O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Mr Chair and I'll actually just acknowledge the speaker resuming her chair who I think has actually brought out a really important cultural consideration particularly around the title. It'll be no surprise—because throughout the course of this somewhat expedited discussion I've said that the title of the bill is meaningless and it's really interesting to hear from someone who speaks other languages. I can think even in my own limited knowledge of say—well not limited but my knowledge of something like Fijian it would be very very difficult to—Andrew Bayly: Or Greek? SIMON O'CONNOR: —or Greek but I don't expect that to be on the bill. But the long and the short it's already a meaningless title. The Hon Maggie Barry rightly pointed out its euphemism but as the speaker who's resumed her seat Anahila noted that's going to have problems as it moves into translation. And if this is ultimately about having people make an informed decision then we'd want to be clear. But I think the paradox a telling paradox is that the proponents of this death bill always talk about informed choices but when it comes to actually making sure that the public understands they're more than happy both in title and commencement—particularly through a referendum dynamic—to make sure the public is not informed. So I do reject the title of the bill. In fact I'm going to for a change endorse the Dutch. I'm not a great supporter of a lot of things that the Dutch do these days but when it comes to their bill the Dutch call it—and granted I haven't translated it probably as accurately as one ought but it's basically the Termination of Life on Request and Assisted Suicide (Review Procedures) Act. You know you've got to give credit to the Dutch on this that they actually described their bill accurately. It's very interesting actually as a side note that a disabled 40-year-old has just committed suicide there. They call it euthanasia but I want to be absolutely clear that I view their death as a suicide. That 40-year-old is actually an Olympian and has just won medals recently but now has through their euthanasia Act killed themselves—just a token of what will come here. So I suggest we do change the name of the Act or the bill to make it clear. I think it shows a lack of courage effectively that when we talk on matters of life and death we cannot talk about them freely. Those rational amongst us must ask the question that if we need to work in euphemism what are we trying to hide from? Fundamentally I don't support going to referendum—that's no surprise to anyone who knows my thinking around referenda in general but there are several reasons for this. Look fundamentally this is a bad bill. I've talked about it in the House before; it's a shoddy bill. I think the member in the chair David Seymour has sort of talked about 28 clauses; when this comes to the life and death of people that's pathetic. It's a bad bill and it hasn't been improved; other colleagues have mentioned that. I think there were about 100 Supplementary Order Papers that were put forward all incredibly constructive that have been put down—all puns intended—by this committee: protection of conscience rights protection of the disabled education programmes for doctors clarities around any criminal or other convictions of doctors who might be involved with this the amount of time that a doctor needs to stay with the patient clarification of whether a doctor actually needs to be by the patient. All of these have been voted down by the Parliament; I suspect by members of Parliament who had no idea what was going on. So we are arguably if we pass this bill and send it to a referendum putting an incredibly shoddy bill in front of the public and I think that is something that is incredibly dangerous and incredibly inappropriate for a democracy. I think there's also an element in the challenge to all my colleagues on this side of the House and otherwise to actually do our jobs. There's a funny paradox as well developing in Westminster parliaments including this one that the harder the topic the quicker we run away from hard decisions. We were elected in a representative democracy to actually use our brains and come to a conclusion. Some of us I myself through the Health Committee and I acknowledge others as well have been looking at this for year after year and to somehow continue to kick the can down the road and to avoid a decision as MPs under the sort of false assumption that the public will decide raises a number of problematic questions. So I encourage MPs to do their job. If we're not able to make decisions here today on matters like this life and death well in as many ways I ask why are we in the Parliament at all?I'd note that the referendum as put forward is not actually prescribed. We are relying through a positive vote for a referendum today on another bill to be passed by the Government to allow the Cabinet to make further decisions.Finally for me fundamentally when it comes to next year in the elections I actually want to talk about the issues that matter to New Zealanders that matter to Labour and National not to be discussing euthanasia ad nauseum.