Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe e Te Heamana. Tēnā koutou katoa. I have participated in this committee stage debate from a principled position and I will continue to do so today but in doing so I have to acknowledge that I 100 percent support the end of life choice legislation and the right of people who have a terminal illness to choose when and how they will die. But in saying that I can't not speak against Supplementary Order Papers 287 and 361. The reason I choose to do so is because I believe we should scrutinise the merit of a referendum and I also think that the precedent this mechanism will set in enacting laws could have consequences into the future.Can I firstly acknowledge Jenny Marcroft who has proposed these two Supplementary Order Papers and can I also acknowledge New Zealand First whose support for the mechanism of referenda is well documented. I understand from their perspective that they have advocated for this tool for many years. Can I also acknowledge that New Zealand First actually has had a longstanding relationship with this particular kaupapa. In fact in 1995 it was started by Michael Laws who had a colleague a man called Cam Campion who was diagnosed with a terminal illness. As a member of the New Zealand First Party in 1996 this Parliament discussed his proposition. Then again in 2003 Peter Brown proposed a death with dignity piece of legislation after his wife died of cancer. So New Zealand First as a party have had a longstanding history with euthanasia assisted suicide death with dignity end of life choice—whatever you want to call it.From my perspective referenda—and I have undertaken some research about the pros and cons and I particularly want to highlight a paper from Dr Adam Quinn who's a senior lecturer in international politics—and I quote: Referendum campaigns themselves can be savagely divisive especially when the prospect of a narrow victory tempts campaigners to use every argument at their disposal." From his proposition there were three reasons "good ideas" for referenda. The first is the "intrinsic worth as an exercise in direct democracy." So I want to acknowledge that it is a tool for direct democracy. The second is "the prospect of a popular vote … [it] concentrates the minds of those negotiating on [a particular issue so that they] can be politically sustained." The third rationale was the "endorsement by direct popular vote … [that binds] not just the present Government but those that follow". So they were the good aspects of referenda.These were the bad aspects of referenda—and he actually highlighted two. The first is referenda campaigns. What they do is "[open] the space … to portray the choice … as a false one … [they] engage those with relatively low information about the issues". The other thing it does is it makes the people who become the targets of these campaigns vulnerable.I want to speak to an event that I went to in early October. It was the Māori Women's Welfare League and believe it or not at the league they had an open forum about end of life choice about this specific bill. What struck me at that forum—over 300 women—was the lack of information about this End of Life Choice Bill. Most people who spoke spoke against end of life choice and what their biggest fears were: that the elderly and the disabled were going to be killed off by people who had power of attorney. So it really highlighted to me the fact that people if they have not been intimately engaged in this end of life choice debate as we have actually know nothing about the bill.The second aspect of Dr Quinn's downside to referenda was that the campaigns themselves are savagely divisive that campaigners will use every argument such as "this is suicide; we're going to target the disabled the elderly." It's socially divisive but the most important aspect from my perspective is that it "might even provide a platform [to legitimise] hate speech." So I want to define hate speech—[Time expired]"