Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you Mr Speaker. This is no ordinary run-of-the-mill decision that we are charged with making here tonight. Perhaps not since our parliamentary predecessors voted in this place in 1961 to abolish the death penalty have members of Parliament had to make such a serious life and death decision that will impact on the lives of so many. When Parliament threw out the death penalty some 60 years ago one of the most persuasive arguments against it was the fear that an innocent life might be taken. That same level of serious consideration needs to be at the heart of our decision here tonightOf course there are very strongly held views—we've heard some of them already. That's as it should be when we are debating a bill that would legalise—for the first time since we abolished the death penalty—the State-sanctioned killing of one person by another. This bill which only ever refers to assisted dying" which to many people means turning off life-support refusing medical treatment refusing food and drink—these are not going to be changed by this bill. The patient's right to choose to refuse will remain intact. But let's not sanitise. We need to be very clear what this bill is trying to do which is to change the Crimes Act to legalise culpable homicide assisted suicide and euthanasia. That's it in a nutshell. Pro-euthanasia advocates would have us believe that this bill is narrowly focused and will affect only a very few individuals. That is an incorrect misrepresentation because as lawyers and doctors have repeatedly told us this bill signifies the most seismic shift in New Zealand law and medical practice in our country's history.We need to decide here tonight according to our own individual consciences if there is any point at all in persevering with this fundamentally flawed bill or to just vote it down now and be rid of it once and for all. It has already taken up thousands of hours of parliamentary time and was returned from the Justice Committee with only minor and technical changes and deemed to be unfit to be passed into law.This particular bill has been one that has weighed more heavily on me than any other bill has in my eight years in this House. That's partly because it is the most poorly drafted bill I've ever seen and also partly because as the deputy chair and one of eight permanent members of the Justice Committee I spent some 28 days chairing and hearing submissions. I heard a lot about hope and I learnt a lot about courage and I commend everybody who wrote submissions and who came in front of a group of strangers to tell their often very personal and very harrowing stories.This issue is intensely personal to all of us and as we've heard here already tonight it is our own experiences that have moved and shaped us. My father introduced me to hospice and at that time I met a lot of lonely older people. They didn't have friends and family to protect and advocate for them. That was in my mother's experience too with dementia. I think about those people when I object strongly and reject this bill. Why would we risk the lives of the vulnerable by voting in favour of this? There are no genuine protections against coercion and abuse. Some 10 percent of New Zealanders over the age of 65 have been abused either physically mentally psychologically or by neglect. These are the people that we need to protect. These are the people that we can imagine it would not be too much of a jump for the abusers three-quarters of whom are in their own family ranks to then encourage them to take their lives early.Who would have to decide on whether someone with dementia has the capacity to understand the decision they're being asked to make? It would be the doctors. One 10- to 15-minute consultation with a doctor a patient may not even know. The second consultation doesn't even have to be face to face. The select committee did make the change that it could be done electronically through Skype or through messaging which personally I think further undermines the credibility of the processes. Doctors are required to do too much and they don't want a bar of it. The Doctors Say No open letter which was signed by more than a thousand doctors and 93 percent of the 1800 medical professionals who made submissions pleaded with us that instead of trying to borrow the respectability of medical professionals and to sanitise euthanasia under a cloak of medical legitimacy let us allow them to follow their consciences and to focus on caring for their patients and not killing them.One of the biggest myths that the bill's supporters have peddled very hard is that eligibility criteria will never change; it will stay exactly the same. We in this Chamber where legislation is passed every single sitting day know full well that laws are altered all the time. Judging by what's happened in other countries once euthanasia is legalised it sets in motion an inevitable loosening of the eligibility. This is a bill that's very similar to the Dutch laws so it's worth looking at for a moment. What began in Holland as a response to the suffering of a small number of terminally ill people in 2002 has rapidly escalated to cover those who are tired of life. By 2010 euthanasia expanded to include mental illness eating disorders and tinnitus. Without having once to go back to their equivalent of this place in Parliament the Dutch made some 17 changes to the criteria through regulations Order in Council and protocols.Dr Theo Boer one of the architects of the Dutch law for 30 years has had a complete change of heart. He's read this New Zealand bill and he strongly advises us not to change our laws because as he says once the genie is out of the bottle there's no going back. In Holland he says it has had far more consequences than they had ever imagined and he wishes they had never ever done it. For increasing numbers of people he says euthanasia becomes the default way to die. The availability of euthanasia promotes despair rather than hope and what he describes as a culture of death. Is that really what we want in this kind and compassionate New Zealand? As Dame Tariana Turia says how does this contribute to the wellbeing of our whānau and our vulnerable communities?Our current laws are straightforward the way they are. They protect all human life equally. No one person's life is treated differently from anyone else's not based on wealth ethnicity or any other points of difference. As so many submitters have told us the lives of the sick the disabled and the elderly will be defined by their medical conditions. As the Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero told the committee this bill undermines the position of the disabled and the vulnerable. It devalues their lives and poses significant risks. The so-called right to die for some would all too easily become a duty to die for others. For many submitters their biggest worry was the risk that legalising assisted suicide would normalise it and our already high rates would increase. At best it would send mixed and confusing messages. The burden of proof is with the bill's advocates and they have never proved there is no link.The bill's supporters have told us that New Zealand's apparently behind the times and that a law change allowing euthanasia is inevitable. That is simply not so. The reality is that 5 percent of the world's population have legalised the intentional killing of one citizen by another. So the rest of the world—that's around 6.65 billion people—are living and dying without it. The current New Zealand law is not broken and our courts are able to take a compassionate overview while still sending out the strongest possible message about the importance of caring for and protecting the most vulnerable.Before we push the nuclear button of legalising euthanasia I think we need to acknowledge that in some parts of New Zealand the level and quality of end of life care is just not good enough and we need to do better—better funded care for people who are dying and to commit to delivering holistic wraparound palliative care. It is effective and more palliative care will be more effective. I've drafted a member's bill currently in the ballot to guarantee access wherever people are in New Zealand so that they can get the best quality and with ministerial overview end of life care. That's what we owe our vulnerable and that's what we owe future generations of New Zealanders.Public safety and protection of the most vulnerable rather than an individual's personal choice must be the overriding concern of any Parliament. Our role as lawmakers must be to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number and we have a duty to ensure that the degree of safety built into legislation matches the gravity of the risk. The stakes are very high and we each have to ask ourselves the question and then be able to live with the answer: how many unintended deaths are too many? Can anyone here put a number on it? As with voting down the death penalty 60 years ago we have to ask ourselves whether one innocent life lost is OK and can be treated as collateral damage and something we can live with. I know I can't and that's why I am opposed to this bill and that is why here tonight in this Chamber I am voting against this fatally flawed "End of Life as we Know It Bill"."