Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Whangaparāoa): Thank you Mr Speaker. Firstly can I just acknowledge the Minister the Hon Kiritapu Allan and the chair of the Justice Committee Ginny Andersen who has just sat down: the Minister for bringing the legislation to the committee and the chair for doing a very good job of chairing the committee. I think that there was bipartisan effort on both sides. We wanted to make sure that we could pass this legislation but we wanted to make sure that it was fair. So can I acknowledge the other members of the committee as well who are obviously in the House tonight.I did take issue with one of the comments of the chairperson of the committee around participation. I don't think that it was affecting the participation of someone to engage in our democracy but I do accept the fact that it was affecting participation in terms of whether or not they'd chose to be on the general or on the Māori roll and I think with this change it has definitely helped with that without a doubt and I assume that was the issue she was making in relation to that.The bill replaces the current Māori electoral option with a continuous option. At present electors of Māori descent can only change between the Māori and general electoral rolls in a four-month period that occurs every five to six years. So that did limit participation and choice and the committee did recognise that. Of course the continuous roll now means that within that four-month period they can choose to change between both the Māori and the general roll. One of the issues that we talked about—and it's something that all of us turn our minds to as representatives in our central government level but also as representatives at the local government level—is: how do we increase participation? How do we actually get people to want to use their right to vote? And it does puzzle me. I suppose I'm probably being a bit naive but when you look at our history as a country and the sacrifices that were made during the First World War and the Second World War to make sure that we actually retained those fundamental rights that we were able to protect and defend in what I think is one of the best democracies in the world of course—and I see that my friend and colleague Harete Hipango is in the House today—a huge contribution was the 28th Māori Battalion; that was certainly involved in action during the Second World War and has become a very famous battalion not just here in New Zealand but globally in terms of the contribution that they made. So it's a message for all of us I think as a country that when it comes to actually exercising and using that right to vote we should always go back in time and I know it's hard to do sometimes and to think about the massive sacrifices that were made as a country—the massive individual sacrifices that were made and the massive sacrifices that were made by families—to actually allow us and give us the right to actually make that vote and cast that vote. But anyway I'm getting a bit philosophical here. I just want to say that we support the bill. Again I want to thank and acknowledge the Minister for being prepared to make the changes to the bill that would then allow us to be able to support it and make sure that it could come into the House today and that we could pass it. So thank you very much Mr Speaker.