Martin TraceyHon TRACEY MARTIN (Minister for Children): Kia ora Madam Speaker. I rise to speak on behalf of New Zealand First on the Referendums Framework Bill. Can I say I enjoyed the contribution from Mr Bishop. I think he's maturing into a fine politician. I thought that his arguments were well made well delivered in a tone that was respectful. While he's wrong on many points I just think he did a really good job on articulating that. So just with regard to the Referendums Framework Bill I would agree with many of the points that Mr Bishop made one of them being that I think it's very sad that this piece of legislation runs out at 2020 and that it's only for 2020. I mean you know as Mr Bishop articulated New Zealand First has a belief that there are issues that the New Zealand public needs to come along with. For myself one of the reasons why I fully back referendums around parts of legislation that change the social fabric or change the direction of a nation around a very contentious issue is because it's much harder to unravel—it's much harder for a Parliament to undo if the people are with you. I take that belief into Mr Bishop's comments around a draft piece of legislation around recreational cannabis because he is also very very right: the question matters. I can't agree with Mr Smith that just because we did something in 1853 we continue to do it in exactly the same way in 2020. I cannot agree with that. We do have to continue to progress and grow as a democracy. I cannot agree with the members of the National Party who have articulated in this House—and I'm going to take issue with Mr Smith chopping out a piece of what I said. There have been members in this House who have articulated around referendums that they know better than the New Zealand public. So in other words they're saying you cannot trust the New Zealand public to vote on such important issues. My argument is well those people voted us here. That's how intelligent they are. Now you decide what that last sentence means. That's how intelligent they are. If we believe that they have the intellect and the capacity to understand our bios our values our whatever to put us here why do we not trust them when it comes to issues of great import for the nation with that information the same information we make these decisions on? I think the End of Life Choice Bill is a very good example of one way in which we have altered how a referendum question will be put—that is that it went all the way through this House—I thought the contribution by Clare Curran was particularly apt—a Supplementary Order Paper was put into that legislation on the Table at committee stage voted on by the whole House and the majority of this Parliament agreed with it. We are trialling another way of doing referendums which is to have a draft piece of legislation with a regulatory impact statement and rules around how things can be promoted for different people's perspectives and so on. We are trialling another way of doing that when it comes down to the recreational cannabis issue. It will be interesting to see—and I think it's an opportunity for the Parliament to watch and observe how well those things go—how well I believe the New Zealand public is going to be able to truly absorb that information have constructive conversations and vote on those issues. It should not frighten anybody. But it's very interesting—and I do have to go back again to Dr Nick Smith's contribution where he again showed how difficult that party is finding the MMP environment. There seems to be the inability for some members of that party to recognise that this Government represents the majority of New Zealanders. Just because you're bigger as in bigger as a single bloc does not mean that you get to make a whole lot of changes. The Opposition does not represent the majority of New Zealanders. That would be the Government. That's how MMP works. That's how democracy works. I note that that was another referendum. I'm sure that Mr Smith probably argued against it at the time. But that's how this works. So with regard to the Referendums Framework Bill it's a good piece of legislation. It takes us forward. We must keep moving forward as a democracy. I mean as the Minister for Seniors I often talk about the fact that the seniors that we have today are more highly educated living longer more involved more connected than they've ever been before. The New Zealand population has changed since 1853. Their ability to gain information has changed. I would say however that inside the legislation the balance between freedom of expression and transparency is very important. So you know the fact that the bill regulates referendum advertising in the same way that the Electoral Act regulates electoral advertising is very very important. The rules around the promoters of referendum advertisements to place a promoter statement on every advertisement is very very important. It also will be important—and I know that there will be members of the public who will do this—to actually dig into who those promoters are. So when there is a promoter statement make sure that one goes down to see who is backing that promoter. These are all things that we need to be aware of because we've seen it in other places around the world where there are some who would manipulate our democracy to get their own outcome. That is why the question is so incredibly important. That is why from a New Zealand First perspective the optimum is to have the question backed by either the legislation or a draft piece of legislation. Then—only then—is the question as clear as it needs to be rather than for example those questions that are open-ended and could be misconstrued and could mislead. So I think I've made New Zealand First's position very very clear. We support the bill all the way through.