Bishop Chris: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 24 February 2015. Volume:703;Page:1884. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): It is a pleasure to take a call on this bill the Objectionable Publications and Indecency Legislation Bill. It is always a pleasure of course to follow Kris Faafoi my friend from the parliamentary cricket team. He always makes a learned contribution and I think he spoke very well. I did find it a slightly odd contribution from Mr O’Rourke for New Zealand First. Let us be very clear about what New Zealand First is voting against tonight. The New Zealand First Party is voting against putting up the penalties for the supply the creation and the distribution of objectionable material—Denis O’Rourke: You couldn’t have listened to the speech.CHRIS BISHOP: I did listen to your speech. You said you are going to vote against this piece of legislation. So let us be very clear. It is particularly odd that New Zealand First is voting against it given the words of Mr O’Rourke in the first reading debate on this bill when he said that “New Zealand First welcomes the increases in penalties and the new offences that are specified in the bill.” Indeed he also said: “It is always a pleasure to support good Government legislation”—and indeed he was right—a few months ago. He said further that “New Zealand First will be happy to vote for it.”It is not a good enough argument to say that you are going to vote against a piece of legislation because it does not go far enough. Mr O’Rourke’s colleagues in the Green Party over on the Opposition benches often vote in favour of legislation whilst expressing caveats and the belief that they would go further in some instances or they would change a few things. But on balance they often say: “Actually this is generally a good bill. We might do a few things differently. We might increase the penalties in some particular instances. We might change a few things. But on balance is this bill going to improve the lives of New Zealanders? Is this bill going to make New Zealand a better place?”. The Green Party often votes with caveats. In fact to be fair to the contributions of Mr Clendon and Ms Logie to the debate tonight that is exactly what they will do. But not so for the good people in New Zealand First—no no. If they cannot have it all their own way if the bill is not perfect they will vote it down. I say that is very regrettable because what this bill does is very important. This bill increases the penalties for people who supply and distribute child pornography and it fills a lacuna in the law by which people can intentionally view material but not necessarily download it and therefore cannot be prosecuted. That is a very important part of the bill and New Zealand First is opposed to it. I think that is regrettable. I urge—Denis O’Rourke: New Zealand First is not opposed to that part. That was made clear in my speech.CHRIS BISHOP: You are voting against the bill so I urge you to reconsider your position at the Committee of the whole House and the third reading. This bill is an important bill. As I have mentioned it does increase the penalties for possession of objectionable material. It does fill a lacuna in the law.I want to spend a little time talking about the presumption of innocence that it creates for repeat offenders. Quite rightly a little bit of concern was expressed by the Green Party and I think it was reflecting some of the submissions to the Justice and Electoral Committee. I was not a member of the House regrettably when the select committee considered this bill but I have read the submissions. The Green Party’s concern reflects the concern of the Legislation Advisory Committee and the Law Society and that is fair enough. So what I did was I went and looked at the Crown Law Office advice to the Attorney-General because members will be aware of course that the Attorney-General is required after the first reading of a bill—or I think it is actually after the introduction of a bill before the House from memory—to file a report with the House if that legislation is unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.Brett Hudson: What did the Attorney-General find?CHRIS BISHOP: So I went and looked up the legal advice. The first point to note Mr Hudson is that there is in fact no section 7 report that the Attorney-General has laid. So what that indicates is that in his view the bill that is before the House is consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. And that is important. Not every bill that comes before the House is. In fact this Government has introduced bills that are inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—where the Government takes a different view to the view of the Attorney-General in his learned opinion.I also went a little bit further than that. I went and looked up the legal advice. Members will also be aware that the Government waives privilege that attaches to the legal advice that goes to the Attorney-General from either the Ministry of Justice or the Crown Law Office on matters for section 7 reports under the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. The legal advice that came from the Crown Law Office was that the presumption of imprisonment did engage section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act which protects against disproportionately severe punishment. So it engages the right but the legal advice said that that would be unjustifiably inconsistent with that right only if the effect was to require a judge to impose a sentence that was grossly disproportionate to the offending. The legal advice makes it clear that the discretion still lies with the judge. So if imprisonment is not an appropriate sentence having regard to the particular circumstances of the case the discretion that remains with the learned judge is enough to make sure that the right in section 9 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—which protects against as I said disproportionately severe punishment—is not breached. I thought that that made a lot of sense. Although I fully recognise and understand to a certain extent the concerns expressed by my colleagues in the Green Party I am satisfied as I think it is fair to say Government members are that there is not an unjustifiable limit on any right in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act.The other right I want to talk about just briefly is in section 14. I have had a look at the debate and section 14 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act has not really been engaged with so far. Of course that is the right to freedom of expression. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression—the freedom to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form. Of course this bill is a prima facie breach of the right to freedom of expression. I will express a little bit of concern here as I did on the Coroners Amendment Bill in the latter part of last week. I will express a little bit of concern about the legal advice on this point that went to the Attorney-General. The legal advice that went to the Attorney-General simply said that the bill constrains the creation possession and trafficking of objectionable material and that is a demonstrably justified limit. That is it. That is literally the statement. It is just one sentence. There is no reasoning. There is no analysis. There is no explanation. It just asserts without evidence or without much reasoning that this is a demonstrably justified limit. I happen to agree that this—increasing the penalties or in fact the mere existence of penalties for the trafficking of objectionable material child exploitation material in particular—is a demonstrably justified limit on the right to freedom of expression. It is important that we deter the possession of this material so that we deter the creation of the material so that we deter the exploitation of children and others in the creation of this material and so that we stop the revictimisation that occurs when this material is in the public domain. I think it would have been good to see some more explanation and more analysis within the legal advice.This is an important bill. As I mentioned at the outset of my speech child exploitation is an abhorrent crime and other members have mentioned this as well. It is a problem for which there is some evidence that it is getting worse. I am informed that 200 new images are put into circulation on the internet every day. That is a shocking number. This is clearly a global problem but it is a problem that New Zealand can have some impact on by a bill such as this which increases those penalties fills a gap in the law and makes sure that the New Zealand legal system keeps up with technology that is of course increasing apace. I have to say that this is a good bill. It is just regrettable that a party that voted for it at its first reading for very good reasons is not prepared to recognise that it remains a good bill and will not continue to vote for it.