van Velden BrookeBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party today in support of the first reading of the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. I want to commend my colleague Tāmati Coffey for bringing this important bill to the House. ACT offered our 10 votes in support to bypass the ballot process because we did believe that our laws around surrogacy do need modernising. And as luck would have it Tāmati Coffey has been lucky enough to have his bill drawn from the ballot and not requiring those votes.So we're one step closer by having this reading to modernising our laws for a modern New Zealand. This bill will simplify surrogacy arrangements and ensure the completeness of birth certificate information for New Zealanders whose child is delivered via surrogacy. Our job as politicians is to create laws that make life better and easier for New Zealanders. This law change would simplify those surrogacy laws and make the process of having a child via surrogacy easier and that can only be a good thing for modern New Zealand.Children are wonderful. I love the curiosity of children as their minds work a million miles to figure out the big wide world around them. I often walk through Cornwall Park which is near where I live and I see families with their children all the time playing in the park dads teaching their kids how to ride a bike and how to fly a kite and we see mums pointing out the cows and sheep and seeing their children's eyes wide with amazement. There are so many firsts that parents love to see their children have. And many many people dream of having those options for themselves in the future. Options of starting their own family and seeing them bring a new life into the world that will grow up and become good citizens of New Zealand wondering what on earth their children might do with their lives. I think it's beautiful.For many New Zealanders it's as easy as that. They want to have a child and they do. But for others they seek more alternatives because it's not as straightforward. And for myself I'm personally going through egg freezing because I know in the future that I may need IVF. And so that's an option that I would like to have for myself because many New Zealanders know that IVF gives them more chances to have a child in the future and similarly with surrogacy. Surrogacy allows people who may have difficulties to have a child and have no other option to have that option of bringing new life into the world. I think it's wonderful and I think it's great that our new laws should reflect that.But the law currently is not very simple or clear and this bill clarifies a few things—that is that a couple could pay actual and reasonable expenses for somebody going through the process of carrying that child for them; you know somebody who's given up their time and their energy and their body to carry that baby. I think our laws should reflect that a person should be able to pay the costs that go into that. It creates a register for matching people who wish to put themselves forward to be a surrogate and I think that's wonderful too because many times people reach out to their family and they can't find somebody—they reach out to their friends and they can't find somebody so they go online and they try to find people through forums who might give up their time and their body. But having a register of people who are willing and able would simplify that process. It also ensures that the person who is the intended parent could be on the birth certificate at birth to make sure that in those first days and weeks of that new child's life they're not having to go through those legal hurdles and worry about the implications of getting that right or wrong when they're just wanting to spend time with their newborn child. I think that's important.This is a complex ethical and legal area. The ACT Party supports modernising our surrogacy laws and looks forward to seeing the work that the Health Committee will do. But we also know that the Law Commission is looking into this law so we look forward to seeing the scrutiny of this bill versus the Law Commission's reports. The ACT Party commends this bill to the House for the first reading because we believe that our laws do need to be modernised. Many New Zealanders struggle with fertility; our laws should make that process easier for people and we look forward to working constructively on this law.