Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National): Ms Curran made some remarks a few moments ago and asked a couple of questions that I do wish to respond to. The first was in relation to if I understood her correctly—I think she was asking about what sections would be offended against if something was classified as objectionable. I think this is a reference to new section 49(3) inserted by clause 4 of the bill. She was referring to what section 123(1)(c) of the principal Act actually refers to and what it refers to is essentially all of the things to do with dissemination of the potentially objectionable material—so the sale the supply the publication the distribution; insert various verbs there.What the interim restriction power allows the president to do—in fact what the Act compels the president to do—is make an interim restriction order that prohibits the doing of any act or thing in relation to a publication that if the publication were an objectionable publication would be an offence against the dissemination the distribution the production the sale and the supply. That is replicated in various other sections section 127 and section 129 as well. I think if I understood what Ms Curran was saying correctly that responds to that point.Ms Curran also raised a point around whether or not there should be a wider review of interim restrictions and she noted that during my first reading speech I did advert to that possibility. I have got to say I think that there is possibly a case for the wholesale abolition of interim restrictions. There are a number of reasons one could advance for that proposition. First of all they do not give enough recognition to freedom of expression which is of course recognised in section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and is a paramount constitutional consideration within our system.The courts and indeed New Zealand have traditionally viewed with distaste the possibility of what is known as prior restraint on speech. The courts will generally prioritise freedom of expression when it comes to cases of breach of confidence breach of privacy or defamation. There is a very high bar before the courts will intervene with things like interim injunctions for example. They will generally prioritise and preference freedom of expression over those other values. There is a high bar that litigants must meet. So it seems very strange in some ways that if that is the case when it comes to interlocutory cases of prior restraint we would preference the one judgment or one determination of one person—whoever happens to be the president of the board of review at the time—after a properly constituted body the classification office has made a determination.It is worth remembering that this is on appeal so there has been a classification office determination already. A group of experts appointed by the Minister have made a determination about the appropriate classification of a book or a publication—whether or not it should be objectionable or whether or not it should be R18 or R16 or recommend to be M for mature audiences only 15 years and above. There has already been a determination. This is on appeal so it seems a bit strange that given the courts and New Zealand society generally do value and preference freedom of expression we would not do so when it comes to something like interim restrictions—that we would say that the president of the board of review has you know some sort of magic power over and above that of the properly constituted body in the first place. That is the first reason.The second reason is that actually in some ways they are just unnecessary. I got the library to go back and have a look at how many interim restrictions have actually been issued and how many times the board of review has altered the decision of the classification office. There were 101 appeals between 2005 and 2012 and only seven alterations to what the original classification decision was. That is a very small number—seven out of 101 that is just less than 7 percent—so you do have to wonder whether or not this power does actually need to be there.Of course it can be abused and that is the third and final point—that it can be abused. In other remarks on this bill I have talked about the frankly outrageous behaviour I think of groups like the Society for Promotion of Community Standards which would wait right until the last minute before applying to the president of the board of review for an interim restriction in the early 2000s. It seems to have stopped that practice more recently but it did of course lead to some disharmony at the time. Their intention was to disrupt 2-day film festivals and having achieved that purpose having the film festival go on without the showing of films like Baise-Moi and Bully and stuff like that—films that I would never go and see but that apparently people do want to go and see.So to respond to Clare Curran I think there is a strong case for getting rid of interim restriction orders. Maybe that is my next member's bill. This makes at least some steps in the right direction. We did canvass it at the Justice and Electoral Committee but we decided that we would just go with this next step as a starting point but let us wait and see where Parliament lands in a few months' time.