Mitchell MarkHon MARK MITCHELL (National—Rodney): Can I start by first acknowledging the sponsor of the bill David Seymour. David can I acknowledge the respectful way that you've dealt with me throughout this process which is an extremely sensitive one. Can I acknowledge Matt Vickers who's in the gallery tonight. Matt can I acknowledge you the love and dedication that you've shown to Lecretia in advancing this and I think Lecretia's mum is here tonight too. Can I acknowledge her as well.In terms of these conscience votes we all deal with them as members of Parliament in a different way. My approach that I decided to take was that if a conscience vote came up before an election then I'd go out to my electorate and I'd make it very clear what my position on that was. The reason I did that is I felt that then they could take that information and use it in the way they cast their vote in whether or not they wanted to support me. In the case of conscience votes that come up after the election I felt strongly that I would go back to my electorate and I would consult with them. I would use public meetings polls surveys and a ballot box in my office to find out what the majority view was and to try and get the debate started in my electorate from the south in Silverdale Ōrewa Whangaparāoa Pūhoi Waiwera right up to the north Warkworth Matakana and Leigh. I can report to the House tonight the results so far of that work that's been. Of the 1309 responses that I've had 561 are for or in support of the bill 653 are against. There are 95 people that are undecided and we're probably operating on a margin of error of about 7 percent. So you can see that it's very very close. It is virtually 50/50. For me personally—I want to state here what my own position on the bill is—in its current form I definitely do not support it and I can't see myself supporting it through to the third reading either. On this poll result if it was a third reading I'd be voting against the bill because I'd have to disregard the undecided in the margin of error. But I am going to support the bill. I am going to support it through to a committee stage because I want the people in my electorate to be able to continue to engage in what I think is a critically important debate for us as a country.I want to acknowledge Maryan Street I want to acknowledge Maggie Barry I want to acknowledge Professor Rod McLeod and David Seymour for coming up to my electorate where we held a public meeting. I found the biggest venue I could find and it was standing room only. That's the amount of debate and that's the amount of engagement that we've had on this. The reason why and it's very simple—I don't have any clever nuanced sort of approach to this other than the fact I was on the committee. I went to Tauranga I went to Hamilton I went to Whangarei and Auckland listening to submissions. Can I acknowledge the submitters in their bravery to actually trust us to come forward and share what was for them very personal details about their lives. But really what it comes down to for me and I don't know if anyone can really allay my fears is that we do deal with elder abuse in this country. Yes you're right. The previous speaker Deborah Russell talked about financial abuse emotional abuse and physical abuse. It happens behind closed doors and the sad thing is that often the perpetrator or perpetrators are family members. So if someone can tell me how we can protect our senior Kiwis behind closed doors from having the insidious pressure put on them to take a lethal dose of medicine and kill themselves—if someone can tell me how we can protect them from that how we can remove that pressure because I deal with it; I support Age Concern and I deal with elder abuse cases sadly in my office almost on a weekly basis. If someone in this House can stand up—and I acknowledge the Minister of Justice and I'm committed too to continue to work on this bill on behalf of my electorate. But I need to be convinced and I've spoken to the sponsor of the bill about this—I need to be convinced that our senior Kiwis behind closed doors are not going to be subjected to what I think is an insidious situation where they've got people trying to persuade them and coerce them into taking a lethal dose of medicine and killing themselves. Thank you very much Mr Speaker.