Logie Jan: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6649. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a short call on this the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill. The Green Party is supporting this bill going to a select committee so that we can hear evidence from a range of experts on this issue.We do of course have child welfare at the heart of our concern generally and we specifically have a long history in this House of trying to improve our system response to sexual violence and to keep our children safe. So we do have an interest in the identified intent of this bill. However as it stands as it is written at the moment we do have significant concerns.I would also like to just raise my sense of bemusement that this is being referred to the Social Services Committee. Of course as a committee last term we had the inquiry into social services for sexual violence and considered some of those issues and certainly heard from providers which are providing treatment for harmful sexual behaviours and sexual offending. So we have some history of looking at sexual violence issues but not at all of the justice response to those issues and this bill gives powers primarily to police and the Department of Corrections which will have direct access to this register and we have not considered those issues.I would like to note that actually the evidence we heard from those providing services to people engaging in harmful sexual behaviours was that they were very sceptical of the value of registers and warned us against them in fact. They did note that they still have concerns that people referring themselves for treatment for these behaviours or thought patterns that may lead them to worry that they may offend actually are still finding it very difficult to get into courses to be able to address those behaviours or attitudes in themselves.So the thought that the Government is prioritising a register when we are yet to be sure there is evidence that it will make a difference over the provision of those services that we know have a very high success rate seems to me to be less than constructive particularly when we know that the conviction rate for sexual violence in this country is 1 percent. So this is dealing with a tiny tiny percentage of people who are offending against children in this country and it is focusing $150 million of precious resource towards a scheme for which actually we do not have international evidence that can assure us that it is going to be effective. The register is targeted towards this tiny tiny percentage of people out of a much larger group when we could actually be putting that money into establishing a really solid system of prevention and early intervention in our communities. My instinct—and from listening to people working in this sector—is that our resources would be better focused on prevention and early intervention rather than this register which does raise quite a few concerns around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.I do also just want to point out one of the strange possibly unintended consequences that might arise from this and that we do want to hear evidence on. This is that it may send a message that sex offending is one of those crimes that you cannot rehabilitate that we need to just keep an eye on these people and that is simply not true. There is absolutely a really really high rate of behaviour change. There are under 5 percent I think of people who have offended who after treatment are still a risk. We actually have parole amendment legislation that allows for extended supervision orders to be renewed for that group of people. We do not want to create the impression that may make it harder for people to disclose if they think somebody is never going to change.