Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): Thank you Mr Speaker. I want to firstly emphasise the important duty that this Parliament owes to our most vulnerable citizens and I want this Parliament to be open and honest that it is inevitable that if this law passes there will be fatal mistakes. You see many parliamentarians are putting huge emphasis on the reliability of the three essential legal checks in this bill: we're putting a responsibility on doctors to be able to say that a person does not suffer from depression or any mental health we're putting a test on doctors to say that a person's only got six months left to live and we're saying that those doctors are going to be able to certify that someone is not being inappropriately influenced in their choice for ending their life. This Parliament needs to be upfront that the very profession that we're asking to make those decisions has told us over and over again that you cannot 100 percent rely on them and that is why this Parliament needs to be honest with itself that if we pass this law there will be people who die outside the parameters that are there. When it comes to education issues in my own specialist area of engineering whether we're talking about finance issues or others this Parliament makes a poor judgment when it ignores the people at the coalface that work in the expert area and I plead with this Parliament to listen to those professionals who work every day with our dying and who have submitted so strongly and plea with us not to support this bill. One of the worst issues that our country faces is the issue of suicide and there's not a member of this House that does not feel passionately about wanting to be able to change those awful statistics of over 600 New Zealanders taking their own lives each year. We need to hear the message that when we blur the line about whether it's appropriate for people to be able to take their own life we are making it more difficult for our country to confront those awful statistics. I also want to express real concern about the implications of this bill for the most important institution in this country and that is family. What this bill does is that it says that a person is able to take their own life without their mum without their dad without maybe their son or their daughter or even without their husband wife or partner having any knowledge until they read the death notice in the paper or maybe on the internet. Well I say to this Parliament that that would cause me for my family great grief—and I believe every New Zealander—and I am appalled that Parliament rejected the amendments that would have recognised the institution of family and made sure they were not cut out. Now this bill as we come to third reading stage proposes a referendum. Well I say to this Parliament: why are we being so inconsistent? When we come to the sensitive issue at the beginning of life around abortion we're saying that the public can't have a say but when it comes to this one we're conveniently saying we're having a referendum. Let's be upfront. I'll tell you why that's happening: because the liberals that want this to pass do not have the numbers without a referendum and those that want to advance abortion reform are refusing a referendum because they have the numbers anyway. What sort of an unprincipled process are we tackling those issues with in respect to that? My plea to this Parliament is to reflect on the duty of care that we owe to our most vulnerable. We owe a duty of care to listen to the professional people—who I have so much respect for—who work in palliative care. Finally I say that one of the things I love about New Zealand and love about this Parliament is that we err on the side of life and this bill does not. We should reject it.