Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you very much Madam Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party in support of this bill. I think it's a very fine initiative that Andrew Little's undertaken and I'm very pleased to support it at its third reading. I hate to channel Deborah Russell but I have to say that democracy has quite a long history and some people trace it back to the Greeks. They were the ones to experiment with direct democracy which is kind of what is being proposed here. Socrates was one of the people who was randomly selected to chair the council of 500 citizens in ancient Athens and he actually withheld the vote one day because the people wanted to execute some generals for losing a battle. They didn't vote but the next day they selected a different chair for the council of 500 and he allowed the vote to go ahead. The generals were duly executed the people were mad and a few days later they executed those who advocated for the execution of the generals.I tell this story because democracy has always been fraught. It relies on people making decisions for others often with limited information. But that is actually a feature not only of direct democracy—as in the example I've just given from the Council of 500—it's equally something that happens with representative democracy. I think about this country's colonial history when people used to be sent from distant provinces by sea to spend months at a time here in the capital—and earlier in Auckland and before that in Kororāreka—in order to represent their districts. Often those people were seen to let down the people that had sent them. That might be why Governments in the 19th century seldom lasted more than a year or two before they were dissolved and fresh elections caused. We see in places such as Switzerland direct democracy used to tremendous effect; one of the most effective democratic systems in the world and one of the best-governed countries. On the other hand we see places like California where they have a referendum to reduce taxes and then they have another referendum to increase spending. It's one of the reasons that the great state of California is broke. I could go on all afternoon about examples of democracy—DEPUTY SPEAKER: But I'm not going to let you because we are actually debating the bill. I'd like you to mention the bill at some stage.DAVID SEYMOUR: —both direct and indirect. I'm getting to the bill Madam Speaker. DEPUTY SPEAKER: Oh good.DAVID SEYMOUR: I'm glad to see from your smiling visage that you're enjoying this Deborah Russellesque lesson in the history of democracy. The point is that we have representative democracy we have direct democracy and those who stand up and say that having a referendum is somehow wrong because we can't trust New Zealanders to make up their mind about what they think of an issue—well I'd have to ask the people in this House saying that how can we trust the people that elected them? Because if the New Zealand public are smart enough to elect representatives then the ACT Party says they're smart enough to vote in referenda. I look forward to the End of Life Choice Act having a referendum under this Act and I look forward to the New Zealand public sorting through the facts and the fiction because if you'll excuse me the New Zealand public have a finely honed BS detector and there will be all sorts of misinformation and fake news there but I trust that New Zealanders will get to the truth and actually will see the End of Life Choice Act being ratified by referendum under this bill. It will not only be a great day for our country being more compassionate more humane and more caring but it will also be a great day for New Zealand democracy because we will have let the best of both worlds come to pass: rigorous and robust parliamentary scrutiny of a bill—in fact the most rigorous scrutiny of any bill in living memory for the End of Life Choice Bill so we know we got the details right—and we allowed the people of New Zealand to have the final say. I don't think that's a bad outcome. I see Nick Smith furiously scribbling notes there thinking What do I say now?" Well I'll say to him that the End of Life Choice Act has the question legislated—just in case he was going to use that one. So I commend this bill to the House. I think it's a great day for democracy and if the End of Life Choice Act becomes law it will be a great day for a compassionate and humane New Zealand. Thank you very much."