Mooney JosephJOSEPH MOONEY (National—Southland): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the National Party to support the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill through to select committee. I'll start by congratulating Ginny Andersen on having this bill drawn and debated tonight in the House. It looks like consensus at least supporting it through to select committee from all parties so well done.This bill amends the Crimes Act as we've heard to provide for new offences relating to persons 18 years or older using electronic communications such as social media platforms—which are increasingly used by people of all ages—to harm persons under 16 and it increases penalties for all those offences relating to sexual grooming of children online. Certainly this is a growing issue as most of the world now spends a lot of their time online and certainly children spend a huge amount of time online these days in various formats and certainly their parents don't always know what they're up to online either. But there is an important issue here in that there are people who seek to contact young people with ill intent and there needs to be some protection for those young people and to send a clear message to those who have nefarious purposes in mind that there will be very serious consequences for them if they try to groom young people.So this is a good step in sending that clear message to people who have the wrong intention. There are of course some issues that will no doubt need to be addressed. There's always unforeseen consequences with every piece of legislation and if there are any of those I'm sure we'll hear about those in the select committee. But on first reading this looks like a well-thought-out piece of law.I note that Crown Law via the Attorney-General has had a look at this. The first concern for anyone when there's a potential restriction on communications is whether it will be consistent or inconsistent with the section 14 right in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act for freedom of expression. I note that the Attorney-General has said that any enactment that criminalises communication will cause a prima facie inconsistency with s 14 of the [New Zealand] Bill of Rights … However restricting the use of a digital communication in the manner proposed is a demonstrably justified limit on that freedom. [And] The purpose … is to ensure that vulnerable minors are not misled in their digital communications as to a person's age or identity such that it may lead to meeting with or a plan to meet with that person." That certainly will be of concern to all right-thinking members of the community that there are people who wish to communicate with a young person with an intention to meet with them. If someone who is an adult is intending to meet with a person under the age of 16 that is something that needs to be very strongly discouraged which this bill certainly does.I note that the Attorney-General has gone on to say that the "proposed restrictions on the right to freedom of expression are rationally connected with the broad objective expressed in the Explanatory note to the Bill which is to address the incidences of harm experienced by young people in online platforms and to protect young people from harm online." It's to stop young people from receiving unwanted digital communications and young people can be harmed by receiving unwanted digital communications which causes a negative impact on their real-time activities such as being contacted online by a stranger or being asked to share a nude or nearly nude image of themselves. This is something that—and Parliament wants to send a very clear signal to the community—will not be tolerated and will result in very serious consequences for anyone who inappropriately engages online. This is a good bill on first reading. Look forward to seeing its progression through to select committee and I commend it to the House."