O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): I was listening to the television last night actually. It was a debate of Nigel—Rt Hon Winston Peters: I apologise. I seek leave to table the Ernst and Young report that sets out that it could not find the written contract it was seeking.Mr SPEAKER: I need the date of the report and I need to be assured that it is not readily available to the members.Rt Hon Winston Peters: No it is not readily available—it is most certainly not. This is from 10 November 2015. Here it is here.Mr SPEAKER: Leave is sought to table that Ernst and Young report dated 10 November 2015. Is there any objection to it being tabled? There is none. It can be tabled.Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.SIMON O'CONNOR: I was going to have a crack at the member but because he apologised which is quite unusual I am actually going to be ultra-nice today and not have a crack at the United Kingdom Independence Party—I mean New Zealand First. Over the last few days anyone who is interested in politics one way or another has been talking about Brexit. Of course I have certainly found as I have gone around the electorate that although people are always interested in what the Government is doing actually there has been a lot of conversation with me around Britain's decision to leave the EU. I am not going to opine on that for two reasons. Firstly I do not think my particular opinion on staying or leaving is all that relevant. Secondly it is something that is already done. But I thought that one of the things I wanted to actually touch on—and it will be somewhat academic I'm afraid—is really what I think is one of the more disturbing aspects that has come out of the particular debate and how it reflects towards New Zealand and other countries and that is really the changing public view of experts. Why I say that is that if you look at what was occurring around the debate in the United Kingdom the views of experts were largely ignored. In fact the debates took on a bit of an edge of deciding it was a wonderful thing to deliberately ignore experts. Why I raise this is because there is actually a bit of a disturbing rise I would suggest to this House in popularism. Often there are people on both sides of the House who will talk around what we see around the likes of the Nigel Farages what we see in terms of particularly the likes of Donald Trump in the United States and of those in other countries. What we see is that popularism is gaining a toehold—a foothold if you want—and again expert opinions are being snubbed. I think unfortunately—I apologise if this is somewhat academic but it is something I need to get off my chest—it is ultimately a dumbing down of the debate. It is an ignoring of the facts and a rejecting of study and experience. You hear—as we did through the Brexit debates and as we have seen in the American presidential election and across other countries and indeed we hear it here at times—that simply being an expert is dismissed and all it is going to be is an appeal to a sort of popular opinion as if that in itself is of great value. This concerns me greatly. There is also a sort of sense that because someone has feelings about a topic that that is somehow important. It may betray my philosophical background and training but actually just feeling something is not enough. In fact I was talking to a bunch of young students on Monday and I pointed out to them as I am repeating here that what you feel is largely irrelevant unless you can explain it reasonably. But the problem with this populist politics by Donald Trump and others is that somehow feelings are more important or that if someone has an opinion then somehow that opinion is automatically and must always be valuable. I think that to some people in New Zealand in particular again simply having an opinion does not make it valid; it has to be tried and tested. I suppose I am suggesting that even though experts are not always right we need to actually base our decision making on expertise and critique that accordingly rather than on ideology or emotion—or in fact as we have seen I think through the UK on spite. So I just want to point out too that it is ironic in an age when we do have so much information—so much information—and in no way therefore could we ever know everything that we are therefore less prepared to listen to experts. I think I actually want to turn to New Zealand as an example and what you see in some of the political discourse often from smaller parties.Fletcher Tabuteau: TPP for example.SIMON O'CONNOR: Actually the Trans-Pacific Partnership is a really good example of listening to experts and not popularism and really importantly too engaging. But the long and the short take the science of climate change. Quite rightly the Greens and others will point out that the majority of scientists agree that we have issues with climate change. We should—and rightly—listen to the experts. But the paradox develops and why I talk about opinion and popularism is actually that scientists are also quite definitive around things like genetic engineering—I wonder whether Steffan Browning is here to hear that. Genetic engineering Steffan—scientists are really clear on that. Scientists are really clear on fluoridation. Scientists are incredibly clear on immunisation. And yet opinion feelings populist sentiment oppose these things. I suppose—not only as a constituency MP a person of my own training and background but also as the chair of the Health Committee—I think it is really important that we engage with experts and not necessarily follow the lead that we have seen in America the UK and elsewhere.