Whaitiri MekaHon MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand as the newly elected chairperson of the Justice Committee. I want to thank the members for their support and I guess share the passion which all members on this tired committee have for something as important as this particular bill. I listened both to the speakers from the Opposition—both Dr Smith and Mark Mitchell—around their concerns around the bill and calling on Government members to make it clear why we aren't coming to this House with the question. I guess in terms of this particular bill it is required for us to obviously put in the legislative framework to conduct a referendum which this Government has made very clear what we're going to do in terms of the general election next year.But some of the statements from that side of the House that I need to correct are this belief that apparently there's a convention that we actually bring the referendum question to this House. There isn't one. There is no conventional way in setting referendum questions to the House. There isn't. But despite that we reached out to all parties in this House and we reached out to all parties in the House to participate in the referendum around recreational use of marijuana—not once not twice not three times but multiple times. The offer is still open to members on that side of the House to participate.We all make decisions as members of this House whether to participate in decision-making processes of this Government or not but you cannot come to this House and say you were not involved. You cannot claim an innocent position of having no knowledge of us doing this question behind closed doors. You cannot come to this House Mr Speaker and claim that—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): I think I need to come to the House.Hon MEKA WHAITIRI: —sorry Mr Speaker. No members in this House can claim that they have been left out of the designing of the law reforms that this Government is presenting.So I stand obviously on this side of the House to support the bill that the Minister has put in front of us and it makes complete sense that we look at rationalising the general election in terms of laying out the expectations of this bill. It also makes it clear around the advertising expectations of the bill passing. But it's 1 August today. The Minister in his speech said that he was looking forward to it coming back on 11 November. That's 3½ months. That's 3½ months' time where we will canvass the views of submitters and we look forward—I do as the chair of the Justice Committee—to making sure that we are hearing from people around the importance of setting a framework to enable the referendum around recreational use of marijuana.We've also flagged what's in the House at the moment the whole committee of the House in terms of the End of Life Choice Bill which potentially also could be engaged in that. On this side of the House we're a hard-working Government. We want to ensure that we enable the general public to have their say on two very critical issues that we are debating and I think no one—nobody in this House—should actually have an issue with going to the general public and seeking their views. So this to me is quite a simple bill and we are going to have different views—we've heard it from both sides—but all I want to address as a member of this House and as the chair of the committee is we cannot say that we weren't involved. That's all I'm saying and we've had debates on that side of House that claim there is a convention; there isn't one. They claim that they haven't been involved; they've been invited and like I said like our previous speakers have said the door is still open. Dr Smith Mr Mitchell the Hon Paula Bennett; they can name whoever they want. They can bring all three of them if they want because it's important like I said for the coalition Government to make sure that all parties' views have been canvassed when it comes to our law reforms and particularly around this referendum question.It is a simple bill. I am looking forward to it going out for wider consultation. I'm looking forward to the heated debate that's absolutely going to come from this select committee—absolutely going to look forward to it. It is the passion of the members to ensure that we scrutinise this particular bill but it's also an important process on ensuring the public have their say on a critical issue. I'm really pleased and stand in support of this. I'm looking forward to it being advertised widely throughout the country and if that side feels that it's not adequate then I look forward to them promoting it and getting people in front of the select committee. It's a time to have the voices of the public.This bill is a simple bill. I'm looking forward to people submitting and to getting to a position where we can come back to this House to enable the general public to have a say on the critical issue around the recreational use of marijuana and potentially the End of Life Choice Bill. We stand for democracy on this side. We understand the importance of the general public's participation in critical decisions that we are taking to them to consider. I commend this bill to the House.