Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Māngai o Te Whare. Firstly can I congratulate you on your appointment as an Assistant Speaker in this House. I actually want to reflect on that just briefly because we have a Pākehā man as our Speaker we have a Pākehā woman as our Deputy Speaker and we have a Pacific woman Assistant Speaker and a Māori male Assistant Speaker. So if we wanted to look at a representative Speaker list I think we have it and it's actually worth noting. I don't think anyone else has really paid tribute to the diversity that we have. I think your job is incredibly important in making sure that we undertake our roles as members of Parliament in this House in a way that manages and ensures we all contribute constructively.Secondly I'd like to acknowledge all the new members of this Parliament—a lot of you. I want to acknowledge your maiden speeches. I think they were an outstanding range of maiden speeches and they also really highlighted why each of us is here representing our particular electorates our communities of interest. I think this bill in some ways speaks to those communities of interest. I am a previous member of the Justice and Electoral Committee. I want to acknowledge Sarah Dowie who chaired that committee and also Chris Bishop who was a member of that committee and is obviously also the author of this particular member's bill.I've got a lot of respect for Chris because he does bring to the House issues that do need legislative reform and he does it in a manner I believe that allows all of us to contribute to what is a discussion that some may see as trivial but actually within the context of a lot of the korero that we've heard today about freedom of expression about balancing those freedoms I guess with the role that the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act actually has which is to I guess moderate and to look at content related to books films videos and other publications and whether or not they are material that should be available in the public good to the public. That in essence has been a lot of the discussion we had with regard to this particular piece of legislation.The reality for the committee the reality for us as New Zealanders was that there was a process that banned a book. When I looked at the plot summary of Into the River it was and I quote Set in New Zealand the book tells the story of Māori youth Te Arepa Santos as he moves from the East Coast to Auckland to boarding school where he has encounters with intimacy sex drugs racism and death." Now none of us would ever have imagined that a story that provided an opportunity to look at a young person moving from the East Coast rural New Zealand to Auckland would create a situation where it was banned. It was banned for six weeks in New Zealand.I just want to walk us through how that happened because in fact in September 2013 Ted Dawe's Into the River was classified "unrestricted". So I would have thought that was the end of the story. Pretty much it was for mature audiences suitable for those 16 years and over. What happened in December 2013 was in fact Family First appealed that classification. So they went to the Film and Literature Board of Review and in December 2013 the classification went from "unrestricted" to an R14. There was a really curious thing that happened actually. The president Don Mathieson QC actually had a dissenting view. He said it should have been classified R18. It wasn't. It was classified R14.Everyone would have thought "OK let's move on." But it didn't because in August 2015 a group of librarians around Auckland because there was such a huge demand on the book appealed and in August 2015 the book was deemed "unrestricted" again. So you've already had "unrestricted" R14 the dissenting voice that said it should have been R18 "unrestricted" and then Family First appealed it again. What happened in that second application by Family First—they also applied for an interim restriction order. It was that part of the process that then effectively banned the book. Under the current legislation when there is an interim restriction order imposed then you can't supply or distribute the publication and you cannot possess or import the publication for the purpose of supplying or distributing it. And therein lies where we got the ban.So what this piece of legislation will do is make sure that when interim restriction orders are being put in place when there is an appeal one of the tools available to the people who are responsible the Film and Literature Board of Review is that they can actually say "In the interim we're going to give it an R14."—which it has—or an R18 whatever it may be. But essentially what they're saying is that it should still be available—what we highlighted in the legislation—to people of a certain age to people who belong to a certain class such as tertiary students and people should be able to access the publication for a specific purpose; we noted that it may be a film festival. Obviously it's not relevant to a book. But the reality is this piece of legislation is providing another tool in the tool kit that will ensure books are not banned.That's something to be commended. I think that that's an incredibly—it's a great contribution actually to lawmaking. I personally think that when we have people like our author Ted Dawe trying to engage with particular cohorts of young people—this book I remember a lot of discussion about it. It was about providing a genre and an opportunity for young people to have discussions about intimacy sex drugs and relationships.In fact I did look at Family First's kind of rationale for that second appeal. What they said was that it wasn't just about the book. What they were preoccupied with was about benchmarking the censorship office in setting I guess what's appropriate. From their perspective they thought things that have adult themes—such as sex; that have sexually explicit content and bad language—should be restricted to that R14 kind of restriction.I guess therein lies the discussion and debate within society about when is a young person a young person. At what age do our young people have access to information—through story through narrative—that gives real-life examples of how our young people navigate those particular issues these days: how they navigate growing up how they interact with their peers issues such as engaging in relationships that involve sexual exploration having the opportunity to drink alcohol and those other things that this book actually provided?So for us to clarify that books such as this are valid and that they have a place and while we're kind of going through a bureaucratic process in some ways that they shouldn't be banned as I said before I think that this really provides a good example of a member's bill—that if it's crafted in the right way if it's brought to the House in the right way actually will get the support of the House.One of the other things I want to highlight is that throughout the select committee process we all deliberated collectively. We did have lots of questions believe it or not. Some people will think that this bill was very small but actually we had lots of great discussions. One of the aspects of this House that I think we underestimate is that there is an opportunity for us to collaborate that there is an opportunity for us to work together and from my perspective this piece of legislation provides a really good example of how collectively we can make decisions for the public good as a Parliament. Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker."