Williams ArenaARENA WILLIAMS (Labour—Manurewa): Thank you Mr Speaker. I am taking a short call to address two just two of the points arisen in this debate. The first point is a point made by the Hon Michael Woodhouse when he said that age in law is arbitrary. He took us through his reasoning in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act and the Human Rights Act and there's an important point here which we need to note which is: in the Human Rights Act there is a group—within age—who can be discriminated against. Those are under 16-year-olds. That's section 21(1)(i)(iii) Mr Woodhouse that provides for Parliament making decisions about under 16-year-olds which may be different from their counterparts who are 18. That is why in law it's wrong to say that age is arbitrary when we're looking at the voting rights of 18-year-olds. In fact in all of the court's decisions it was important that this age of 18 was arbitrary but under 16 one might make a case for a different decision.The point here is that these decisions when we do draw a line in the sand in Parliament—which Parliament is perfectly entitled to do around age—they should be made with reason and backed by evidence. The point Mr Woodhouse made about the Crown not advancing a position that the age of 16 was consistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act might have something to do with the absolute lack of a case made by the Opposition benches about why 16-year-olds shouldn't be able to vote. There is no case why 16-year-olds shouldn't be able to vote. The evidence is quite the contrary to that. The Minister made that case in her statement when she said that people in their mid-teens are able to make deliberative decisions but their capacity to make more emotionally charged decisions is limited. That was the evidence heard by the select committee from the Children's Commissioner in their hot and cold cognitive analysis. The Children's Commissioner presented to the Justice Committee that the evidence shows that cognitive abilities reach adult levels at different ages for different types of decision making. In this regard the committee found that the distinction drawn between hot and cold cognition was useful and voting was cited as an example of decision-making processes that utilise cold cognition. That's the kind of decisions we young people can make a decision about the things which affect them in their lives which affect their futures and the kind of New Zealand that they want to live in. On this side of the House we believe that young people are perfectly well set up to make those decisions in their lives and for their communities. There is no evidence to the contrary and that's not being advanced by the Opposition in this debate.The second point and there's only two points because I will be brief is the point that the Hon Paul Goldsmith raised. When the Green Party was heckling him he said That's how it should be in Parliament; we should be heckled." Who's doing the heckling? When we look around this House can we say that it is representative of the New Zealand that we seek to serve as parliamentarians? Can we say that the voices here who we would abrogate their rights are doing the heckling? Absolutely not because the 16-year-olds who have made their voices heard—Make It 16 campaign—who have been out there on the streets petitioning MPs making their case online taking it to the schools; they are not here to heckle the Hon Paul Goldsmith they are not here to participate in this debate and so I say I support their campaign and that's why it's been a privilege to speak on this debate."