Barry MaggieHon MAGGIE BARRY (National—North Shore): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I would like to begin by acknowledging the tremendous compassion that is evident to me on both sides of this debate and it has been from the beginning. I don't think there is a person who is engaged with this issue who has not felt that they can make a contribution to let people die with dignity and to have their views heard and respected. So for me we all want the same thing but we will go about it in different ways because there are those of us that cannot agree that euthanasia and assisted suicide is the only way to have a dignified death. We believe that it is important to analyse this bill and that's what I will be doing in my call here tonight. I acknowledge too the 39000 people who were very much of the view that they wanted to participate in this process and I acknowledge this House and all of the people who took part in the submission process for allowing democracy to take its course because I think that there has been a hearing and there has been a fair hearing at that.One of the things though that happened at the select committee—and I'm deputy chair of the Justice Committee that heard this—was that we decided at the outset that eight people should not determine the outcome of this bill. We would make minor and technical changes and at the point where it was coming back to the House there would be the robust debate the changes that would be brought in. That didn't happen. It is one of the greatest professional disappointments of my time in this House in Parliament that so few of the amendments and Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that we put up having thought through them very carefully and with a genuine desire to see this bill if it is to pass be made safer—so there have been some very low points and the committee of the whole House in my view wasted many opportunities to genuinely engage. I believe that this bill's fundamental purpose is designed to allow swift and easy access to euthanasia with scant regard for safeguards.After the bill passed its second reading though we sat down. We worked with elder abuse end of life care professionals disability and dementia experts as well as doctors and lawyers. We put up 111 amendments designed to address safety concerns to ensure for example that medical professionals be required to check specifically for signs of elder abuse and to take active steps to ensure a patient is not under duress or being coerced. We tried hard to strengthen those safeguards against coercion. We tried hard to require robust reporting of the cases and to ensure that agencies such as hospices and rest homes would have the right to conscientiously object. That was not passed.I marvel still at the number of speakers who stand up and say they admire and support the work of hospice. Why didn't you listen to what they had to say? Why was there not support for their heartfelt plea? And even this morning all of us as members of Parliament were sent a letter by Mary Schumacher and Rod MacLeod and the people in Hospice New Zealand who have worked so hard and devoted their lives to finding a way for people to reach the end of their lives with dignity with compassion with holistic care and that pain and suffering is not a part of that equation. That is the very last thing that they want.So none of our SOPs were voted through; only one amendment was and that was in the name of the sponsor to remove grievous and irremediable condition". But that doesn't change anything. It doesn't make this bill any safer. That's the view of medical experts as well as many of us. It doesn't make any difference to the safety because it's a meaningless phrase. No one knew what it meant anyway and it had no legal or health status in New Zealand. The Disability Rights Commissioner Paula Tesoriero is very firmly of the view that this bill in its current state devalues the lives of people living with disabilities and poses significant risks for them. The so-called right to die for some would all too easily become a duty to die for others and a law change would normalise this.To us the burden of proof has always been with the pro-euthanasia advocates and the sponsor of this bill. They have never been able to prove that there will not be unintended consequences and instead they have dwelt in euphemisms that deny the reality of what this bill could do. It is not assisted dying; it is euthanasia and it is assisted suicide. Those are the changes that are being made to the Crimes Act. Let's not sanitise it. Let's not pretend it is something different because it is not. The State-sanctioned killing of one person by another was abandoned by this country in 1961 when people our predecessors in this House threw out the death penalty. Now we are looking at bringing back something that will enable the taking of a life. We have strong objections to that many of us.I think that what we look at with some of the arguments that have been put forward the pro-euthanasia advocates are people who have been quite dismissive and rude. I'm standing up here for people in the disability sector who I know have sacrificed in some cases their own health and I commend Kylee Black who wasn't able to join us tonight but for Vicky and for Clare and for John and for so many of the other people with disabilities—Raymond sorry—who have made the effort to come here and have made the effort to speak out they've been vilified. Many times they have been told they're too expensive to keep alive—"Why should we listen to you?" And I think this is beyond disrespectful. So I have been very disappointed that that has occurred. Some have dismissed their arguments and ours in this House as scaremongering and emotional rubbish. They question the sincerity and they dismiss the fears and concerns of the people who are genuinely afraid for their lives and for what will happen to them.People who are told that they are terminally ill—it's not uncommon for them to feel depressed. At a point when they're at the lowest in their lives when they are confused and unhappy if the option of euthanasia is available—and I have heard this from people like Dr Huhana Hickey who is someone I admire very much for her strength and her resilience. I know she won't mind me saying this but there came a time a few months ago when she was deeply distressed and suicidal. She had told her doctors and her wife and everyone in her family not to listen to her if she said she wanted to die because she knew that after a little while she would not want that anymore. So many people have pointed to the presence of a euthanasia bill and assisted dying as an option they might take in their darkest hour. They might feel a burden. How sad is that? How bad are we as a society in New Zealand if we can allow that to occur?Mine is not a faith-based objection to this bill but I respect the ability and the right of people who do have a faith-based conviction to say what is in their hearts and not to be dismissed. I commend their tenacity and their determination.From the time that my father died I was very connected with hospice. The people I respected and trusted with my father's death spoke to me a couple of years ago and said that this bill was coming through and they started to tell me of their objections. I meet with them a lot—people like Sinead Donnelly Mary Schumacher who wrote to us all today. They say they don't understand why we would consider taking the risk of all of the unintended consequences at the expense of our most vulnerable. If you ask any doctor to do this I think—all of the things that we tried to do to bring that into place by protecting their conscientious objections have not been passed.It's not true that all jurisdictions are doing this; 6 percent only. Some 6.65 billion people manage to live and die without euthanasia. There are more than 9 million doctors in the World Medical Association who have dismissed it. So internationally we look at what's happened in other countries and we know it will happen here. We sit here night after night week after week changing legislation because it's not fit for purpose. Some people have said this bill will be back in a few years; I'd say less than that.This is a flawed bill. It should not in its present form be handed over to the people of New Zealand to do what the politicians could not do which is to get a grip on this bill to understand how it could be improved and to work together as a House to do that. We have not worked cooperatively. As I say we need to put resources into looking after people at the end of their lives for caring for them; not for killing them not for funding euthanasia—through the Ministry of Health for goodness' sake. I think that when I look at public safety and protection of the most vulnerable we as politicians must be aware that that is the most important aspect rather than an individual's personal choice. Our role as lawmakers is to ensure the greatest good for the greatest number. We have a duty to ensure that the degree of safety built into the legislation matches the gravity of the risk. The stakes are very high and we each have to ask ourselves the question and then be able to live with the answer: how many unintended deaths are too many?As with voting down the death penalty 60 years ago we have to ask ourselves whether one innocent life lost is OK and can be treated as collateral damage. I can't live with that. I can't live with the permissive bill and I do not support it before this House."