SpeechTUESDAY 15 FEBRUARY 2022(continued on Wednesday 16 February 2022)ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The House is resumed. Members in accordance with the determination of the Business Committee I call on Louisa Wall to move the first reading of her private bill.PAIGE HARRIS BIRTH REGISTRATION BILLFirst ReadingLOUISA WALL (Labour): Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I move That the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2022 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting except during oral questions during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 193 195 and 196.Today is an incredibly important day for Paige Harris Kyle Harris and the Harris whānau. The Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill will require the registrar-general to enter the details of Katherine Elizabeth Harris as mother on the registration of the birth of Paige Katherine Elizabeth Harris as well as the details of Kyle Jason Harris as if a notice under section 23 of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995 had been received containing that information and an adoption order had been made in favour of Kyle Jason Harris and Katherine Elizabeth Harris.We are here today debating this private bill brought to the House by Kyle Harris because under the Adoption Act the person who gives birth is the legal parent and the only way intended parents such as biological parents in the case of surrogacy can be recognised is through adoption. Paige's mum Katherine Harris died before Paige was born by surrogacy. Katherine's death from lung transplant complications in December 2019 meant Kyle and Katherine Harris were unable to complete Paige's adoption after her birth the only way intended or biological parents of a baby born through surrogacy can be officially recognised as parents. In preparing for the debate this morning I asked Kyle what he wanted to share. These are from Kyle: for him the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill fulfils a promise Kyle Harris made to his dying wife Katherine Harris. As she was dying Kyle and Katherine were well aware that there was an issue given the requirement to adopt their genetic child as she was born by surrogacy. This bill is very important not only to Kyle and Paige and Katherine; it is also incredibly important to Renee and Josh Johnson Paige's surrogacy family and Katherine's surviving family her parents John and Alison Fraser and her brother Stuart.This bill will finally give Paige her right to her full identity. This bill finally allows for Katherine to be rightfully listed as Paige's mother. Kyle and his family have found this process unnecessarily hard. Our law is not fit for modern New Zealand. Our law must be reformed. I particularly want to take this opportunity to thank the internal affairs spokespersons from the National Party from the ACT Party from the Green Party from Te Paati Māori and obviously the Leader of the House Chris Hipkins who through the Business Committee have provided for the reading of the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill this morning. It really does highlight how Parliament can come together to rectify what is a huge injustice to this whānau. So on behalf of Kyle and his whānau thank you very much.I would also like to take the opportunity to thank people who have helped Kyle and the whānau highlight the issue that we have. We're using this family's experience to solve an issue for Paige Harris but in fact I think there are generic issues that will have to be addressed. There are approximately 60 children born in New Zealand every year via surrogacy and in spite of in many instances that child being the genetic child of the intending parents they have to go through an adoption. So I want to acknowledge the over 50000 New Zealanders who signed a petition in support of Kyle Harris and his family. I want to acknowledge Paddy Gower who shared the experience of this family which enabled some of us to understand that there was an issue.I also want to acknowledge my colleague Tāmati Coffey who has the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. Within the context of Tāmati's bill he will be able to address this issue for any child who is in this situation in the future. The principle within Tāmati's bill is that the intending parents will become the parents of a child born by surrogacy at birth. There will not be need for adoption and in fact his bill will allow for full transparency for that child. So for example that child's birth certificate will list parent mother father it will also list the name of the surrogate and in some circumstances it may also list the egg donor and the sperm donor. I think that principle is incredibly important because in modern New Zealand society where surrogacy is being used more and more to help families to help loving couples to help people who want to add to their family this issue is going to become more and more relevant. I know that Tāmati engaged with the whānau he tried to find a solution through his bill but ultimately Kyle Harris and his family decided that this was the best avenue for them.I also want to take the opportunity to thank the officials at the Department of Internal Affairs and acknowledge Minister Jan Tinetti. I know her officials spent a lot of time engaging with Kyle and looking at the law and what the law could do and in this instance they could not help. But they have been incredibly quick and very responsive through the Minister to offer their support to the Governance and Administration Committee. I want to thank her and her ministry for that support. I also want to acknowledge that the Minister of Justice the Hon Kris Faafoi also supports this whānau. He too was looking through some of the work that he is doing on surrogacy to see whether or not there was an opportunity that he could assist. So on behalf of Kyle and the family I thank him also.Just finally preparing a private bill is quite complex and I want to especially take the opportunity to thank Pavan Sharma in the Office of the Clerk who's an expert on parliamentary law and practice. His guidance throughout this process has been exceptional. I thank him dearly on behalf of Kyle for navigating through a system that required quite a few steps to be taken before we were able to bring this bill to the House. I also want to acknowledge Prue Tamatekapua who drafted the bill initially. The family obviously had exhausted many resources to go through a process to see whether the law was fit for purpose and within the context of a private bill there has to be a draft for the Parliamentary Counsel Office then to review. So I thank Mel Bromley and Jessica Kruger who checked the bill to ensure it was ready for publication. I want to thank Wendy Stevenson who helped with the advertising for the bill which was conducted in a very prescribed process. I want to thank the parliamentary staff who assisted in the dissemination of the bill. And again I want to highlight the responsiveness of Paul James who's the Secretary of Internal Affairs and also Jeff Montgomery because within the advertising of this bill we actually had six other New Zealanders contact me that I was able to refer two of them on to Jeff who had issues that they wanted resolution for.So again I just want to acknowledge that Parliament has the ability when injustices such as this are presented to us to come together. And so from my perspective and from Kyle Harris' perspective and his whānau again we thank this Parliament sincerely for providing the opportunity for this family to get resolution and ultimately for Kyle it is to fulfil a promise to his now dead wife Katherine. Kia ora. ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jacqui Dean): The question is that the motion be agreed to.