Police Minister Anne Tolley's suggested sex offender register must be satisfying for Deborah Coddington.

Whenever tempted to let exasperation at her outweigh respect, I remember the extraordinary courage and time she invested in the 1996 and 2004 editions of the New Zealand Sex Offender and Paedophile Index. She took a pounding for them.

The Sensible Sentencing Trust has picked up where she left off, so they too will watch closely to see if the Tolley reform is useful, or gets watered down by officials.

The better solution is of course more simple. Restore freedom of speech and reinstate the normal operation of reputation mechanisms, aided by the great gift of Google. Just reopen court records. Then we must all live with unrestricted public knowledge of our convictions. Open justice and courts were our heritage. Just give them back.