Brown SimeonSIMEON BROWN (National—Pakuranga): Thank you Madam Chair. I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on this bill because it is a matter of life and death and it is something which members on both sides of this debate should take very seriously in engaging with. There are a large number of Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) which have been put forward. There are a lot of MPs who have and I would like to speak to mine—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): Good get on with it. SIMEON BROWN: —which is Supplementary Order Paper 376 and I will get to it because it's important as are all of the Supplementary Order Papers. The Supplementary Order Paper 376 goes to the heart of the issue of immunity from criminal proceedings and criminal liability. We've heard David Seymour talk about how this bill is designed to try and ensure that there is a process to ensure that people who are engaged in the process health professionals etc. have some protection and I understand that. I understand that there should be protection if this bill is to pass for people who are engaged in that process to have protection so that they don't face criminal proceedings. However what this bill does is open up what is a very important part of our law and that is the presumption that one person should not take the life of another. This bill changes that and therefore it is a burden on this House to ensure that there are protections that there are safeguards so that the people who are having their lives ended are people who have complied completely with every single part of this bill. Now my SOP seeks to delete subclauses (5) and (6) of clause 26. I would make the point that most of clause 26 is new as part of Supplementary Order Paper 259 David Seymour's; very little has actually survived the rewrite that he's proposing so mine is seeking to amend his and remove those two subclauses. I'd like the member to explain why he believes that it is needed in there to have subclauses (5) and (6) which provide immunity from criminal liabilities for B or that person [who acts] in good faith and believing on reasonable grounds that A wishes to exercise the option of assisted dying under this Act—(a) takes any action that causes assists or facilitates the death of A in accordance with the requirements of this Act" and then in paragraph (b) if that person "fails to take any action and that failure causes assists or facilitates the death of A in accordance with the requirements of this Act … is immune from liability". Now there is an example which is used in here which is an example of "an attending nurse practitioner who under section 16(5)(a) is available to A and takes no action to revive A". That is an example that the member in charge is proposing to put in there. Now that's a serious failure to comply. The serious failure to comply is an attending nurse practitioner who is available and takes no action to revive. Now is the member saying that there should be immunity in all instances for all failures to comply? Or is the member saying that what he is giving the nurse or the attending practitioner is the ability to essentially do what they like in these situations? This is a very important question and I ask that the member actually takes a call and responds to it. The other point I'd like to make is that the words being used here are the words of "good faith" and "believing on reasonable grounds". Now I'd like to ask the member in the chair what he means by "good faith"? What threshold is that? Because it's not defined in the bill. This is a term which he is going to leave to the courts to determine whether something has been done in good faith or not. I ask the member to explain why he's decided to use the words "good faith"? Why has he not used language of "taken every reasonable step" or "taken every step possible"? Just acting in good faith seems to have been the lowest possible threshold that he could think of to place into this clause. It also says "believing on reasonable grounds". Well this is not about just believing on reasonable grounds. This is a process which in my mind—and in I think most members of this House's minds—it should be a process where the attending medical practitioner knows for certain that that is the will of the person not just something which they believe on reasonable grounds. I ask for support for Supplementary Order Paper 376."