Foster-Bell PaulPAUL FOSTER-BELL (National): Thank you for the opportunity to make a contribution in the Statutes Repeal Bill debate. Firstly I just want to begin by responding to a couple of things that members have said during this debate. Firstly to the member Rino Tirikatene I think this bill is actually a very well-researched—it is a very recherché—piece of legislation. Our advisers have carefully methodically and fastidiously fumbled through the musty dusty statute book to find those pieces of legislation that either in their entirety have no continuing relevance or partially need to be repealed to tidy up the statute book. So I want to thank and congratulate our advisers who have so ably assisted us.The Government Administration Committee as has been pointed out did actually come across four additional pieces of legislation that we wanted to repeal in their entirety and another that we decided should be partially repealed and they were the Education Law Amendment Act 1933 the Infants Act Repeal Act 1989 the Taxation Acts Repeal Act 1986 the Wellington City Reserves Act 1872 and section 4 of the Wellington City Reserves Act 1871. I do want to assure the member Mr Tirikatene that we were an assiduous select committee and we did go through looking for any other examples of obsolete and unnecessary legislation that can be safely repealed without unintended consequences.But I think the difference between those very obscure very prosaic and very obsolete pieces of legislation—we are talking about bills that go back to 1781—and the legislation that is incorporated in Mr Hipkins' Supplementary Order Paper to the Statutes Repeal Bill is that they had long since failed to have any continuing legal effect. I think the difference between that and section 123 of the Crimes Act is that it still remains part of our criminal code. For one I am completely opposed to the idea that any form of crime of thought or of speech or of conscience should remain part of our criminal code on an ongoing basis and I believe I spoke in my maiden speech in that regard. It is archaic that a country like New Zealand should prohibit speech of any sort in the way we do in section 123 of the Crimes Act with a threat of imprisonment for those who commit blasphemy.I have lived in countries where blasphemy apostasy heresy—whatever you want to call it—is treated with severe force in the criminal justice system. New Zealand thankfully is not one of those countries. Whilst it has been on the record book—well it is in the Crimes Act 1961 but it has been on our statute book incorporated from English law; and actually England has long since dropped it—there have been no successful prosecutions for blasphemy in New Zealand. The last attempted prosecution was nearly 100 years ago—the Maoriland Worker newspaper case in which the Government of the day William Massey's Government having failed to get a sedition prosecution for a pacifist article in the newspaper attempted to use blasphemy. Even back in the early 20th century the jury failed to convict in that particular instance.There were subsequent attempts to seek blasphemy prosecutions in New Zealand most recently for a 2005 episode of the TV show South Park which was in bad taste I will concede and also a late 1990s art exhibition at Te Papa Museum which depicted the Virgin Mary in a condom—again it was in bad taste and it was not art of the sort that I enjoy. But in both cases the Government of the day—because the Attorney-General's permission is required before blasphemy charges are able to be brought—decided there was no case to answer. I think this is something that should be dealt with in a way that is in line with the process that this House operates under and I am very glad to understand that the Government will in due course be having a comprehensive look at tidying up the Crimes Act 1961. It is over 50 years old; it is in need of a bit of housekeeping in the same way that our wider statute book is getting housekeeping in this Statutes Repeal Bill.In the same way that we are getting a wider set of housekeeping done the Crimes Act will get a proper look and I would point out that whilst we did not get a huge number or a deluge of specific submissions because the vast majority of what we dealt with in the schedules of this bill are uncontroversial matters I suspect that should the blasphemy provisions of the Crimes Act have been one of those that we went out to seek consultation on there would have been a far greater degree of public interest and therefore a far wider variety and a greater number of submissions provided.So I think at this point in time it does make sense for us to park this issue—as we have seen there is no immediacy or urgency required given there have been no prosecutions for blasphemy in the history of our country thankfully. Actually it does raise a very interesting question. When I was looking at this issue I found that a number of countries have simply legislated to drop blasphemy from their statute books and that is what happened in the United Kingdom. In Scotland however it is argued that due to a combination of human rights legislation coming into place and lack of use—the fact that the last prosecution for blasphemy in Scotland was in 1824—sufficient time has elapsed that the law has effectively become obsolete from lack of use.I think you could argue that our blasphemy law could almost be in that category having never been successfully used to secure a prosecution and not actually used at all for 100 years now. So on the blasphemy issue I think that there should be a comprehensive and a structured approach and due process should be followed and we should get robust cross-party agreement on all of these issues I am sure when it comes to pass. But this is a statutes repeal bill and it is important I think that we do have a good degree of consensus within this House when we are looking to remove bills particularly if there have not been public submissions on those matters.