Tanczos Nandor: Sex Offenders Registry Bill — First Reading 
Tanczos Nandor: Sex Offenders Registry Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:610;Page:7501] 
NANDOR TANCZOS (Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on behalf of the Green Party on the Sex Offenders Registry Bill and to inform the House that the Green Party will be supporting this bill to a select committee. Like all members in this House Green members are concerned about crimes of rape and sexual violence and we find them abhorrent. 
I have to say though that we support the bill with some sense of caution. There are a number of issues that we think need to be seriously addressed in the select committee and we hope that the committee will take them very seriously. The Minister of Justice has already referred to some of the dangers inherent in such a register in terms of the dangers of vigilantism and the possible detrimental effect it could have on rehabilitation. I say that not from some ideological point of view but because I think it is the concern of all of us to reduce reoffending and the number of victims in the future. It means that we have to take very seriously the question of how we promote rehabilitation very seriously. 
The Minister also mentioned that the register on its own was of fairly limited use and we think that is the case. The police already have access to a certain amount of information through parole records and their own records so we are not clear how useful this register will be. We look forward to hearing the police submission at the select committee so that the details of how it will work can be worked through. 
The Greens also have a number of real concerns about the specifics of the bill. I would like to foreshadow to the House that we may not be able to support the bill through subsequent readings if some of those concerns cannot be addressed by the select committee. We have concerns about who the bill applies to. First let us remember that this bill does not just talk about the Mikuses the Reekies and such people. It covers offences like incest between a brother and sister whether of whole or half-blood. That is not to say that we support incest—we certainly do not—but I am not sure that those are the kinds of offences that Deborah Coddington was intending to cover with the registry. I understood it to be concerned with serious sexual offences. 
Of course section 136 of the Crimes Act talks about conspiracy to induce sexual intercourse and anyone “who conspires with any other person by a false representation … to induce any woman or girl to have sexual intercourse with any male who is not her husband.” That could cover quite a large host of things and again while I am not saying that those are acceptable behaviours—they certainly are not—I am not sure that those are the kinds of things that Deborah Coddington wanted to cover. I think that the committee needs to look at those things quite seriously. 
We also have concerns about who the bill applies to in terms of including people who have not been convicted of an offence but who have admitted an offence while being questioned by the police and have been cautioned. Again there are questions about the seriousness of the offence and how likely people are to reoffend. Also there is the power the police have to bargain an admission when they are in a position of power. So I think that those things need to be looked at. It is our belief that that particular part of the bill contravenes the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and we think the select committee needs to look at that. 
I guess our concern is that the bill represents a very blanket approach. Marc Alexander talks about the need to look at patterns of offending in people and I think that is true. The bill is a fairly blunt instrument and in that sense it may not fulfil the hopes of its author although I understand very clearly the very real considerations that have driven Deborah Coddington to put the bill forward.