Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Madam Deputy Speaker. I rise to speak at the second reading of the Crimes Amendment Bill. I think the issues that have been discussed around the means of this bill achieving modernisation achieving some streamlined improvements really to the way justice is delivered in New Zealand have been well made.I would make the point though to the speaker who's just resumed his seat Raymond Huo that the reason we didn't complete this in nine years was not through want of trying. The Hon Amy Adams and her predecessors have spent a great deal of time effort and energy combing through irrelevant outdated anachronistic legislation much of which is now coming through the House. So to say that we didn't do it in our time is factually incorrect and the fact that it is happening now within one year is due to the good work that we have done in combing through it. I think in the spirit of cooperation I won't dwell so much now on the things that we disagreed upon—except the one year and one day rule I will come back to. I would like to talk about some of the submitters that came before the Justice Committee and the points that they made because when we reflected on the 42 people who made submissions everybody who came before the committee to orally submit was exercised by the blasphemous libel—either in favour of it or not in favour of it being repealed. So when I looked at the 22 people who came in and who spoke about that particular clause in some detail there were six main themes and I think it is worthwhile to take the time of the House for a moment just to recap on those because there are some very deep fundamentally held beliefs that would indicate that this is an important safeguard of the standards of language and the way we conduct ourselves not only through the law but in society as a whole.There are of course a lot of people who point out that in 122 years there has not been a single conviction under it and therefore what has it achieved. But the main and overriding theme of the six that came up—of the 22 who protested about the blasphemous libel being repealed—was that it would encourage hate speech around and against God. That feeling was deeply held and explained in some detail because again it led to the second theme which is that it would remove a safeguard for religious freedom. So even if it didn't encourage hate speech it might be seen as an effort to liberalise the way in which people would speak of God and in a way that many would consider disrespectful.The third theme was that it would disrupt the maintenance of the wholesome boundaries of the media. There aren't too many present for this morning's descriptions; I think wholesome boundaries" and "the media" are not often found in the same sentence. I do feel that when we examine the sincerity of the people who made that point there was no questioning their sincerity but with respect to them I don't think it's made a very big difference to the way that the media have conducted themselves—the presence of this blasphemous libel—and I don't think it would make a huge amount of difference if it were repealed either.Insulting the Christian founding of New Zealand was another very deeply held conviction along with inciting violence in the American model. It was brought to the committee's attention that this is the kind of thing that happens in the United States and that by keeping the blasphemous libel in it would stop that violence occurring. The insulting and dishonouring of God or God's believers was also something that came before the committee. So while I feel that both Labour and National considered these things carefully and respectfully within the submissions hearing process it was generally agreed that with respect we didn't feel that the repealing of this would actually lead to the things that those 22 submitters were fearful of. But I would say that it is useful to have a conversation around that because what it has done is sparked a great deal of better-informed debate about what hate speech really is and whether we need to be fearful of it or protective of it in New Zealand and where that respect should best be really addressed.So ultimately the committee decided that the repeal of blasphemous libel would not change the way that we do things but there was dissent around this idea of one year and one day. I think that my colleague the Hon Dr Nick Smith who is of course an engineer by profession and who understands the structure and the design of buildings—he is somebody who believes very strongly having been the Minister of Conservation immediately after the Cave Creek disaster and having taken over that responsibility with Pike River as well. We see two outstanding examples as well as the CTV Building where the one year and one day rule enabled people to evade and sidestep any kind of conviction or scrutiny of the law.We are deeply uneasy about the timing of the implementation of this and we will at the committee of the whole House certainly present a number of Supplementary Order Papers where we hope that the committee of the whole House will understand that this is a risk. Buildings last for a very long time and one year and one day is not very much time in the lifetime of a building. Why should people not face scrutiny and prosecution if the building ultimately at a random and uncalled for event like an earthquake—why should they not be held accountable in years to come? I think that for those of us who have been involved in the submissions around the CTV Building and ways to improve the way that we as a nation actually conduct ourselves in earthquake recovery and how we make things come right—we have an obligation I think to look very closely at that side of things. So we will be certainly pushing back pretty hard on that the section 162: "Death must be within a year and a day". Perhaps after this legislation is passed—and we do support it of course—then that could be the moment at which it is triggered. So there will be more discussion to come on that.We were all agreed as well that we need to make some changes to the protection of spouses and civil union partners and this is a little bit like the blasphemous libel. This is something where really the law hasn't kept pace with the times and the social and modern family dimensions that occur. So essentially section 71(2) needs to be repealed because it is offering protection to spouses and to civil union partners in cases where they would otherwise be an accessory after the fact to an offence. By giving immunity to a person who assists their spouse or civil union partner we feel that that is outside the spirit and intention of what the law ought to do which is provide justice. This protection really does—we all felt as a committee all eight of us—create an anomaly in the law because it doesn't apply to other classes of people who are protecting someone in a close personal relationship like a brother or sister or cousin or family member.So there are a number of things that we agreed on and some that we did not. But I come back to where I started which is that this bill is a broad-ranging examination of a series of elements within the Crimes Act and we needed to put through an amendment of this sort to tidy it up and make justice better served. I think that it is really important as well for the people of New Zealand that they understand that they are able to see justice done if there are wrongs that have been done particularly in a construction sense by engineers.I would have to say that in the number of omnibus bills that we have done to try and tidy up anachronisms in legislation this one has been the most straightforward. I think that by repealing these three provisions in the Crimes Act we will make the law more fit for modern purpose. We will I think encourage more confidence in the minds and hearts of the public to know that they will get satisfaction from the law if there are issues such as earthquakes and deaths that arise from those.So I won't take up the time of the House any longer on this but I would say very firmly that come the third reading and the committee of the whole House there will be some very robust discussions about a year and a day. But in a broad sense the Justice Committee—which is not always let it be said in absolute agreement over every issue that has come before us. The chairman Raymond Huo has pointed out that we have done 20 bills this year. There has been no shortage of annual reviews petitions and so forth—all of which have been fairly hotly contested. So I think that when we do see a bill of this kind which in the engine room of the select committee has really gone through the detail of the bill made it a better bill and made it I think really fit for modern purpose that's the Justice Committee doing good work. So I commend this bill to the House."