Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green) (remote): Madam Speaker the sound seems to have cut off but I feel like you called my name. Is that right?ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Jenny Salesa): Yes I did. Golriz Ghahraman go ahead.GOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN: Ha ha! Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to speak on this bill: one of the significant pieces of constitutional law reform that this Parliament and Government have undertaken. And I do want to congratulate the Attorney-General for his courage and leadership in responding to the Supreme Court's finding that gave the higher courts essentially the jurisdiction to do just this. But without Parliament and Government's response and setting out a process we wouldn't have been doing right by our responsibility in terms of branches of Government to take human rights and the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act seriously.I want to acknowledge as well the work of the Privileges Committee. I think as we see across the House tonight there is consensus because we as members did come together and work really really hard sought consultation and advice from members of the public from experts and came together to agree here. But of course the great credit must go to those members of the Parliament the legal experts the human rights experts from the Human Rights Commission to the Office of Human Rights Proceedings to the very authors of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act Sir Geoffrey Palmer and Sir Kenneth Keith who came to our committee and told us off. And I don't think any of us will really forget that when they urged us to make this bill something that would be effective in terms of enforcement of rights in term of upholding the work and the significance of the judicial branch of Government in terms of upholding the significance of New Zealand as having a bill of rights. And as Sir Geoffrey Palmer said successive Governments and Parliaments had let him down in not taking action on this before now.So I think the balance—and as others have said—is struck right with this bill in honouring parliamentary sovereignty which is significant and paramount in our system because we are the elected representatives; upholding the responsibility and accountability of the executive branch of Government to respond to us as an elected body but also to the independent word of the judiciary; and of course the work of our judicial system. It's not a system that's particularly accessible at the best of times but when somebody does get there and brings a case and they do decide that rights have been breached and they do decide that those rights have been breached by a legislature that we actually do need to come back here consult and then actually make our decisions again and debate the issues. So that balance is struck in terms of being both reactive and still upholding democracy.And I do want to note that the pieces of legislation that have triggered this debate tonight and this bill are about democracy and the first being the legislation—the blanket ban of the previous National Party Government of prisoner voting where the Supreme Court said Absolutely not. You can't use the criminal justice system to start to erode fundamental rights." And then the next one that's actually potentially the very first issue that will come before this House pursuant to this piece of legislation is the right of 16- and 17-year-olds to vote because the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act does uniquely say that they can't be discriminated against based on their age in terms of any of their fundamental rights including voting. That's gone to the Court of Appeal who found a breach and the Supreme Court has of course already heard that issue and we're waiting with bated breath for that decision to see if we're going to debate that. And those are issues that sit very close to my heart being about the extension and the health of our democracy. So this is a great bill. It's a great day for human rights lawyers; it's a great day for my colleagues out in the courts where I lived in my previous life; and I think a great day for the Hon Marama Davidson who I know is in the House who used to work for the Human Rights Commission. And so I think we're doing right by the people that we serve and I certainly commend the bill to the House."