Ngaro AlfredHon ALFRED NGARO (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I wasn't going to take a second call but I felt just with some of the comments that were made especially by Jan Logie just in regards to I suppose some of the cultural considerations for Pacific—and she made some comments in there. So my Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 466 particularly talks about cultural considerations. I know that the Minister of Justice has commented on them and he's talked about the fact that the Treaty of Waitangi and other issues like that are not relevant to this case because an individual is an individual. I'd like to remind the Minister—and I want to commend him because up in Waitangi his kaikōrero on the paepae was something to be acknowledged and I do acknowledge him for that. But see it's one thing to be able to speak on the paepae; it's another thing to understand the culture and the understanding of the culture. The cultural consideration here is not about the fact of the rights of the individual; it's about the issue of—and we talk about tino rangatiratanga self-determination but whakawhanaungatanga is also about the aspect of the collective communal support. See what I'd like the Minister to understand is that when we talk about cultural considerations it's not just about the Treaty; it's the understanding about the cultural construct that wraps around that person and the reasons why at the moment there's an element of shame for a number of those. I've been involved in cases whether it be family members or those in the community where I've seen the shame. I have to say to the member Jan Logie and the incidences that she's given you know just to make it more accessible and more liberal does not deal with the issue. The issue is the connectedness and a sense of belonging to whānau and to family as to the reasons why they weren't able to. So the member can talk about that and give these instances but making it more liberal will not deal with the issue. It may help in some instances right? But here's the truth of it: wouldn't we all want them to be reconnected back to the love and the care and the sense of belonging in whānau and family? That's what we're talking about. When we're talking about this cultural consideration I wanted to read to the Minister from this submission that was made by the New Zealand Nurses Organisation which by the way do support the bill and the reforms. However they make a proviso in their submission. On page 6 they declare this: These rights include [need to have] access to a health system that has culturally competent health professionals to provide [a] quality care that best supports the client". Minister what we are talking about there is not whether you can quote the articles of the Treaty; what we are talking about is understanding the cultural constructs here. It may be Māori it could be Pacific and there are a number of others that are there but if we don't have people who are appropriate who are skilled and able then we miss the point altogether. Making it more accessible making it more affordable and making it more liberal won't deal with the heart of the issue for often a number of these young women and all the incidences that Louisa Wall has actually shared with us tonight because it comes from a place of brokenness. That brokenness will not be solved by the fact of making things more liberal. Hence the reasons why I seriously put towards the Minister—Hon David Parker: The incest has already occurred. How do you fix that? Hon ALFRED NGARO: —cultural consideration which is about having the appropriate—Mr Parker you might want to listen to this—people who have the skills and the ability to deal with that. That's what we're talking about. That's what was in the submission and many other submissions. Do we have that consideration? We do that in other Acts we do that in the health system already and now we're going to have one of the most contentious issues in places where there is brokenness and often there is shame and you cannot consider to have people who are skilled enough to deal with that? I have to say that would be a shame. That would be a shame on this Parliament that we could not consider that issue—we could not consider that issue. The Minister made a comment about that and in regards to actually the SOP that David Seymour put forward—SOP 406. He made this comment and as he said it's an old adage: "The absence of evidence does not mean there's the evidence in that absence". I want to tell the Minister: when he first commissioned the Law Commission there were no conditions to talk about in a regulatory impact report as to the reasons why we were amending or changing the law—there was an absence of that. Instead what did we do? It was already predetermined politically that this was going to happen. So I have to say to the Minister: you cannot turn around and say there's a lack of evidence when there was no evidence right at the start as to reasons why we should change this. I come to this point: people can stand up in this Chamber and quote these different issues that are relevant stories of those that are there but this bill as it currently is will not heal the brokenness or the shame that often isn't considered in there that the mother the whānau and the family need to heal themselves. Those are the reasons why I commend this SOP to the committee."