Bishop ChrisFILMS VIDEOS AND PUBLICATIONS CLASSIFICATION (INTERIM RESTRICTION ORDER CLASSIFICATION) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingCHRIS BISHOP (National): I move That the Films Videos and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Order Classification) Amendment Bill be now read a second time. I would like to thank my erstwhile colleagues on the Justice and Electoral Committee for their detailed examination of this bill. We did not receive a huge number of submissions which I was personally disappointed by. We did not receive a huge number of submissions but we did consider them in detail and we have made some useful amendments to this bill.I would like to start by just reminding the House about the origins of this member's bill and why I drafted it. In 2015 members may recall that an award-winning novel called Into the River by a New Zealand author called Ted Dawe was banned in New Zealand.Tracey Martin: Have you read it?CHRIS BISHOP: Members opposite ask me whether I have read it and the answer is no I have not read it. I have skim-read parts of it but it is actually not intended for someone like myself Ms Martin; it is intended for young adults so I have not read it. It was banned in New Zealand—temporarily but still banned. The reason it was banned was a strange anomaly in our censorship laws and this bill attempts to address that anomaly. What this bill does is make a small but important change to improve freedom of expression in New Zealand and of course that is a right guaranteed in New Zealand by section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.Let me just recount the story as it were of Into the River and how we got to this point. In New Zealand publications are classified by the Office of Film and Literature Classification and in September 2013 Into the River was classified as unrestricted M—suitable for mature audiences 16 years and over—by the classification office. In New Zealand one can appeal classification decisions to the Film and Literature Board of Review and indeed the decision on Into the River was appealed by Family First the families lobby group which sought a restricted classification for the book. In December 2013 the board of review classified the book R14. This is a unique classification that had never previously been assigned and the board president Don Mathieson QC who would have rated the book R18 issued a dissenting opinion. In 2014 there was growing dissatisfaction with the board's decision particularly amongst teachers and librarians. Auckland Libraries requested the board's decision be reconsidered by the classification office—the first time this had actually happened—and the classification was changed again to unrestricted.Then of course Family First appealed that decision again. So this was the fourth time one book had been considered—the fourth time. So it was appealed to the board of review and this time Family First asked the board to impose an interim restriction order which is where we get to the nub of the issue. Sue Moroney: Surely you've got better things to do with your time.CHRIS BISHOP: That application was granted on 3 September 2015. The interim restriction order made it illegal to supply the book to anyone or to display the book in or within view of a public place. This was the first time an interim restriction order had ever been imposed on a book.For the second time in 2 days Sue Moroney has made a stupid interjection in the House because what she just said to me then was: Surely you've got better things to do with your time." Actually this bill concerns one of the most fundamental rights in the New Zealand constitution which is freedom of expression. What the Into the River saga demonstrates is that that is a fragile right in New Zealand because for a period of 6 weeks a book that had been classified as being available for New Zealanders was unavailable because of the interim restriction regime we currently have. It was a nonsense—I submit it was a nonsense. What this bill seeks to do is to remedy that situation so that situations like that do not happen again. So Sue Moroney can regard that as not worthy of Parliament's time; I for one think the opposite and that is why Parliament is dealing with it.What I have done is outlined the situation of the board of review and what happened with the Into the River decision. What are interim restrictions? Well they are short-term restrictions on publications used during classification reviews or appeals. They are meant to be rare—and in fact they are rare—and they are intended to allow quick action if the New Zealand public is considered vulnerable to the publication under review. The problem with them and this was revealed during the Into the River saga is that the president has only two options currently: they can either allow the decision of the censor that Into the River should be unrestricted to stand while the board makes its review decision or the president can ban a publication entirely pending the decision made by the board.What is not available under the current law is the power to essentially reinstate either of the two original classifications. In the case of Into the River this was unrestricted M or R14. As I said previously I think the end result was ridiculous. We had a situation where a book was banned for 6 weeks even though three previous censorship decisions across both the Office of Film and Literature Classification and the board of review had ruled that it should be legally available even if restricted.What this bill does is propose simple amendments to give the president of the board of review more flexibility when imposing interim restrictions. The key provisions in the bill are intended to allow interim restriction orders to completely restrict access to a publication as they do currently or to restrict access only to people who are of a certain age who belong to a certain class such as tertiary students or those who are accessing the publication for a certain purpose such as a film festival. Essentially what the bill does is create three new types of interim restriction orders that mirror and reflect the classifications that can be imposed on a publication by the Office of Film and Literature Classification. In the case of Into the River it would have meant that the president could more accurately calibrate the interim restriction—they could have rated it R14 for example or unrestricted M both of which the book had previously been classified as.The Justice and Electoral Committee has made amendments to the bill that I agree with. It has made some amendments to the structure and drafting of the bill. The amendments set out the four types of interim restriction orders more clearly. There is also a change in the bill's name to the Films Videos and Publications Classification (Interim Restriction Orders) Amendment Bill.Hon Maggie Barry: That's catchy.CHRIS BISHOP: Exactly—Maggie Barry says that is catchy. Indeed—very catchy.There are also changes to the offence provisions. The principal Act contains offence provisions that do not envisage the more flexible interim restriction orders proposed in the bill so under the amended Act the existing penalty for breaching an interim restriction order would also apply to breaching any of the new types of orders. So there are essentially changes that are necessary—they are consequential on changing the way in which interim restriction orders are dealt with.Some members opposite may like to scoff at a bill like this but as I said at the start of my speech I think it is a good bill that makes a small but important change to better protect freedom of speech in New Zealand. It cleans up that anomaly—an anomaly that frankly no one really thought existed until we had the case of Into the River. But that is actually what Parliament's responsibility is—to see how laws interact with what actually goes on in society and see how they are applied. When Parliament thinks that the law is being applied poorly and when Parliament thinks that the law is not having the consequences and the effects that society envisages it is Parliament's responsibility to act. I have acted and introduced the bill. Members might like to scoff at it but I think it is a good bill and I commend it to the House."