 2 of Schedule 1 of the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Act 2016—the way I understand it it's an interpretation section and that is the clarifying provision to ensure that retrospectivity is clear in this instance. I refer back to the report of the former Attorney-General who I thought wrote a well-written very insightful report a couple of years ago. If any members have it in front of them I actually thought it was quite a good way to approach the issue. The Attorney-General wrote that he interpreted the bill in line with the Interpretation Act and the legislation design advisory guidelines which state that if retroactive application is intended it must be stated in the legislation.Now what you have in part in new clause 13 of new Part 2 is the Interpretation" which defines what a "specified registrable offender" means. You've got paragraphs (a) (b) and (c) there which actually list different dates as to when offending may or may not apply. So the way that works in practise is that paragraph (a) defines offending occurring before 14 October 2016 which is when the Principle Act was passed into force I believe under—well it was under the Key Government so it must have been probably Minister Tolley back then. Then paragraph (b) has offending on or after 14 October 2016 and before commencement. So that's that period after the original Act came into force and before this amendment bill has come into place. Then you've got subsection (c) which is offending on or after commencement.The combination of those paragraphs I understand is—and I may be well off track and members opposite can jump to their feet and let me know if I'm getting any of this wrong—that the intention of this clause is to deal with the retrospectivity aspect of it. That is important because it is a fundamental principle of the rule of law and it's actually stated in our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act that when Parliament passes laws that have or may have retrospective effect on individuals or on people or on anyone really that retrospectivity must be stated as explicitly and as clearly as possible. We actually had this discussion in the Justice Committee.The reason that principle is important is because the rule of law will tell you that in order for law to be good it must be known and it must be understood and it must be known ahead of time. We've always got to know what the law of the land is and what the rules are that apply to us. The inherent unfairness that exists when a law is passed to condone or make illegal activity retrospective of the current situation—if a new Government comes along and says "What you did 10 years ago is now unlawful despite the fact that what you did at the time was lawful" that is a serious breach of the rule of law. So when Parliament does that it does it very deliberately it does it very carefully it does it very rarely and it makes sure that when it does it it is explicit and it leaves no room for doubt.I don't want to comment on any particular court case but we've seen what happens to laws that are ambiguous and unclear when they go through to the courts. The courts will give a rights-consistent interpretation and where a statute is seen to be possibly retrospective or not retrospective the courts will fall on the side of caution and they will interpret that section as not having retrospective effect. Then of course what happens is that Parliament then needs to return to the House and make clear the changes that say that the law does have retrospective effect. So I wanted to highlight that one very very clearly because it is an important part of our constitution; it is an important part of legislating. It's something that we always need to be cognisant of and it's something that we actually discussed at length in the committee.In my final 43 42 41 seconds I did want to make a comment on the other aspects of the section 7 report which talked about inconsistencies. I wanted to bring a point that the member Greg O'Connor actually made: this is now by my counting the fourth time that Parliament has considered this piece of legislation. It has considered amendments to the legislation. It has passed them in full knowledge with full support of the public with democratic mandate. If that is not the elaboration of demonstrably justified changes to the law I do not know what could be. If that is not a justified limitation—if Parliament comes again and again and again and says that we support this as the democratic lawmaking body I do not know what else we could go to."