O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Madam Chair and can I thank the Minister in the chair the Hon Andrew Little for highlighting the mistake I'd actually made in my amendment? It was a mistake and it just shows for those watching that this political process the committee of the whole House is actually a very good process. It is designed to make sure that the legislation that goes forward from here to its third reading has gone through the sort of scrutiny that it should do. So I'm pleased that the Minister actually did point it out and I now have a new tabled amendment—which can I just make clear to those here we're talking about or" not "and". So where a woman is able to avail herself of an abortion over 20 weeks provided the woman is more than 20 weeks pregnant and either there is a risk to the life or of serious harm to the physical and mental health of the woman or the fetus is so medically impaired as to be unlikely to survive beyond birth. Again as I said in my first speech I'd invite those listening to think about this and to just think about that we are now dealing with the issue around the mental and physical health of the mother which is important; it is what we're here to do and what we should be talking about. But we are also addressing those concerns that much of the correspondence we've received is about which are those of: what is—let's face it—a viable human being? Generally around 22 weeks. We're talking about a period between 20 22 and 23 weeks but we're well aware now of cases where there are children who are born at 22 and 23 weeks who survive and thrive. So it was always going to be a certain amount of arbitrariness among those who designed this bill. I know there was considerable debate about 22 20 weeks. I know in overseas jurisdictions—I was speaking to some Australian colleagues tonight and we were talking about the different states over there haven't been able to settle on 22 24 and 20 weeks. So there is that period we are talking about around about that 20 to 25 weeks. Again can I implore those who believe that this is a debate on abortion to bring your minds down closer to what the real issue is because the issue you think you're debating if you're debating abortion per se—that's not what we're debating here. We are debating now about—and certainly as part of my amendment—post - 20 weeks and what the criteria should be before someone can avail themselves. I think we can actually come together much more as a country. I believe that those emails we're receiving if people actually really seriously thought about this and we agreed and it will take a certain amount of agreement that the viability of a fetus the viability of a child is around the time where a debate should be—that's where this debate should be. I know there'll be those saying that no it should be—and even my cousin talked about that stage of two four days. I think we've matured enough as a society and the debate is mature enough that we can just bring it down and I'd ask those who are going to be voting tonight and those listening to this post - 20 weeks and just give our electorates those out there who have the concerns—I think with the inclusion of this amendment we can give some of that security. We can give some of that reassurance that my colleague—again I refer to my colleague Kieran McAnulty—talked about with all those emails we're receiving. That's what we also want to do. It's not just a matter of being dogmatic here. We have so many different things as MPs but one of the things is we actually all want to do the right thing by our constituents and that's what we'll be doing. Those who are on the polar sides of this debate let's just see if we can find a little bit of middle ground that will actually bring this together. I'm going to ask people in this Chamber who are going to be voting or those who may be even considering their proxy vote to have a good look at this amendment of mine. I believe it might just arrive us in the place where we will all go back to our electorates back to our offices and while we won't keep everyone happy we will reassure many more people than we would if we stick to our polarised positions on this bill. Thank you Madam Chair."