Logie JanJAN LOGIE (Green): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. Firstly I want to congratulate the member Anahila Kanongata'a-Suisuiki for what I think is a fantastic bill. It's the perfect example of what a member's bill should be. It's a very prescribed small change that could make a symbolic and significant difference to people in this country and I want to thank you for your contribution to this House so early on in your parliamentary career. I do have to express a significant degree of disappointment with the debate so far this evening. What I've heard in terms of the arguments is where will it end if we allow these non-official languages to be given in oaths in this House?"—missing a point which I hadn't previously been aware of that English is not an official language of this country. The official languages of this country are Te Reo Māori and sign language; English is not so all of the content of this debate is given in a language that is not an official language. So it does not stand up to say that we have to restrict the oath to official languages because nothing in this House except the Reo is in the official language of this country. I've heard the assumption that sign language can be used because it is an official language. Well I'm sorry to give members the bad news that it can't and that is one of the reasons for introducing this piece of legislation I imagine: to enable one of our official languages to be able to be used in the Oath of Allegiance. I do want to question as well the fact that New Zealand has a history of a very close relationship and actually a constitutional relationship with several countries in the Pacific. Tokelau is still a dependent territory there are associated states of the Cook Islands and Niue and there is not the ability for those people to use their language in this House without having to repeat it in English despite us having that close relationship. It does not make sense to me ruling out this piece of legislation when there are those degrees of inconsistencies. And I've heard members say "So this will have massive implications. It's not just about Parliament and we can't deal with that." I read the purpose of this bill which is a very very short piece of legislation might I tell people and to quote it: "The purpose of this Act is to amend the Oaths and Declarations Act 1957 to allow members of Parliament to make their oaths or affirmations of allegiance in languages other than English and te reo Māori." How short is that? How much effort would it have taken to read those two sides of paper to find out the purpose of the bill and the boundaries of this bill? I honestly just think it's incredibly disrespectful that people haven't done that work and have come to this debate raising these complete red herrings to dismiss a bill that actually is quite important. So while we're hearing from people that "actually you can give your Oath of Allegiance in your language and it doesn't matter that you have to then translate it into English"—it does matter. It does give a message about the place of people in our communities and when our official languages aren't able to be given automatically or used for oaths and when other languages that are present and matter for our family histories and heritages are not able to be present in this House without being qualified by the language of English it is offensive to me to be honest.I really think as well that people clearly are demonstrating their lack of understanding about how much of a struggle it is to hold your heritage language and how important that is for members in our community and how much we need leadership from this place to be able to support the retention and indeed the flourishing of those heritage languages in our country."