O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Chair. I suspect this might be my last call actually. CHAIRPERSON (Adrian Rurawhe): It is indeed. SIMON O'CONNOR: Fantastic. That'll give great pleasure to the committee I'm sure. A couple of very quick comments. I'm very pleased that Louisa Wall contributed. Kudos to her—I respect. Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 381—Chris Penk's SOP—is effectively addressing I would suggest a power imbalance. In an ideal world it's great that a person disabled or otherwise sick or otherwise can have a free and easy conversation with a doctor but fundamentally there are power imbalances. The best analogy I could give is all the legislation we have around workplace relations because arguably I could apply that to the same case that if you're going for a job you just sit down with your employer. You're both individuals and you freely engage in chat and choose and negotiate your wages. But we don't do that. We put extra layers of protection in. As far as I can comment from what I've heard from the disabled community in particular—who are not spared I should add by this bill despite the cosmetic supposed changes—they would say that it's not always easy to have those conversations. If the specialist looking after you is the only one in the country to what extent are you free to challenge them on their views? The second element of course is yes it's great if people follow process. One of them is that a doctor is not meant to initiate the conversations but of course once the person is dead which can happen rather rapidly in this bill then there's no way to prove that otherwise. I continue to and will happily say regardless of what the member in the chair has said about lawyers involved that this is a shoddy piece of legislation and I think I've demonstrated part by part the glaring holes. I've tabled an amendment—because personal votes are fantastic—around offences. I engaged it earlier replacing the words medical practitioner nurse practitioner or specialist health practitioner". At the end of the day the offences by being so specific to three categories instantly and by law keeps others out. Yep you might not want to have to extend that to I don't know podiatrists and proctologists but actually there are nurses who are involved there are pharmacists who are involved and if the member in the chair actually read his own bill he would notice that clause 27(2) actually talks quite specifically about completed prescribed forms. Well yes that's a doctor who writes out a prescription but a pharmacist can also destroy prescribed forms and by a huge lack in this bill again by shoddy workmanship that is lacking. So a great tabled amendment there—looking forward to voting on that one. I want to talk to my last SOP 369—yes I have my glasses this time. SOP 369 again is an example where there's shoddy lawmaking. This is to amend the bill itself in clause 24. It's in the section where basically it talks about a person not having to—well it's about "Other rights and duties not affected". At the moment it's drafted that a person is only able to—"(1) Nothing in [the] Act" it says "affects a person's rights to—(a) refuse to receive nutrition: (b) refuse to receive hydration: [or] (c) refuse to receive life-sustaining medical treatment." Those who understand the law—and I'm not going to presume to be enough of an expert but actually when you start listing things by prescription statutory interpretation says well if it's not on the list then it's therefore not relevant. So my SOP says that if you're going to talk about refusing the likes of nutrition and liquids you should also say as part of ones rights and duties that you can also receive them. So again it's a rather important element in law that if you're going to list options all available options should be there. In the current drafting despite these supposed great luminaries who have written it they seem to have forgotten to put in the word "receive"; that actually a person should be able to receive nutrition receive hydration and receive life-sustaining medical treatment and that is absent currently willingly or otherwise. The other problem that flows out of it and we've seen this from overseas is that by the way it's currently worded a person who is actually not if you will terminally ill and about to die can by the interpretation of this bill by refusing normal procedure or normal life-giving activities such as you know eating can make themselves terminal if you will and then are valid or are able to take use of this euthanasia and assisted suicide bill. We've seen in other jurisdictions including the likes of California and in other jurisdictions that the member in the chair loves to talk about where someone who is not able to be euthanised or assist themselves to die refuses basic things such as eating and drinking which therefore makes them able to fall within the ambit of a euthanasia bill. I think that is problematic."