Little AndrewHon ANDREW LITTLE (Minister of Justice): Thank you Madam Chair. I just wanted to respond to some of the points that have been made both before the dinner break and since and I particularly want to talk about the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) in Melissa Lee's name and also that in the name of Alfred Ngaro. Just on the issue about the concerns that have been expressed about discrimination in particular in relation to the possibility that a pregnancy or a fetus that may lead to profound disability might be the subject of a decision by a parent to abort. Then there's also the other discrimination which is sex discrimination which has been explicitly provided for in the bill in the report back from the select committee.So just on the issue of sex selection there is a very clear statement in the bill that the select committee has put together that says that this is not tolerated in New Zealand. That is important when you consider the medical practitioners' and the health practitioners' professional and moral obligations when they're dealing with the woman in front of them to make sure that the practitioner fulfils their professional obligations which will include ensuring that to the extent they discern that the decision is being made on the sex discrimination grounds that does not happen. The bill is drafted very clearly about the grounds upon which a health practitioner must determine the issue when consulting with a woman about an abortion—certainly post - 20 weeks.On the issue of broader disabled discrimination one of the problems with Melissa Lee's SOP 479 and the amendment that she's proposing in that SOP is the fact that the medical practitioner would be required to effectively get into the mind of the woman to try to determine whether or not the decision she is making or what she is consulting that medical practitioner on is a ground of discrimination. So that's one thing. Then because it is a quite broadly drafted provision that refers to all the grounds of discrimination under the Human Rights Act which include for example family status—which means that if a young woman who is pregnant because of an act of incest wants to abort that pregnancy and that is disclosed to the health practitioner under Melissa Lee's SOP the health practitioner would have to determine if that is an act of discrimination on the grounds of family status. That abortion simply on the grounds that the pregnancy is the product of incest would be discriminatory on the grounds of family status. Now I don't think Melissa Lee because of the concerns she's expressed about discrimination would want that but that is what her provision would allow. That is why I am opposed to it. In relation to the current right under the Care of Children Act for a young woman below the age of consent to having consulted a medical practitioner make a decision about an abortion and to repeal that under Alfred Ngaro's SOP—I don't accept that either.Now I've spoken a bit about this before. One of the other things that the current law ensures is that that young woman is not prevailed upon by somebody else to make a decision to have an abortion when she might not want to or conversely to not have an abortion where she would otherwise wish to not continue the pregnancy. That provision has been around for some considerable period of time and in fact it's based on the recommendations of the royal commission of inquiry from 1977 that was about protecting the integrity of the decision of that young woman. There will be situations where a young woman is in a situation where she does not wish to disclose to her parents because of issues of her own personal safety or family relationships and she should not be put in a position where there is a mandatory obligation to disclose when that would put her at risk. I don't accept that and I think that that is wrong. This issue was also the subject of a petition in 2014 that was considered by the Justice and Electoral Committee and they did not recommend changing the current law. So as recently as 2014 Parliament has considered this issue and said that we do not want to change the current rights of a young person below the otherwise age of consent for sexual activity that is there at the moment. For those reasons I reject both of those SOPs.