Wall Louisa; Mallard TrevorCONTRACEPTION STERILISATION AND ABORTION (SAFE AREAS) AMENDMENT BILLSecond ReadingLOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I move That the Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill be now read a second time.To begin I would like to acknowledge the 890 interested groups and individuals who submitted on this piece of legislation and note that 97 submitters were heard here in Wellington and by video conference. I want to acknowledge the advice of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice the advice from the Office of the Clerk and also the work of the Parliamentary Counsel Office.I also want to note under Standing Order 269(5) that the Health Committee also had to consider the advice from the Attorney-General. The section 7 reports I think are incredibly important. They highlight bill of rights issues—therefore human rights issues—and I want to take the opportunity actually to acknowledge the work of the Hon David Parker and the Office of the Attorney-General. I'd like to thank Liz Craig as the chairperson for her diligent work and in doing so we have an amazing Labour team but I also want to highlight the members of the Opposition particularly Simon Watts also Chris Bishop and Penny Simmonds who I thought played an incredibly constructive role I hope she doesn't mind me saying but given her reservations about this piece of legislation. I want to acknowledge Jan Logie who did an incredible amount of work and just generally thank the Health Committee for the thoroughness of their recommendations to the House. I want to note that they recommended by majority that this bill be passed and they recommended all amendments unanimously. I actually think that is a very important point.I'd like to reinforce what this bill is about. It aims to protect the safety and wellbeing and respect the privacy and dignity of women accessing abortion facilities and practitioners providing and helping with abortion services by providing a regulation-making power that would enable safe areas to be set around specific abortion facilities. I think focusing at this stage on the Hon David Parker's inconsistencies with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act is really important. Essentially he said that there were freedom of expression issues—and freedom of expression in terms of being able to seek receive and impart information and opinions of any kind in any form. I want to commend the select committee's engagement then with the Attorney-General and in fact their diligence in providing the evidence to overcome this particular inconsistency.I have an opportunity tonight after the select committee wrote to the Attorney-General asking that he present a formal paper to the House revising the opinion given his initial report on the bill and therefore the inconsistency. So with the leave of the House I'd just like to quote from a letter from the Attorney-General dated 10 November 2021: My concerns have now been addressed. The communicative behaviour criminalised by clause 13A(1)(c) is narrower than the original proposal. The broad phrase 'communicating with' has been replaced by three new tests which are all narrower than the original proposal and have appropriate exemptions built in."He goes on to highlight two specific examples: "There appears to be little prospect that communication from support persons or service providers would be criminalised under the revised draft as a result of the exemptions in clause 13A(1)(c)(i)-(ii); and 'engaging in protest' in clause 13A(1)(c)(iii) is narrower than the previous phrase 'communicating with' which means that communication activities which cannot be regarded as a 'protest' and might commonly be seen at or nearby a hospital"—and I want to emphasize this—"(such as an individual engaging in silent prayer) will not risk being criminalised." I chose to highlight that particular contribution from our Attorney-General because I think that the work the select committee have undertaken to ensure now this bill is New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - compliant should reassure this House.I particularly want to focus on some of the amendments proposed and how the committee made some of the decisions that they did. They have removed the definitions of "prohibited behaviour" and "protected person" and they have done so to enable a clearer articulation of what will happen within a safe area what will be criminalised within a safe area but also from their perspective to protect the victims of this type of abuse from having to give evidence if a prosecution was bought. So the prohibited activities for example are going to be "advising or persuading A to refrain from accessing or providing abortion services" "informing A about matters relating to the provision of abortion services unless it was when the services were being provided" and "engaging in protest about matters relating to the provision of abortion services."Because they now have removed a definition of who a protected person is there will be no requirement for that person to give evidence in court. There is an exception to that rule and it is related to the visual recording of a particular person. They have through their deliberations said that within the context of someone being visually recorded the police have been very clear that they would interpret this provision to mean that a person would need to give evidence about their reason for being in a safe area. The committee were comfortable with this approach and obviously with their comfort comes my comfort as well.I want to highlight that there was quite a bit of discussion from organisations such as the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand (ALRANZ)—and particularly Terry Bellamak; I want to acknowledge all of her work as the president of ALRANZ—about having a blanket approach to all abortion facilities. She didn't think we needed to go through a case by case process but in fact again through the deliberations of the select committee it's proven that a case by case process is actually going to be the best method to identify which of the abortion facilities require a safe area.In particular I want to highlight that one of the issues for the select committee that we had to grapple with was the inclusion of private premises. I know that for many members of the committee they did not want to encroach on private premises. So if we took a blanket approach then there wouldn't be an option or an opportunity through a case by case process for private properties to be excluded following consultation with the property owner.I'm going to leave other specifics about the bill to the select committee members. I have to say some of it is incredibly technical. I know the level of advice that the select committee received to come to a determination about the amendments that they unanimously agreed to happened because of as I said before the consideration the ability for them to suspend in some instances their personal position about the bill but actually to reflect the contemplation as select committees must do on the merit of particular pieces of legislation but also a process that makes the legislation better.So my final comments really are to the select committee to thank them for their diligence and obviously to work constructively as we progress this bill through the House. Thank you Mr Speaker.I seek leave to table advice from the Attorney-General dated 10 November 2021 about the Contraception Sterilisation and Abortion (Safe Areas) Amendment Bill.SPEAKER: Is there any objection to that process being followed? It may be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House."