Stephenson ToddTODD STEPHENSON (ACT): Well I do feel a Kumbaya" moment coming on as Cameron Brewer would say. I want to thank the Greens and Tamatha Paul for her eloquent discussion about how the Greens have changed their position and will be supporting this bill. I think she touched on a lot of very important issues as we debate the child protection amendment bill I'm just going to call it because there are a lot of words in the brackets aren't there? But I think that was a really great demonstration of how this parliamentary process and going through the readings can actually allow considered debate discussion and actually allow parties to consider their position and change it.So no surprise: ACT will be continuing to support Mr O'Connor's excellent member's bill. Again I think a lot of credit should go to him for diligently bringing this through two parliaments two select committees and working away to make necessary changes and updates and improvements. I've got to say I was lucky enough to be on the Justice Committee in this Parliament and Mr O'Connor would come along and make very constructive contributions. When he saw that there were some things that needed to be adjusted on the advice of officials or other submitters he was very pragmatic and I think we worked through those issues in a very constructive way.I'm going to talk a bit about why I think this bill is important because really it is extending New Zealand's duty of care to our children—and we take that very seriously—and actually extending that duty of care to other countries' children. I think that's a really important element. Again Ms Paul actually talked about the kind of horrendous acts of sexual violence against children in New Zealand and they are some appalling statistics—one in four girls and one in six boys are sexually abused before the age of 18. That is appalling and we must do more to address that. Again I want to thank Ms Paul for saying that actually our criminal justice system isn't up to scratch. These are some of the issues that I know we're looking at in the Justice Committee. These assaults are really unacceptable and what the register that we're now really extending overseas does is actually try to protect children by obviously registering offenders so we know where they are in our community in New Zealand. What we're doing with Mr O'Connor's bill is now extending that duty to other countries and really trying to provide useful information that may prevent sexual crimes against children in other countries. Also other countries have already got legislation such as this so I think it's important that New Zealand does its piece to actually update our international obligations. So again in Australia they have a similar law where each state and territory must report these details of offenders—where they are and if they travel outside of Australia permission is needed and of course those people are tracked similar to our bill. And then obviously in the United States there are different laws but again one of them is the international Megan's Law which is to prevent child exploitation by again requiring notification as people who are sex offenders travel outside the US.I also want to acknowledge Ms Paul's discussion around the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. I think that it is actually very important that we do acknowledge that the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report does say that we are actually impinging on people's rights but I think it's a really important process that we have in New Zealand where when a piece of legislation comes before our Parliament we get these New Zealand Bill of Rights Act reports because it does allow us to see how a piece of legislation measures up against the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act but also allows this Parliament to balance the competing interests. That's what we're talking about here. There are the competing interests of ensuring that our children are safe and are protected from these paedophile offenders versus their rights. I think that's a really important discussion that we should have in the open.I think having a New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report like this available for each piece of legislation allows both this House and obviously the select committee which considered this bill to have that information. I think that's a really robust piece of our process that we can actually say "Well where does it make sense to impinge on people's rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act because it's actually for the greater good and it's going to protect people?"Again just briefly turning to the bill. Again it has been mentioned—this was obviously Mr O'Connor's bill. We obviously had an Amendment Paper from Erica Stanford which has been incorporated making some useful changes around the inter-agency sharing of data and making sure that that was all linked up. I talked about some pragmatic changes in the select committee one of those being around the commencement and just giving time for the police to make sure. Hopefully when we pass this bill today in this House—yet to be seen but if that does transpire it certainly will with the support of ACT. I'm hopeful all the other parties are still on board—just allowing the police that time to make sure they have the processes in place. That was a request that they made and that we heard at the select committee and helpfully incorporated I hope.There were obviously some other issues around retrospectivity which again are covered both in the commentary and in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report. But again that had to be designed this way because we wanted to make sure we obviously captured all of the people on the current register in New Zealand and made sure that they were the ones that we were wanting to continue to track regardless of when they were added in time and that these obligations that we're looking to place on them would be placed on them rather than some loophole because of the time in which they were placed on the register.I want to finally just finish by making a few remarks about—and again I know Mr O'Connor; I think this bill can do a few things. It can obviously protect children where the offender may be known to them but we also have some appalling cases of child sex tourism where people are actually travelling outside of New Zealand's jurisdiction where they're closely monitored to maybe do illegal activities in other countries. Some statistics suggest that around 2 million children around the world are victims of sex tourism every year. That's pretty appalling. In Asia alone we have some really appalling statistics including children as young as six and younger being subject to this predator behaviour. In fact if you're wanting to watch a bit of interesting documentary the former host of To Catch a Predator Chris Hansen actually travelled to Cambodia and uncovered some of these horrific things that are happening in child sex tourism. His report is just really one of many that outlines this really hideous disgusting and vile trade that is taking place. Again these acts against children are really appalling and we should do everything we can to stop them.This bill is a response to one MP seeing an issue diligently fighting for it being pragmatic and actually extending New Zealand's care and protection for our own children to other countries' children. I really think that this is a great piece of legislation which does its small but important part to add to our laws that do protect our children. So again I want to thank Mr O'Connor for bringing this to the last Parliament and to this Parliament sticking with it sticking with these speeches and with the process and I think delivering something very useful. Again ACT will be voting in favour of this. I commend it to the House. Thank you."