Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Chair. I rise to take a call before the dinner break and hopefully I'll be able to address and alleviate some of the concerns that members have raised to date beginning with Chris Penk. He said something that's been said a number of times also by other members that there's only one request. Well actually as I read out the processes there are a number of requests. At various times in the process a person has to actively initiate—they have to make the initial request. They have to then confirm that request in writing. They then have to agree to set a date and time. They then have to make preliminary provisions for assisted dying to occur. They then have to be told multiple times that they can change their mind at any time and indeed they may do that. So the idea that there's only one request made is simply untrue.We've been told several times that doctors don't need to be qualified. I tell you if I thought that was true I would not go near a hospital in New Zealand. But the fact is that medical practitioners are required to be qualified and they are required not to practise outside their scope of practice. So you will not find doctors in New Zealand doing things that they are not able and qualified to do. If they were there would be a much bigger problem in New Zealand than simply with this bill.Simeon Brown talked about the Michael Woodhouse Supplementary Order Paper (SOP). I think it's quite an interesting Supplementary Order Paper to raise. It attempts to exempt institutions from something that they're not required to do. Let me just say that again: nowhere in this bill is any institution required to do anything. I don't see where the logic is in being able to object conscientiously to doing something that an institution isn't required to do in the first place. That may be why it is that in every jurisdiction that's legalised assisted dying opponents have brought up the possibility of such a provision but in Canada and in both states of Australia so far it has been rejected.Interestingly Michael Woodhouse told me that institutions in Canada were having to close down as a result of assisted dying being legalised there. I've challenged him several times and I've got the emails. Unfortunately he couldn't provide evidence to back up that claim. I think possibly he had an unfounded concern to start with. Furthermore the amendment that Michael Woodhouse has put up also makes it impossible to have a contract for providing assisted dying between a district health board and any organisation. That goes beyond simply protecting people's choice. That actually makes it impossible to have assisted dying contracted. That's a contradiction with the House's agreement that actually assisted dying should go ahead.I might also skip to Maggie Barry who said there should be a free support person in assisted dying funded by a DHB which would be made impossible by Michael Woodhouse's amendment. In any case I go forward to Louisa Wall. I want to thank Louisa Wall for her contributions and I agree with her that the amendment she discussed would create access issues and that there is a duty of care for practitioners. I want to thank her for raising that. Alfred Ngaro talked about Maggie Barry's SOP. He talked about unconsented assisted dying in Belgium. That's something that people have brought up in this debate for years now and we know that it is incorrect and the evidence is there. It's unfortunate that people persist in fudging the issue that way.I think it is wrong also that we would put in law that people would be somehow treated differently in the law according to their cultural or ethnic background. I want to make a broader point about this in this debate because all my life as a New Zealander I have stuck to the mantra that it is wrong to judge a person based on their superficial characteristics. You should take every person as you find them and judge them by the content of their character not the colour of their skin or anything else. Too often in this debate we've had people stand up and say that persons of X identity all think the following way. We've had it from Melissa Lee with respect to Koreans we've had it from Alfred Ngaro with respect to Pacific people and I can tell you there are people in every single group in this country who are for assisted dying and against. It is time that we stopped stereotyping people like that.Agnes Loheni got up and said Why have safeguards if it's all about choice?" Well the simple answer to that is that the safeguards are there to ensure that the choice is being freely made. Maggie Barry finally got up and asked "Could there be a support person?" She also raised the multiple-request issue that I've addressed. That's all I have to say about that."