Stanford EricaERICA STANFORD (National—East Coast Bays): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'm pleased to rise to speak to the New Zealand Bill of Rights (Declarations of Inconsistency) Amendment Bill. It's been an absolutely fascinating debate tonight. I have to say we've heard from some incredible speakers—clearly some great thinkers—who hold different views in this area. But I have to say much like Tracey Martin who contributed earlier I'm not a constitutional lawyer. I'm not an expert in this area. In fact I find myself sitting here tonight not having a view either way because of the strength of the two sides.I am sitting on the fence and for possibly the first time in my life I was hanging off the words of Minister Parker and actually hanging off every word of Minister Little as well—perhaps not his interjections but certainly his contribution—because they were superb. So too I have to say were the contributions from Chris Bishop tonight Dr Nick Smith and the Hon Tim Macindoe as well. Although I have said my contribution tonight won't match their contributions I have to say I do want to point out some concerns that I think we need to look very closely at in select committee. As was pointed out by Mr Macindoe earlier we must not truncate this process because there will be a number of constitutional experts and lawyers that will make some very good contributions to this debate. I might even sit in on some of those because it's quite clearly very fascinating.The concerns that we must consider in this bill are obviously as we've all pointed out the question of the ultimate sovereignty of this place and how this bill will alter the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary. On the one hand as pointed out by Minister Shaw—who has been I note in front of me before and in deep conversation with Minister Little obviously debating the issue which is good to see—if we get it wrong how bad is it to have a bare minimum process of a declaration of inconsistency made by a court via a report through the Attorney-General to this House? After all as Minister Parker and Minister Little pointed out there is no requirement for us to amend or strike out the law. So potentially absolute sovereignty of this place is seemingly upheld.On the other hand as Dr Nick Smith pointed out we make in this place very difficult decisions and arbitrary judgments that may—hopefully infrequently; very infrequently—be inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. As he mentioned we've done some extraordinary things over the past few weeks that both he and I and most people in this country would have never thought possible even though they were in most cases required. He made the really good point also that if we get this wrong or if we get anything wrong the public has the right to vote us out to turf us out and change the law.Chris Bishop's point earlier which obviously struck a chord with most of us in this place was that the people in this place represent the people of New Zealand far far more than the judiciary because of the make-up and different ethnicities genders backgrounds and lived experiences.But perhaps I shouldn't be too hard on myself tonight about my on-the-fence position because actually that position as Mr Macindoe pointed out earlier tonight was similar in the Attorney-General v Taylor case which underpins this bill because there was a 3-2 split there as well. Even they couldn't agree on this issue. So I'm not going to be too hard on myself and I'm not going to make a very long contribution like my learned colleagues because they are far more expert in this area than I am other than to point out that there are issues and concerns that need to be looked at in the select committee and I do hope that we have a full and proper process when it comes to select committee. So with that I commend the bill to the House with some reservations.