Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. It's my pleasure to rise on behalf of New Zealand First obviously in support of this Crimes Amendment Bill. Contrary to the National Party's members that have spoken so far especially Louise Upston—I couldn't actually believe what she said when she first stood up. I quote her she said There's nothing significant in this bill. It's not important." And then we heard from Simon O'Connor that it was just a fill-in piece of legislation.Well New Zealand First stands and supports this bill because there are three very important parts to it and there are very important parts of the legislation that need to be changed. If I can use the words of Louise Upston when she spoke on behalf of the National Party about this bill being not important and nothing significant I believe that she inadvertently just gave a slight example or analogy of how the National Party ran the last nine years when they were supposed to be looking at very important legislation that affects the people of this country.I would challenge those two members—but especially Louise Upston because she's the one that said it with the typical arrogance of a National Party member—to go and speak to the family of George Siaosi who died in 2017 by a king-hit. The individual that caused him to pass away that assaulted him—it happened more than a year and a day earlier than that and as such he couldn't get prosecuted for his murder. I would suggest that Louise Upston needs to go and speak to his family and say that it's nothing important or that this is just fill-in legislation and then perhaps explain to his wife why they did nothing over the last nine years when they were in Government to do anything about it. I would challenge those members that stood up from the National Party to go and speak to the families of the victims of the CTV Building and tell them that it's not important legislation that they are wondering why we've got this so-called fill-in legislation going through. The arrogance is palpable coming from the National Party.I was listening to the Minister's speech when he first stood up and was reading through the common-sense bill and the important bill and I started just writing down a few notes. The first things that I wrote down were that there shouldn't be any opposition barring a few questions and queries and it should be non-political. That's what this bill should be but the first couple of speeches that we heard from the National Party were anything but that. And then we have the example of the comments from Louise Upston about the introduction of an Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). It doesn't matter what any member of that Opposition says they know that that is 100 percent a political move from the National Party and it shouldn't be done in this context. It's been quite obvious and blatant that the National Party is trying to have the mantra of splitting this coalition up with stupid individual pieces of legislation or ideas—namely law and order and other examples like this SOP coming through—but it will not be successful. This is the type of legislation which should be going through without any opposition and without being a political issue but that's not the stance that the National Party is taking. I'm going to go through the three very important—well let me say two very important and one important—pieces of the legislation. The amendments repeal three aspects of the Crimes Act. The first is as we've heard about the spouses and the civil union partners being immune to any sort of prosecution when it comes to accessory after the fact of an offence. The second is the blasphemous libel and the repealing of that part. New Zealand First—I mean we're supporting that but we do have some questions that we'll be wanting to have answered through the select committee phase.Chris Bishop: What are they?DARROCH BALL: Well what we are worried about or what we want to ensure is that this won't impinge on people's—first of all obviously—right of freedom of speech right. So we get that and we understand that. We understand that the blasphemous libel is an old law that it's outdated and it's no longer in the context of this modern society—we understand that. But what we don't want is to have situations where individuals' deities or gods are insulted unnecessarily and we'll be making sure that that is not the case and making sure that all of those parts are—Chris Bishop: That's why you want to keep it.DARROCH BALL: No that's not true Mr Bishop. You're not listening obviously. I said we're going to be making sure that's the case. We are in full support of that because we understand that in today's New Zealand we are one of the world leaders—if not the world leader—in freedom of speech and we need to make sure that our laws reflect that.The third is the year and a day rule which I mentioned before and which I think is the most important part here because we've got a spate of serious offences—especially over the last nine years increase in serious offences—and the prevalence of the things called king-hits. They lead to very very serious injuries and with the modern-day technology we don't want to have anyone that is the instigator of those crimes get off without the correct sentence or charge put towards them.Just a couple of fun facts under the—Hon Member: Ha ha!DARROCH BALL: They are fun facts that haven't been mentioned yet. The first one is about the spousal protection law. This actually refers back to the Bible and it traditionally refers to the wife. A wife was excused from criminal liability because she was obliged to quote unquote "obey her lord" and receive him into the matrimonial home—obviously in much more chauvinist times was this law accepted. This is known as the doctrine of unity of husband and wife and privilege against self-incrimination. Obviously we've moved on—not just since the law was written for New Zealand; this dates back a couple of thousand years and we need to move on from that point. I think the bottom line with that part of the bill is that when it boils down to it the bottom line is that no individual should be protecting or harbouring a criminal once they've offended.The second one—in regard to the blasphemous libel—is that this provision has been removed from many countries before New Zealand has done it including France Sweden the UK Netherlands Norway Iceland Malta and Denmark. It's quite interesting to note that the majority of those countries according to their population censuses are more religious than what New Zealand is. So I think that that shows that getting rid of this bill is not really a religious matter or issue; it's just one of common sense.The last one: the year and a day rule. I think that the key thing here for this is it needs to catch up with the modern medical science—the life support technology for example—victims would be able to survive a lot longer than the year and a day. It's a very archaic law it's outdated and we need to make sure that it catches up with modern-day society. I think one of the important features is that it only applies to future cases as well.I think that hopefully we'll get some more substantial and more non-political and less arrogant contributions from the National Party members from this point forward—Kieran McAnulty: Don't hold your breath.DARROCH BALL: —but I won't hold my breath like my colleague said. But New Zealand First will be continuing to support this through to select committee. Thank you."