Hipkins ChrisCHRIS HIPKINS (Labour—Rimutaka): I would like to thank the member Paul Foster-Bell for taking a call and contributing to the debate although I would suggest that his 5-minute contribution illustrated the point. The point of a statutes repeal bill is to remove laws that are not being used. His argument that this law around blasphemy has not been used and therefore should not be included as part of the bill because it is unnecessary negates the purpose of the whole bill that we are debating in the House. In fact the same argument could be made for all of the repeals that are being done as part of this legislation—that they are not being used so why not just leave them where they are? That is the whole point of a repeal bill. It is to remove laws that are no longer required. If a law against blasphemy is no longer required and I would put forward very strongly that it is no longer required then it should be removed as part of this process because that is the whole point of the process. But I do at least want to acknowledge the contribution that Mr Foster-Bell made.I am disappointed that the leader of the ACT Party David Seymour has not made a similar contribution to this debate. Having puffed out his chest and said that he was going to be the great hero to remove blasphemy it is interesting that when it comes down to the hard work of actually debating it and the cameras are not on him because it is not 2 o'clock and it is not question time suddenly he does not seem to have any contribution to make to the debate. So good on Mr Foster-Bell for at least making it to the debate.I want to reiterate why this is important and the fact that the churches themselves are arguing that this law is no longer required. Catholic Bishop Steve Lowe of the Hamilton diocese said and I think this is very important: It is when we grapple with the great questions of spirituality and life with mutual respect for the opinions and beliefs of others that we grow as a healthy community." It is a fantastic sentiment. I absolute embrace that and I absolutely agree with it. The idea that we have a law that says that one person's views are superior to another's and that one person's views could land them up in jail in order to protect the feelings of someone else—that is not right. It is something that we should act on and simply saying that this law is not being used and therefore there is no rush is ridiculous. We are dealing with dozens of Acts that are no longer relevant or that have not been used and we are giving them the priority of Parliament's time today and yet the Government is not willing to give the repeal of blasphemy sufficient priority in order to pass the repeal legislation.In fact it is not even a question of that because it is getting priority—because I have tabled it. It is being debated anyway. The Government has created some bizarre justification for not supporting the repeal of the law of blasphemy which just does not make any sense at all. It actually negates the purpose of a statutes repeal bill. Saying that the law is still in operation but not being used and therefore should not be repealed is simply bizarre and it is simply weak.In fact I go back to Bill English's own comments where he said "We could get rid of them. Laws that overreach on addressing robust speech are not a good idea." and yet his Government including Mr English himself is now according to his colleagues going to vote against the repeal of blasphemy. It is another example from him of a complete failure of leadership because he is saying one thing and when it comes to voting in the House he is doing another thing. He is not showing leadership on the issue. It would not actually take much. This is something that I could imagine a John Key—like Prime Minister would simply shrug off and go "Oh well it seems probably about time that they got rid of it. We'll vote for that." because it actually makes sense to do so. There is no great constitutional crisis in the process that is being adopted here; it is actually what this process is designed to achieve—the removal of laws that are no longer relevant and that are no longer needed and blasphemy is well and truly in that category.I want to finally end—because this is rather humorous and it is always good to end on a humorous note—with the comments of the Attorney-General Chris Finlayson. I have managed to find them now. He said: "People have often asked me what I thought of the Life of Brian. Was it blasphemous? Well it probably was but it was funny." And I think we should embrace that particular spirit. He goes on to say in typical Chris Finlayson style: "Well frankly if a 2000-year-old religion can't stand up to someone like Stephen Fry they may as well shut their doors." I think the churches around the country embrace that sentiment too. They are saying they do not want this law. They are saying it is archaic. They are saying it is time for it to go. I challenge members on the National Government benches to vote with their conscience and remove this law."