Darroch Ball MP

Spokesperson for Social Development
22 AUGUST 2016

Lower Hutt Paedophile Tip of Iceberg

The reaction of Lower Hutt residents over the recent release of a paedophile in their community shows how strong the public support is for a public child sex offender register, says New Zealand First.

This week the Child Sex Offender register will be debated in Parliament. New Zealand First is calling for that register to be made publicly available.

“The government must listen to Lower Hutt and other communities around the country and protect our children,” says New Zealand First Spokesperson for Social Development Darroch Ball.

“There are over 400 child sex abuse convictions each year, and this is but one example of a convicted paedophile being released in to our communities with the number of offenders given a community sentence doubling under this National government.

“We asked the Minister of Corrections how many convicted child sex offenders are currently living less then 1km from a school – and discovered that the Ministry does not even centrally record this information.

“The public wants to know who and where these offenders are in order to protect their children.

“The rights of parents to be able to protect their children from offenders in their community must come before any ideology that perpetrators rights to privacy should take precedence,” says Mr Ball.

“New Zealand First wants public access to the register so that communities have the opportunity to protect their families.”

ENDS

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