SpeechHon TIM MACINDOE (National—Hamilton West): Well what a breathless dish of contradictions that contribution was. I cannot believe that the junior Government whip Kiritapu Allan has just tried to articulate something so ludicrous that I'm sure any member of the public who's listening to this debate at the moment will not have had any difficulty in seeing the blatant contradiction in. That contradiction was summed up in her claim that we need to shorten the period allowed for this select committee process in order to improve the opportunity for the people to participate in our democracy. That Madam Speaker—and soon it would appear to be Mr Speaker—is absolute nonsense.I listened very carefully to the contribution of the Hon Dr Nick Smith who preceded her and he put some very good questions to members of the Government benches. I noticed that their heads all went down. I noticed that they ignored most of the questions but when he asked one Government member to explain why a referendum on euthanasia or a referendum on the legalisation of marijuana or perhaps as it would appear to be emerging a referendum on the future of our abortion laws—why all of those very important issues are less important than a flag referendum. We all participated—those of us who were here—with some passion in the flag referendum debate at the time but surely those issues that Dr Smith has asked about are ones that require considerably more consideration. This is as the junior Government whip said a debate about a referral motion. Well let me remind her that we're talking about referrals to a select committee because it's a select committee that gives the public of New Zealand their most active opportunity to participate in the process. Of course they take an interest—or at least a large number of them do—in our proceedings as parliamentarians but it is when a bill passes its first reading and is referred to a select committee that they have an opportunity to focus on the issues raised in the bill and to put their own thoughts together. Many of them choose not only to put in written submissions—as I'm sure many will—but also to ask for their right to be heard. In truncating this process this Parliament is curtailing the right of New Zealand people to be heard.When Minister Little moved this motion he said that it was important for the committee to hear all opinions. Well I point to him the extraordinary inherent contradiction in his claim. It is absolutely ironic to say that We're going to do this in order to enable the people of New Zealand to be heard." and then "We will truncate the process." That is an affront to our democracy.Minister Little also expressed the opinion that he doubted that there would be much public interest in this issue. Well of course that is a matter that remains to be tested when and if this bill passes its first reading and is referred to a select committee. We have to assume it will pass its first reading because members of the three Government parties have indicated their support for it.But I want to point out to Minister Little that whether there are 50 submissions on this bill or 5000 matters little. The principle is that it is an absolute travesty to be doing this at all. The members of Parliament have a duty to uphold our democracy in every way we can and one of the most important ways that we do that is to protect our very very important constitutional safeguards that are built into our electoral laws. For the Minister of Justice of all people to be moving that we should in some way curtail those constitutional responsibilities which we all have as members of Parliament and which members of the public also have a deeply vested interest in is extraordinary and I would suggest obnoxious.This is a vile bill. Of course there will be a level of public interest in it therefore and I say to the Government they must allow the public the standard period. We're not asking for anything extra. We're not asking for anything that goes beyond what members of the public are used to. We're simply asking for members of the public to have the opportunity that they would always rightfully expect to be able to make a submission on something of such significant constitutional interest as this particular measure.As has already been noted this is a measure from a Government which appears to hold to the view that the Parliament can't be trusted. Well there can't be many more obvious ways of showing that they all hold to that appalling view that was expressed earlier this afternoon by the Hon Tracey Martin than collectively to deny the public the right to participate in a fully democratic process in considering this bill.Minister Little made several false claims in his speech when he was moving this truncated select committee process and those false claims were to do with precedents and conventions. The Hon Dr Nick Smith attempted to point out to him what the meaning of the word "convention" was because it was clear that Minister Little simply didn't understand. But when a senior Minister in a Government gets that wrong how can he possibly be trusted to get this process right.I would suggest to you that there shouldn't be and there isn't any need for this particular process. If the Government was organised we would have known some time ago the referendum question on cannabis and we would probably know by now if we were going to be having more than one referendum. It seems likely as others have mentioned that we will be having one on the End of Life Choice Bill and it has been indicated—not officially but certainly hinted at—today by the Deputy Prime Minister that we will also be having one on abortion.As I said a few moments ago those are all incredibly important matters. Members of public today have been receiving a huge number of emails from people concerned about the abortion question and there was considerable media—Hon Shane Jones: Relevance relevance relevance.Hon TIM MACINDOE: It is absolutely relevant Mr Jones to be talking about matters that may be considered by a referendum under this legislation. If that Minister can't see the relevance of that he shouldn't be sitting over on that side of the House—he shouldn't be sitting in this House at all.This is a deeply flawed measure and this truncated referral process is an insult to New Zealanders particularly on a day when they are showing such concern for matters that might be considered under this particular bill that we're being asked to send to a select committee for a truncated process.I urge the Minister to think again. I urge the members opposite who have had their heads down while Opposition members have been speaking to think again. I ask them to look within their consciences to whether they really feel comfortable suppressing democracy—suppressing the right of the public to have their say. We have members of the Justice Committee including the new chair of the committee in the House today. Is she going to support this terrible travesty? Is she going to turn around to her constituents and say "I was happy to vote for a measure that curtailed your right to have a say on a really important issue."? She's not saying so at the moment. No member is saying so at the moment. I take it therefore that the implicit answer to my question is that they understand the point that I'm making and they agree with me but they just don't want to say so.Well we will in a few moments be voting on this measure. I hope that at least a few of the members opposite will cross the floor because they will say it's more important to uphold our constitutional conventions our enshrined electoral rights than it is simply to go along with a measure that suits the convenience of the Government of the day at the expense of the rights of the people of New Zealand. Make no mistake: that is exactly what we are facing right here. The rights of the people of New Zealand are being trampled on by this Government and all members opposite should be ashamed of themselves for doing that."