Sepuloni CarmelCARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I want to speak to the purpose of this bill as well and just cite a few issues that were raised by submitters during the process. This particular bill and what it is attempting to do really does strike the emotional side of everyone in this House and the general public and it is really important that we do consider this rationally and that we do consider the evidence that is in front of us. We did have to give this a lot of thought before we could confirm that we would support it at this stage and one of the reasons that we have decided that we will support it is because of the support that we do think we have for my colleague Jacinda Ardern's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 193.This SOP will change the name of the bill to the Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Government Agency Registration) Bill. We want to make it really clear that this is about Government agencies sharing information rather than this being a public register that records the names of and provides information about sex offenders. We had a number of submissions that pointed out the evidence internationally which proves that actually public registers do not work. They may give the general public a sense of security; whether that is a valid sense of security is another question. But the fact is that the international evidence we were presented with shows that a public register does not work with regard to reducing the chances of reoffending by sex offenders. Therefore a public register would not make our children our community any safer. The purpose as I said is an admirable one and one that we do respect but I have to bring up that a number of the agencies and individuals that submitted on this bill did say—and I am talking about agencies and individuals who actually work in some instances with the victims of sexual offences and in some instances with the actual sexual offenders. The majority of those who were in that position actually reported that they did not think that a register would change anything at all or in any significant way. They were concerned many of them that this is a large amount of money. We are talking about $146 million to implement this register over 10 years and they were concerned that this money could be spent in places that would better address the needs of victims or actually create more of a secure environment so that we are less likely to have as many victims or are able to reduce the number of victims of sexual offences. So it is really important to note that because those really are the experts who are on a day-to-day basis working with the victims of sexual offending or the sexual offenders for them to say that this is not the best use of money really needs to be noted. We have real concerns around the issues of false security. People seem to think that if you do have a register and you know who the sexual offenders are then they will be safe but the reality is—and we saw this evidence presented at the Social Services Committee as well—that unfortunately the majority of people who will sexually offend against children are actually close family and friends. So we cannot protect them through this particular piece of legislation because most of them will be unknown to the justice system. I would hate to think that this would provide a sense of security for the public out there because the reality is that we all need to be aware of the fact that quite often—more often than not—the sexual offending is actually happening in our own homes and in our own communities and not by people who have been convicted of sexual offences in the past. So it is really important to note that. I want to refer to one of the submissions that was made and that is the submission made by the Salvation Army. I am sure that all of us in the House do respect the opinions of the Salvation Army and the fact that it does come with evidence-based views around these types of issues. The Salvation Army refers to clause 43 in the bill and talks about the flawed conceptions of public safety. The Salvation Army submitted that a Register without sufficient safeguards on its use by the public can actually create conditions that may lead to reoffending." It states that currently in clause 43 the bill allows for disclosure of information to a third party if the commissioner believes on reasonable grounds that the offender poses a threat to the life welfare or sexual safety of a particular child or particular children. I do not really feel like we got to the bottom of that particular issue in the Social Services Committee. There were discussions about who the third party might be and I think at one point it was discussed that boards of trustees might be the third party that the information could be released to if they thought that someone posed a threat. And of course we can understand the rationale for that but then at the end of the day if this is not intended to be a public register how does the Minister for Social Development anticipate that that information will not go any further given that the boards of trustees are actually members of the community and parents of the children at the school? It is hard to see how that information could be confined to just that individual board of trustees and not shared more widely within the community. I am raising that because of the fact that the Government has committed to the fact that this will not be a public register. So I guess just thinking that through how do we stop that happening? I think someone brought up at the select committee that the third party could perhaps be a church minister if there were concerns that a sexual offender who had been released may pose a threat to the congregation or the children in the congregation. So how does that information then get passed on? How are those decisions made about who appropriate third parties are? It would be really good to get some more examples from the Minister for Social Development about who appropriate third parties would be in respect of that particular clause. I just want to go back to the fact that we have had a very broad-ranging discussion in the select committee about whether or not this register should be made public. I just want to contrast the SOP that Jacinda Ardern has put in with the SOP that has been put in by Darroch Ball SOP 178. I know that Darroch Ball and New Zealand First are trying to make this register public. Our SOP is trying to confirm that this actually a Government agency register and that it is not for the public. So there is a clear difference of opinion here. It will be very interesting to hear from the other members of the other political parties about what their thoughts are on that particular issue. Going back to the costs of setting up the register we did feel that they are disproportionate to the evidence in terms of benefits. As I stated several submitters working in the area cited serious underfunding of proven strategies for curbing sexual offending and struggled to reconcile this underfunding with the investment of $146 million into a register. For those who have not been part of the select committee process it would be interesting to hear from the Minister how the $146 million will be spent and what effect that the Government anticipates in terms of the actual impact that will have on sexual offending or reoffending by these sex offenders. It is important to note that submitters articulated the need for the Government to place a higher emphasis on investing in research and evaluation of other means of reducing offending such as specialist offender treatment primary preventative education as well as working with children young people families and communities about recognising harmful behaviour. All of those things are areas in which we would have preferred $146 million to be spent in rather than on a register hence why today we are here saying that we are supporting this bill but with some major reservations: where money could be best spent being one of them what the evidence says with regards to how we stop sexual offenders reoffending and how we keep our children safe from sexual offences. It is important we understand to manage any risks to children in the community posed by convicted child sex offenders who have come to the end of their sentences or are serving non-custodial sentences. We do think that this bill will allow for the tracking of convicted child sex offenders in the community to be used as a tool to try to prevent reoffending but it is by far definitely not a silver bullet to the issues that we are talking about and it is definitely not going to resolve the issue of sexual offences against children. It is one tool it will maybe do a little bit and it may give the community a sense of security but there is a lot more that needs to be done."