Omer IbrahimIBRAHIM OMER (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise to take a call on the Crimes (Child Exploitation Offences) Amendment Bill. I too would like to thank the member Ginny Andersen for bringing this important bill to the House because it's an issue that needs attention and debate and needs to be addressed. It is important because it's about children. Because due to their age vulnerability and the fact that they can't defend themselves that makes this bill very important—and the fact that they can't tell right from wrong. Because of that we all agree on this. No one can argue today: children spend more time online than anywhere else more than the time that they spend with their families and their parents their siblings. Because of that we often hear stories of predators grooming young children with the intention to harm them. The danger is real. Online spaces are where it's increasingly becoming an area where these harms occur.This bill is an amendment to the Crimes Act 1961. It inserts two offences that are designed to protect young people from online harm and also increase the penalty for meeting young people for following sexual grooming. These two inserted offences are: new section 126A Digital communication with young person under 16 with intent to mislead" and new section 126B "Digital communication with young person under 16 with intent to cause harm". This bill will help address some of the issues in this space and to protect children from online harm.As the popularity of online platforms increases the incidence of harm particularly towards young people also increases. The study showed that about 19 percent of teens experience unwanted or unwarranted digital communication that had a negative impact on their lives. This is the most common. Also 19 percent of young people surveyed said that they have been asked to share their nude photo or nude image of themselves. These are sobering numbers and really in fact it's scary.All the changes that we are discussing today are designed to help ensure that our justice system can protect our young people from those who engage in acts online to harm them. This bill increases the potential sentence that a judge might give at their discretion for an offence against section 131B of the Crimes Act—that meeting young people with intent to harm or with intent to sexually groom is an offence.Labour is committed to protecting children from these harms. I look forward to listening to what the public has to say in select committee. I'm not a member of the Justice Committee but I'm looking forward to reading what the members or the public have to say. It's also heart-warming to see that we are all coming together in support of this bill because it's such an important issue. An important issue because some of us don't even have any children but we strongly feel about this. Like they said before it's about our young people who can't defend themselves who can't differentiate right from wrong. The Hon Simon Bridges before me made a comment that this is a national issue it's also an issue in the West. In fact this is a global issue. It's not exclusive to the West; it's everywhere. And sadly people who go around with the intention to harm young people are everywhere. They're just evil and the evil is everywhere. Again I'd like to affirm that Labour is committed 100 percent to protecting our children. On that note I commend this bill to the House."