McKelvie IanIAN McKELVIE (National—Rangitīkei): Well it's an interesting thing to follow three O'Connors and I'll put the Scottish Presbyterian view because clearly they don't share the same view I do. I suppose in a funny way it's a privilege to take a call on what I've probably found in my time in this building the most difficult bill I've had to deal with. I want to congratulate firstly the Minister on bringing this and promoting it in the manner he has because I think he's considered it extremely well. I voted for this bill at first reading and second reading with some very strong concerns about it I guess and those concerns have been recognised in the course of some of the Supplementary Order Papers (SOPs) that have been presented right now and I just want to talk about those SOPs briefly. I want to talk firstly about Agnes Loheni's SOP that she's introduced to the committee and I think that it deals with an issue that concerns me greatly and that's the way we manage the abortion beyond 20 weeks. That concerned me in my first reading speech. The Minister has addressed that and I'm not sure that we'll ever know whether we're right or wrong on this issue. It's a very tricky issue; it's a difficult issue to deal with. And Greg O'Connor has introduced an SOP which takes the attitude a little differently to that point of view and I support his SOP as well. So at the end of the day you can't support all this stuff but I think we've got to make a judgment on this that gets us out the other end so that we're confident that we've gone in the right space on it. I wasn't going to comment on Damien O'Connor's speech but it's a very interesting point because I think it is a very different issue between the issue he was talking about and my view of this which is primarily to preserve the rights of a woman to deal with things as she sees fit. I'd have to say I'm no judge of this and I don't pretend to be a judge of it—I would get into a great deal of difficulty or trouble if I ever thought I knew what I was talking about with respect to that—but I do think that this is all about a person's right to be what she or he wants to be in life and to deal with things that challenge them in a manner that allows life to move on and the world to get on in a manner that that is best for us all. I want to make a very important point here because I think that we've failed historically in New Zealand to manage the issues that would have prevented us from ever having to pass this bill. I think that's a challenge that we can't deal with. We've clearly tried many times to deal with that challenge and we've failed. So I think that the alternative is to put in place a bill that manages the situation that humanity has been unable to manage frankly. I think that's the greatest challenge we've got in this House. A couple of other things I want to deal with with respect to SOPs. One is Darroch Ball's SOP which frankly I think is typical New Zealand First—dodge the issue and put it out there. The interesting thing about that is that if you've listened to the debate in this House over the last two readings and this debate tonight the issues that we've had to deal with as members of Parliament—and I've certainly been removed from it from the perspective of being on the select committee and things—are hugely complex and very complicated and I think the Minister's gone to great lengths to explain that. But for the people out there to understand the issues that he's had to deal with and that this House has to deal with is almost impossible. So I think to put it out there for the public to make a judgment on issues that we've had to deal with—hugely technical very complicated and very controversial—is extraordinarily irresponsible of this House. We're put here to make the difficult decisions in life for people. We're given the tools to do it with and we're given extraordinary resource to make sure we understand it. So I've got to oppose that SOP on the basis that I think it's not the proper way to go about business and I don't think we should do that. So the other couple of SOPs I wanted to talk about very briefly—one which concerns me and has I guess been an important part of my life and that's the Down syndrome issue which has been highly publicised in the last couple of days. I think again that's a very challenging issue for a mother to have to confront for a family to have to confront. I think that—given the explanation the Minister has given us tonight and the position we'll probably end up at on that—it's too difficult to deal with frankly and I think that the bill deals with it in a manner that's probably the best way we can deal with it. I think knowing what I know about Down syndrome kids it would be a massive privilege to have a child who had Down syndrome because they're extraordinary people. Not everyone thinks like that and that's an issue we've got to deal with. A couple of other things—very briefly because I haven't got long to go. I wanted to talk very quickly about David Seymour's SOP 464 because I frankly think that if we've got a bill we're confident and we can pass it should pass on its merits and the world should face it on its merits. And so in an odd way I support the SOP of David Seymour. So that's the issues I wanted to deal with. You could talk for hours on this. It's an extremely difficult topic to deal with and I think that we're in the best space we could get to in this Chamber. I'm sure the results of these discussions will get us where we want to be.