McLellan Tracey; Rurawhe AdrianDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you Mr Speaker and thank you for the chance to make a contribution on this bill. If I could be a little bold just to start my contribution given the contribution of my colleague Tangi Utikere I'd also like to note to the member Tāmati Coffey my congratulations and also that I too given his comments to Tangi haven't had a member's bill drawn. So hopefully that will spur some sort of chain reaction. Let's see how that goes. But anyhow I digress.My congratulations to my colleague Tāmati Coffey are very sincere and it does feel like this bill has taken a wee while to sort of come to fruition so the member who has just resumed her seat Jan Logie certainly hasn't imagined that. It feels like over a matter of several weeks that we've been preparing to talk to this bill so I can only imagine how excited the member whose name is on this bill feels tonight.Modern families are increasingly diverse and it's vital and incredibly sensible that our legislation simply recognises that and that it facilitates and supports loving whānau and all of the various ways in which they're made up. This bill the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill is in fact a modern bill for a modern family and it's also importantly closely aligned to this Labour Government's broader commitment to children and our commitment to families. It's a commitment that's expressed and has been implemented in various ways.One of our election commitments which we take very seriously was to review the adoption laws and in particular to have a keen eye at removing any kind of discriminatory sort of provisions. In June last year the Minister of Justice announced that he and his department are delivering the suite of legislation including this bill that will ensure that we also deliver the latter.In recent years it has been simultaneously—I was going to say sad" but let's say "moving"—moving and importantly quite heart-warming to read and to hear of the very personal stories shared by my colleague Tāmati Coffey with regard to his own whānau and also to hear the personal stories and the experiences of the Harris family and that of Christian Newman and his husband Mark Edwards. I note tonight in making this contribution that that their experiences really are the genesis for this bill. Each of those experiences have in their very different ways highlighted some pretty obvious flaws in our adoption and our surrogacy system and those flaws affect a wide range of people and whānau. But fortunately the good news is that those experiences also reveal in a pretty meaningful way I think the things that we need to do to illuminate a sensible sort of path forward.I'd also like to acknowledge and confirm the Kiwis—I think it was tens of thousands—who signed a petition to this end at the end of 2019. I'm sure that they'll be absolutely delighted to see the introduction of this bill today.The birth of a child is one of the most special events in family life for a lot of people but it is never stress-free and it's especially true for those who face difficulties or who can't conceive a child of their own. The law governing surrogacy in New Zealand certainly doesn't help. I think my colleague Tangi Utikere has run through several examples so I won't say those again but it's really clear that when you look at the legislation and the arrangements in place that it just places really unnecessary burdens on both the surrogate mother and the intending parents. I think there were a couple of quotes at the time when this bill was drawn alluding to the fact that it really amounted to people having to jump through unnecessary hoops and to experience a very different experience than most people would assume was fair and reasonable.So this legislation is an important step forward to easing those burdens so that families can simply focus on what's important and that's each other and doing the best by each other. So I'm pleased that this bill is receiving broad support from across the House. I'd again like to congratulate my friend and colleague Tāmati Coffey. I'm trying not to sort of go into a string of puns about the conception of this bill and how we'll be looking forward to nurturing it through probably only a trimester of readings and hopefully in a few months' time adopting it as law but that does sort of capture the sentiment. I look forward to hearing from the submissions as a member of the Health Committee and—DEPUTY SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."