Foster-Bell Paul: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeFoster-Bell Paul: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 18 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1757. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]PAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Can I seek a split call with my colleague Brett Hudson and a bell at the 4-minute mark?The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): You may and you are granted.PAUL FOSTER-BELL: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. I take no particular pleasure in speaking on the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill in this second reading debate. I can see looking around this chamber at members’ faces that everyone regards this as a distasteful matter and it is actually a bit of an indictment on our society that we need this sort of legislation and that there are people out there with a sickness obviously and a tendency to exploit children through the viewing of indecent images.I will address some of the things that previous speakers have brought up. Firstly actually in responding to the previous speaker from the Opposition it is a little bit ironic to hear about piecemeal discussions and a non-systemic approach to the justice system as that member sat next to a many-hundred-page Judicature Modernisation Bill that systemically reforms the entire justice and court system. I think this is a Government that takes these matters very seriously. Clare Curran is right about one thing and that is that there is a problem. These images are being created they are being disseminated they are being viewed and they are a form of abuse in and of themselves. So when we hear about the difference between the depictions of abuse and the abuse itself in a way they are one and the same thing. In fact the depictions amplify they distribute they disseminate and they record over a long period of time images that I am sure the victims of those crimes would rather forget than be reminded of whenever those images are circulated.There were a few other issues that were raised. Jacinda Ardern asked about the views I suppose of those on the Justice and Electoral Committee about a particular issue and that was the definition of “indecency” and why if we are trying to achieve a focus on preventing the dissemination of child abuse images there is not a prevention of the wider issues coming into play. Well there are a number of other kinds of objectionable material—and I am sure our New Zealand First colleagues will raise this because it was discussed by them in the committee—but I actually have no problem with images of bestiality being treated in the same way as images of child abuse. They are equally objectionable in my view and I think we should increase the prison sentences to up to 10 years for the possession and up to 14 years for the importation and distribution of such images. I do not actually have a problem with that kind of approach.Secondly in terms of the Attorney-General’s role in this we have moved into a new era in which we do not need the Attorney-General to be the arbiter of whether a prosecution could be reasonable or not. The police the Department of Internal Affairs and the Customs Service have significant experience in this area. In my view we are not going to see as a result of this legislation material that we could consider to be of an artistic nature being pursued by overly enthusiastic enforcement officers. I think we are going to see our law enforcement agencies which provide us with a safe and secure society to live in take a pragmatic and sensible approach on these issues and that is the driver behind the removal of that traditional Attorney-General consent requirement—except for cases of international and private prosecutions. So it is important legislation. It protects children in New Zealand and abroad.The bill does give more opportunity for rehabilitation. As my colleague Jacqui Dean mentioned it gives a longer period of time in which multiple rehabilitation programmes can be undertaken by offenders so that when they inevitably are released—because we do not keep people in prison for ever—it is absolutely incumbent upon us to make sure that all that is reasonable has been done to reform to remediate to rehabilitate and to lead to a situation where those people are not going to reoffend in the way that they have been.One last point to touch on is the wider definition of “indecency” in general. Members are right: in this legislation there is no one definition of indecency but there is considerable case law in this area. We are bringing this in to modernise the technical aspects as well as to increase the penalties. For those who have suffered from the IT problems in Parliament today it goes to show how reliant we are in the modern world on the cloud. This is to keep the legislation up to date with the technology that we have in the world today. Thank you.