Curran ClareCLARE CURRAN (Labour—Dunedin South): Labour supports this bill and agrees with Chris Bishop that this is a small but quite significant bill and that there is a definite anomaly in the legislation that exists. Of course often we do not know about these anomalies until they hit us in the face. When a book such as Into the River by an author such as Ted Dawe ends up being temporarily banned—and I know that it was not an actual ban but it was temporarily taken out of the community—it raises issues that are bigger than one would think. These are issues that relate to civil liberties freedom of speech community standards and where we are as a society and it causes us to do quite a bit of reflection. So I commend the member on this bill genuinely. I think that this is a small but significant piece of legislation that we should take to a select committee and scrutinise: not just this individual instance but the wider issues that surround it and what they mean where we sit as a society in terms of our community standards our children's access to information the information that is important for growing up and the processes around how a book like this can end up in the situation that it ended up in.I asked the Parliamentary Library to give me a list of the books in New Zealand that have been banned and curiously a long list has come back today. It is much longer than I actually would have thought it would be: I think I have counted up 180 books that were banned between 1963 and 1994. I am not quite sure why I only got to 1994. I do not really want to read out the titles of many of them—these were banned by the Indecent Publications Tribunal. I guess the question I was asking myself was: what does it take to actually ban a book in this country? I will read out the title of a couple: Secrets of Methamphetamine Manufacture: Including Recipes for MDA Ecstasy and Other Psychedelic Ampthetamines—that is a good one to read out—and Kitchen Improvised Plastic Explosives was another one. I am not going to go any further than that and please do not do this at home—and I mean that most seriously.The situation is that there are reasons—and good reasons—why some things get banned. New Zealand is a liberal country; New Zealand is a country where freedom of expression is highly valued and I hope it stays that way. I hope that we maintain the vigilance of politicians across Parliament around the importance of freedom of expression. But there are times when things are produced that need to be taken out or not allowed into the country; there are good reasons for that. But the issue that brought this bill to Parliament tonight is not one of them. It is a clear anomaly that needs to be corrected. I hope that when it gets to select committee there will be a wider discussion.If there was to be a criticism of the author of this bill it would be that before you bring a bill like this—or any member's bill—to the House I think it is always important to do some exploration in the community and particularly to talk to the organisations that will have views. We certainly know that there were authors in New Zealand who had views around the temporary banning"—and I am using that word knowing that it was not an actual ban but there was a taking of this book out of circulation. There were authors who had views. There is a Society of Authors. There are civil liberties groups. There is the Law Society. There is the Library and Information Association of New Zealand that no doubt could have provided—and hopefully will at select committee—views on this issue and the wider issues. I think that it is incumbent upon us as parliamentarians when we are putting in a member's bill before the House to seek some of those views before we actually craft the wording of the legislation—not that we have to take on board all of their views but we should go out and seek their views. That would be the only criticism that I have.The other point that I would like to make in the time that I have got remaining is to talk about the further reform. The member is putting a reform into the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act. There has been in this country under the Minister for Communications a review—called the convergence review—that has been going on for several years now which has still not ended up with any action—Jacqui Dean: It's "converging".CLARE CURRAN: —around the classification of content generally.Tracey Martin: It's "converging"—"converging".CLARE CURRAN: "Convergence".Tracey Martin: Sorry—Jacqui Dean says it's "converging" now.CLARE CURRAN: It is "convergence" Jacqui Dean—and if she does not know what the word means then she can look it up. There has not been any reform by this Government in this area and this is really basic. There is a proposal being put forward supposedly by the Government that we still have not seen on the Order Paper around the difference between online classification and TV. So we have the same content coming in through Netflix or Lightbox or whatever online mechanism and we have got it on Sky TV or on TVNZ or MediaWorks—and they are being classified under different regimes whether it is the Broadcasting Act or the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act. Which is it to be and where is the reform that this Government is talking about?Clearly we are not going to get that legislation through before the end of this parliamentary term. What that shows is a paucity of ideas and vision and action coming from the Minister for Communications and the Minister of Broadcasting who clearly has not been able to bring together any convergence—any real actions—in the convergence space since she has been the Minister. I think that is very telling. She gets a lot of plaudits for her work in the justice sphere—and I am not dissing that—but what I would say is that there is no action in the area that is glaringly obvious in the convergence between the online world and the other world of broadcasting.Thankfully we have a small but significant piece of legislation before us today which is likely to go to select committee. Labour supports this bill to select committee. We would like there to be a wider discussion being held around convergence which may be able to be sparked at select committee on this piece of legislation. Ted Dawe's book is a book that is aimed at 14-year-olds or young people which deals with some real issues affecting young people and which has sparked a bigger conversation. What better for the convergence discussion than for this to be the spark that might light a bigger fire? I commend this bill to the House."