Smith Stuart: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSmith Stuart: Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 15 September 2015. Volume:708;Page:6655. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]STUART SMITH (National—Kaikōura): The Child Protection (Child Sex Offender Register) Bill—it is really all in the name and particularly in the first two words. It is about child protection. I have heard a few of the speakers throughout the night lament that it is not a silver bullet but unfortunately there is no silver bullet with offending of any kind and particularly not with complex offending like child sex offending. There are many reasons why people offend and it is a very difficult issue to deal with.Over several years the Government agencies have been increasingly aware of a lack of coordinated information about known child sex offenders in the community. It is interesting today that the Productivity Commission has just published a report on social services and one of the major findings in that report is that it identified that siloing of information amongst Government departments and agencies is a major problem. I think that this bill seeks in some way to go towards fixing that particular problem in this area.Ever since the Privacy Act came in we seem to have got ourselves so fearful. We are so tangled up in red tape around privacy that good sense has gone out the window. When one Government department holds information that is really the key to unlocking some potential actions that can save issues in other areas we are sitting on that information and not sharing it. This bill is absolutely about unlocking that and cutting through the red tape to allow the sensible management of people in this area.In recent years Government agencies’ attempts to institute new initiatives to combat the risks posed by known child sex offenders have highlighted the lack of a source of coordinated information—the lack of an agreed risk-assessment process and an agreed management framework for a coordinated preventative action. Those are a lot of words but basically what that is saying is that we have some information and we are not able to do anything about it; those offenders are sitting out there in the public domain and we really should take a sensible approach to deal with that. If you have a register with private information about those offenders then you have to balance risk and manage it.Of course the offenders have a right to privacy but there is also the right of people to live their lives without fear of being offended against in such a way. People in families as we know can get really fearful and sometimes overly so about these sorts of people coming out into the community. Having the measures that are taken in this bill which I will talk about in a moment will go a long way towards managing this in a sensible manner and balancing those risks as I mentioned earlier. So the bill is about managing risk.But the issue is that in 2012-13 there were 505 offenders convicted of just over 1800 sex offences against young children and that was up 20 percent on the previous decade. In 2014 it was 451 offences—a number of ACC sensitive claims particularly for young people subject to sexual abuse. Each year around 200 sex offenders are released back into the community. Last year it was 294 and on top of that around 115 sex offenders start a community-based sentence each year. Most of those have no ongoing contact with the justice sector or agencies after they are released. That is where this bill steps in and we will be able to have confidence that those people are in contact with the relevant authorities.All of those statistics that I just rattled off represent only the tip of the iceberg. People have come out tonight with statistics about how many other people might be out there as offenders who have never come before the justice sector. Well we simply do not know how many people there are or what percentage there is but we do know that it is a very small percentage who are convicted and who come to the attention of the authorities. But at least we can manage only what we can manage. We have to start somewhere and I believe that this is a very good place to start.One of the things that I touched on earlier is that some of those people who have been subject to abuse go on to become abusers themselves. So breaking the cycle where possible is very important in my view. We need an overarching framework to coordinate preventative action to support offenders and that will be a part of this. That has probably not been touched on that well but offenders themselves when they get out into society often slip back into their bad ways because they are not supported. If they are not supported they can slip back out of their low-risk lifestyles that they are able to live in and back into their old ways. We need to support them to ensure that that does not occur.The bill will help Government agencies to carry out their duties to protect children and society effectively. At the moment they are really trying to fight with both hands tied behind their backs and we are actually untying those knots and letting them get on with what they do well. It will increase support as I said for the offenders but it will also discourage reoffending by giving those offenders confidence that they are living in a society that they are being supported in.The offenders will be required to update their information annually and within 72 hours of any change to their personal information that is held on a register. That information includes their aliases fingerprints a photo of the offender that has to be updated every year current address workplace employer car registration IP address—and of course that is very important because often these people are very active on the internet if they end up in that area; so we need to ensure we know that—and passport details. As I said they will have to update their fingerprints and their photos with the police every year and this ensures that the police are actually working with relevant information. There is little point in having a register if the register is out of date and it would simply serve no purpose at all to have this register if we did not know where the people were living at any given point in time.I think to cut to the chase this register is necessary. The bill will limit accessibility to the register and I think we have heard a few people talk tonight about ensuring that. It is only one small step from setting up the register to making it fully public. We do not want vigilante activity; we want this information to be protected. There are indeed sanctions in the bill for anyone who releases information to unauthorised people—that is to be subject to a prison term of up to 6 months for an individual or a fine of $25000 for a body corporate. So I think those things are managed and are covered as best they can be. As I said it is about managing risk and I think the bill treads that good balance and deals with it as well as we can expect. It is a great pleasure to commend the bill to the House. Thank you.Bill read a first time.Bill referred to the Social Services Committee.