Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much Madam Chair. As you've said we now turn to Part 4 of the End of Life Choice Bill and I'd like to quickly run through the clauses that comprise Part 4 which is entitled Related matters". We are now debating not so much the main provisions of the End of Life Choice Bill but some of the changes to other enactments and some of the provisions that are put in for the avoidance of doubt rather than the main principles of the bill. Clause 23 allows the Governor-General by Order in Council to make regulations prescribing forms. This is being done in order that if there are for example regulations needing to be made as with most pieces of legislation it's important that the Minister through the Governor-General can do that. My Supplementary Order Paper 259 makes a slight change: rather than allowing the Governor-General only to prescribe forms they can make more general regulations to assist the functioning of the bill that may be necessary for its administration or giving it full effect. Members will see in a later section the duty of creating forms such as those required to be returned by medical practitioners to the registrar are able to be made by the Director-General of Health in a later clause. Clause 24 is what I would describe as a for the avoidance of doubt clause. It makes it clear that nothing in this bill prevents somebody exercising their rights which are clearly laid out in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to refuse nutrition hydration or other life-sustaining medical treatment and that nothing in this bill takes away a doctor's duty to alleviate suffering in accordance with standard medical practice. Clause 24A is a new clause which again I would describe as being there for the avoidance of doubt. It states that one cannot have an advance directive. In some countries where end of life choice is legal they actually allow people to sign an advance directive that says "If I meet certain conditions I would like other people to decide that my life should end." I've been opposed to that from the beginning over four years of campaigning on this bill and clause 24A reinforces that. Clause 24B another new clause says "Welfare guardians have no power to make decisions or take actions under this Act". So again you cannot have a welfare guardian making decisions for you under the End of Life Choice Act. This was already very clear because the medical practitioners have to communicate with the person and they have to do that directly but it's made clearer by 24B. Clause 25 says that this Act has no effect on contracts. If for instance a person had a life insurance contract the fact that they choose to avail themselves of the End of Life Choice Act does not alter that contract. A lot of people have been concerned about what the End of Life Choice Bill might mean for life insurance. This makes it absolutely clear that there will be no changes to life insurance policies if you take advantage of the End of Life Choice Bill. Clause 25A "Restrictions on making public details of assisted dying death"—this is important. It enforces the rules around suicide reporting that the media have been following in New Zealand for the past several years. Of course there will be statistics of course there will be data of course there will be oversight by the Ministry of Health by Support and Consultation for End of Life in New Zealand by the review committee and by the registrar but the public reporting of specific details of how a person dies under this Act will be prohibited and I think that's desirable. I note there are a few amendments on the Table from Chris Penk. Chris has one to remove these restrictions and another amendment to add these restrictions to the bill so possibly he forgot that he'd put one in before he put the other in I'm not quite sure but that's Chris Penk for you. Clause 26 is a really critical clause. This is about immunity. Fundamentally under this bill helping somebody procure suicide remains a crime in the Crimes Act. A person has immunity from being involved in that activity only if they follow the provisions in this Act the very high hoops and tight safeguards that must be followed if a person wants to comply with the law under this Act. It'll become critical as we address some of the other amendments members have proposed to be clear that if a person dies at your hand and you don't properly follow the provisions of this bill then you are still fully liable under the Crimes Act for all of the severe penalties for procuring suicide or causing death that are there. However a person who follows all the provisions in this Act does have criminal and in clause 27 civil liability. Clause 27 "Offences": there are a number of offences that might take place separate from the cause of death and this is something that I think some members submitting amendments may not have fully understood if they read the bill. There is the crime of wrongly ending a life without the person's consent without checking that they're competent without due process and so on. That is a very serious crime and that remains to be punished under the Crimes Act for the various sanctions that people face if they do that but there are also conceivably other offences under this Act where a person doesn't actually die but where nevertheless somebody didn't fill out a form correctly or somebody somehow you know didn't properly consult or report but there wasn't any death involved. Now I think it's desirable to have penalties in that instance. I think we are taking a very hard line as a Parliament by saying that you can be fined $10000 or go to prison for three months for making an administrative error under this bill. This is a very very tight and strict set of rules under the End of Life Choice Bill. However—however—we are not applying the full penalties of sending someone to jail for instance for 14 years for an administrative error and I think some of the members who have been putting up amendments around changing the penalties may not have properly understood those features of the bill which is a shame. If they'd come and talked to me I would've been more than happy to help. Clause 27A allows the director-general to approve forms so I raise this in the context of clause 23. The Governor-General can make a range of amendments to help with the functioning of the bill but the creation of forms is really important too having standardised forms where people will report—doctors will report health practitioners will report—proceedings under the bill whether they've properly examined people and come to their conclusions in a robust way. Those require forms and I think the right place for those to be finalised and established is by the Director-General of Health which is what 27A provides. Clause 28 "Amendments to other enactments" actually contains the Schedule so clause 28 is quite a significant section. It has amendments to other Acts in Part 1: the Burial and Cremation Act death certificates; changes to the Coroners Act; changes to the Crimes Act in relation to section 41 in relation to preventing a person from committing suicide; changes to the Health Act and Health and Disability Commissioner Act—there's been some back and forth with the Health and Disability Commissioner about that and I hope we've got to a happy place with him—Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration (Prescribed Information) Regulations—again there were some necessary changes to the way death certificates for instance are done under this Act. The principle there by the way is that if a person uses the End of Life Choice Act to end their life then their death certificate records that fact but also records the underlying cause of death the thing that qualified them as somebody eligible for assisted dying and that actually takes us to the end of the bill. So that's Part 4 a series of amendments many of which are for the avoidance of doubt—one of which clarifies the status around criminal and civil immunity of a person who follows this law another that sets out the penalties for people who make administrative errors under this law in a way that does not lead to loss of life and also a number of consequential amendments to other bills to make sure that the End of Life Choice Act fits snugly and efficiently with all of the other statutes that this Parliament has made throughout its life. With that I hope that we can have a speedy debate where valid questions can be answered and we can move on to more legislation. Thank you Madam Chair."