Ryall Tony: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Ryall Tony: Crimes Amendment Bill (No 2) — Second Reading Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20021] 
Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay Of Plenty) 
: 
 Part 1 is the substantive part of this bill. It covers the significant changes that are being proposed to the rules around sexual conduct. The National Party view is that these changes are being made with insufficient public consultation and we do not think that sufficient consideration was given in the select committee process either. We are worried that there may be serious unintended consequences and the risk of disturbing quite settled case law and legal concepts. We think that some of the provisions in the bill are meritorious and we are disappointed that the part by part motion means we cannot support the Minister’s amendments in the areas we think are particularly important. 
Much of this legislation is based on a discussion paper that was approved by the Minister in 2002 and released to a number of Government departments and groups. I wonder whether the Minister would take a call and tell us which organisations and departments received copies of the 2002 discussion paper on the proposals in the bill and what sorts of submissions were received particularly on the proposal to effectively decriminalise some under-age sexual conduct. Who was in favour of that and who was against it and did the Government really have to carry on with it? Could the Minister take a call and explain why he approved the release of the discussion paper which included a proposal to legalise brother-sister sex for those over 20? I know that the Minister does not support that but I do not know why he allowed it to remain in the discussion paper. Surely Mr Goff should have said to the Ministry of Justice: “That is not Government policy. Don’t put it in there. It’s not going to happen.” Maybe the Minister could take a call to explain that. 
We are also looking for an explanation from the Minister about the issue of dependent family members and protecting young people from the predatory behaviour of those who may have some sort of power or influence over them. Essentially his proposals mean that it will now no longer be an offence for foster parents to have a consensual sexual relationship with an 18-year-old foster child for whom they have cared for many years. I wonder whether the Minister could explain why the current prohibition relating to age which is age 20 at present should be dropped to age 18. 
Could he also explain in relation to his proposed sexual grooming amendments—which we would have liked the opportunity to support through the bill—why he would allow that sort of grooming to happen if it ever were to happen. 
I would also like the Minister to answer some questions about the potential unintended consequences of what a dependent family member is. I think there is some confusion about that because section 131A(1) in clause 7 states that family members are “… of the same family whanau or other culturally recognised family group …”. One of the Minister’s own officials told the Law and Order Committee that a whanau was people who lived on a marae and I am wondering how on earth that sort of advice could form the basis of this legislation. 
So there are I think quite considerable matters that the Minister needs to address and over the next hour or two of this debate members from this side of the Chamber will be seeking an explanation from the Minister on a whole lot of issues including the “dependent child” matter and the “reasonable belief” defence for sexual conduct. Right now a small provision exists for accused persons under the age of 21 whereby if they believed that the other person was 16 and they had taken reasonable steps to ascertain that person’s age and the conduct was consensual then there is a defence. The Government is proposing that that defence apply to everybody. It now means that whereas at present a 45-year-old man has no defence in law for sexual conduct with a 15-year-old girl under the bill’s proposals that chap will have a defence in law provided he reasonably believed she was 16 or older and he had for example checked her false ID. 
The reason we wanted this legislation to go back to the select committee is that no consideration was given to alternatives for addressing the situation of a genuine mistake which I know that the Minister has considered such as having it included as a mitigating factor at sentencing. The select committee did not look at any of that and there has been insufficient discussion with the public about the merits or otherwise of that provision.