Webb DuncanDr DUNCAN WEBB (Labour—Christchurch Central): Tēnā koe e te Mana Whakawā. Good to hear that we seem to have some consensus on this bill. Just a few points I'd like to make in sending it off to select committee really. The first is it's increasingly the case that there is an online world and I mean that in a real sense in the sense that there are young people in particular who live a life in the virtual world and have virtual relationships. That's something which people who when they were born the internet didn't exist and tapes were a pretty cool thing—that's something which can be a little hard for us to comprehend. So I guess it's a real challenge for us to wrestle with the fact that what goes on in that virtual world whatever it might be whether it's across digital messaging or whether it's on a gaming platform or wherever it might be is as real to those people as what happens in what we would call day-to-day life. It's against that background that we have to look at this bill because relationships formed in that environment are extremely important and can be as rewarding or as damaging as any other relationship.I do think it's worth recognising that whilst we paint the picture of a total stranger in some darkened room with a keyboard grooming these young people it's equally as likely to be someone they've actually met. The member Ginny Andersen mentioned the schoolteacher who already has an existing relationship and therefore has a degree of trust. So we have to be extremely cautious there that we don't simply presume that it's someone who's entirely unknown—in fact statistics would suggest that's not the case.I guess there's a couple of points I would invite the select committee to look at. We absolutely accept that an adult grooming a child communicating with a child and arranging to meet a child is wrong and we also accept that there's a role for the police to play in early intervention in finding out who those people are. Given that they spend a lot of time and resources on intelligence they often know who they should be looking for. My word of caution is this: that we want to be careful that we don't create behaviours in people that they wouldn't otherwise engage in—what in kind of common parlance would be called entrapment"—that whilst a constable is entitled to engage in a conversation online with someone they think is engaging in risky and possibly illegal behaviour we do not want them to initiate any inappropriate conduct or contact or in any way encourage it; it's for them to be a recipient. So I would ask the select committee to just have a look at that section reflect on the problem of entrapment of enticing behaviour that wouldn't otherwise occur and make sure that there's no place for that that the law properly controls that activity—albeit I'm sure when a police officer might engage in it it's with good intent but it's creating an offence where one wouldn't have existed but for the conduct in fact of the constable.The other point is just the reasonable steps to find out whether a young person—there's a defence section subsection (3) of new section 126A: taking reasonable steps to determine whether the other person was over the age of 16 years and having reasonable grounds. Now I just want to recognise that what is reasonable can be a shifting standard in some ways and I'd encourage that to be explored. That the behaviour we would expect of a 25-year-old or a 35-year-old is quite different from that we might expect of an 18-year-old. So that's something I would hope the select committee would look at.Of course the member has referred to the sentencing question. Again I'm always cautious of heavy sentences and I see there's an increased sentence here from seven to 10 years. I think that's done on the basis of kind of equivalences or relativities within the different sections trying to make sure that the most serious offence has the most serious penalty. Certainly that's something that is worth looking at but good to see this is going to select committee. An excellent improvement to our law—I commend it to the House. Thank you Mr Speaker."