Clendon DavidDAVID CLENDON (Green): When Mr Brownlee the Leader of the House put forward the urgency motion earlier he said the necessity was a matter of the potential at least for confusion in the legal interpretation of the primary Act—the Act that is sought to be amended today. He went on to say if I understood him correctly that when the primary legislation passed through the House last year it enjoyed the unanimous support of the House. In that Mr Brownlee is slightly confused. The Greens actually opposed the legislation.To be fair we did support the bill going to the select committee. We supported the bill at its first reading to go to the select committee. We did that because—I would agree with the points made by Mr Nash and others—sexual offending against children is probably one of the most abhorrent forms of offending in the eyes and hearts of New Zealanders generally. We recognise that. The stated purpose of the primary Act was to make our children safer from people who would predate on them in a sexual way. The Greens entered into that with goodwill and with an open mind willing to listen to the arguments made by experts by submitters and the like. We went through the select committee process and having heard from those experts having heard from the communities and having heard from people best positioned to give a clear evidence-based analysis of the legislation—the bill as it was then—we determined that in fact the legislation would not make our children safer and for that reason we opposed it.I think it is interesting that it has been identified that we are here today not many months after the bill received the Royal assent to correct an error. When the primary legislation the bill as it was then had its first reading in September 2015 there was some surprise in the House when the Minister—if I recall correctly Minister Tolley—presented the bill and indicated her intention to send the bill to the Social Services Committee. That genuinely puzzled a number of us and certainly the Greens commented on it. Again as I recall Jacinda Ardern for Labour also questioned at some length why the bill had been sent to the Social Services Committee.The parliamentary website tells us that the Social Services Committee considers matters related to housing senior citizens social development veterans' affairs and Work and Income support. We struggled at the time—and we continue to struggle—to understand why the Social Services Committee with that mandate across those portfolio areas ought to be considering a bill that was clearly a justice bill. After all it was imposing penalties conditions and the like on people who had offended against children. I am normally far too modest to quote myself but I will on this occasion.Hon Jacqui Dean: Oh go on then.DAVID CLENDON: Thank you Jacqui; I will. In the first reading of that bill I made the point that it is a genuine concern that committees build up a level of expertise and experience in their area around specific matters of interest. The Law and Order Committee and the Justice and Electoral Committee are accustomed to working on legislation around offending around courts around corrections and with police". We expressed concern. I said then: "I really am puzzled as to why you would not send it to one of those committees." I do wonder. Had the bill—18 months ago or whenever it was—gone to a more appropriate committee advised by officials with clear and current expertise in these matters we might not be here in the House today trying to undo the error that has occurred or the oversight; call it what you will.This bill we are looking at today seeks in effect to broaden the net. The intent of the Government at the time was to ensure that a certain group of offenders were captured by the provisions of the legislation that they would suffer the penalties imposed and that they would be obliged to go on to this register with all of the implications inherent in that. For that reason I think that it is worth again looking back to our objections to the original bill because in a sense this is simply compounding what we see as the harm that that legislation will do.One of our first objections to the primary legislation was that there was very clear guidance from both the regulatory impact statement and from the Attorney-General in the section 7 New Zealand Bill of Rights Act report which said that the primary legislation—the Act as it is now—was actually based on very thin evidence indeed that registers are effective in reducing reoffending and improving public safety specifically the safety of our children. That was very thin evidence indeed and that became more apparent through the course of the select committee submissions.A larger concern in terms of human rights concerns is that the Attorney-General's report found that the bill as it was prior to becoming an Act was unjustifiably inconsistent with two sections of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—those being section 9 the right not to be subject to disproportionately severe punishment or treatment and section 26 of the same Act the right not to be punished multiple times for the same offence and the fact that the bill had some retrospective application of requirements. All of those were deemed at the time by the Attorney-General to be unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. And by expanding the catchment in effect of the legislation today I think we are compounding those errors of passing legislation that is unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act as this bill most certainly is.At the time the Law Society also commented on the efficacy—or otherwise rather—of sexual offending registers. They pointed out that the literature available identified significant adverse impacts arising from registers including such things as perpetuating the idea that the most likely offenders against children are strangers—the old "stranger danger" concern or accusation. Undoubtedly those sorts of offenses do occur but they are a very small part of the overall suite if I could call it that of sexual offending. Sadly most often sexual offenders against children are very sadly known to those children. They are often close family members people in the neighbourhood or people who are trusted by the families of those children and that of course makes the offending all the more abhorrent. But the notion that we should put these people's names on a list and thereby ensure they do not reoffend actually perpetuated the myth that most often children were at risk from strangers.The Law Society went on to say that it re-stigmatised sexual offenders. There were claims made from some quarters at the time that sexual offenders can never be redeemed can never be cured and can never have their behaviour altered permanently in such ways that they do not reoffend. That is fundamentally wrong and untrue. There is ample evidence that sexual offenders can resile from that offending that they can come to a realisation of the danger and the impact of their offending and that they can make a personal commitment to no longer offend. There are numerous cases where people have made that commitment to themselves and are properly supported within communities—they can become people we can actually trust to live in our communities. The bill that we passed—the Act—completely overlooked the reality that people can actually come back from that offending.The Law Society at the time also objected to the fact that this legislation sort of creates this imaginary homogenous group of offenders. In fact sexual offenders like all other offenders are individuals. They are unique in terms of the drivers and the reasons they offend their personal backgrounds their attitudes and the like and to suggest that some sort of blanket rule is going to somehow manage or deal with that offending is simply not based on any evidence that we could find at the time or since then.The Greens will continue to oppose this amendment legislation consistent with our opposition to the original legislation. Thank you."