Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Speaker. I in the first instance in this debate wish to acknowledge the member David Seymour for bringing this issue and this bill to the House. I believe he does so with a high degree of integrity and for reasons that are only good. I acknowledge him for that. At the first reading of this bill I supported it to the select committee on that basis and on the basis that I believe this is a complex and important ethical issue that New Zealanders and this House deserve the opportunity to properly consider. I did so with doubts in my mind at that time and at the time of this second reading the conclusion that I have reached is that those doubts have not been sufficiently dealt with by the debate that has occurred and my vote at this reading will be to not allow the bill to proceed. There are a couple of important reasons for this that I wish to put on the record. The first is on the impact on vulnerable people within our communities. In this regard I've been particularly persuaded by many of the representations made by New Zealand's disability community. I wish to especially acknowledge Dr Hūhana Hickey one of New Zealand's foremost disability community advocates and a constituent of mine by the name of Raymond Mok. Raymond who was approached to meet with me on a number of occasions is a man around about my age who suffers from a condition known as Duchenne muscular dystrophy. It is an incurable and progressive disease that means that Raymond is unable to move about by himself. He requires assistance with his breathing and is not able to lead a life in the same way that many of us do. He is a person who has told me that at points in his life he would have if the option had been available to him taken up the option of ending his life but with help and support with mental health assistance he is a person who has been able to live a meaningful life. Raymond tells me when he meets with me that his concern with this bill is that it creates a situation where people who have as he does a grievous and irredeemable medical condition—would be people who would be placed in a category in which the end of their life is legally permissible. And that is not a category that many other New Zealanders are put into. This is a concern that I share. I'm concerned that in many cases the people who would have access to end of life choice under this bill are the old are the unwell are people with devastating and difficult diseases. By definition these people are often in a vulnerable position. I acknowledge the genuine attempts that have been made to try and ensure that overt pressure is not placed upon people to access the provisions of this bill. But I do not believe that it is possible to design a system in which that occurs in every single occasion. And the evidence from overseas jurisdictions is that there will be cases in which people have pressure put on them to access the provisions of this bill. And while I acknowledge that in most cases the people accessing its provisions would be people who freely make that choice for me having even a small number of New Zealanders whose lives are ended through a legal provision and not through their own choice is sufficient reason not to support that legal framework. I am also deeply concerned on the basis of conversations with people and my knowledge of people including my own loved ones approaching an end of life situation that many of those people do not experience overt pressure but they feel the implicit pressure. They feel the burden on their families they worry about the pain that the final months may put them through and they may see it simply as a better choice for other people to access the end of life provisions that are included within this bill. I do not believe that is conscionable.This bill moves us from having a hard line in which there is no legal option to access end of life choice to a soft line. We create the option and that means that further debates will inevitably occur about where we draw the lines and that again has been the experience in overseas jurisdictions. And it is my concern that if the bill proceeds we will be back in this House and we will be considering further extensions to the bill. That is the international experience. I'm a social democrat. I believe that individual rights are important but I also believe that when individual rights are afforded people with power and agency are able to exercise them more and vulnerable people are able to exercise them less. I believe that we also need to consider the broader social context the need to protect the vulnerable. This is a difficult debate. It is not easy for any member and I will be voting no.