Halbert Shanan; Rurawhe AdrianSHANAN HALBERT (Labour—Northcote): Thank you Mr Speaker. It really is my privilege this evening to speak on the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill a particular bill that is put forward by my very good friend of a few decades Tāmati Coffey. I've been able to watch his journey to be married to his wonderful husband and to have our very beautiful nephew that's a part of our lives within the Labour Party. But this bill is designed to simplify surrogacy arrangements ensure completeness of birth certificate information and provide a mechanism for enforcing surrogacy arrangements.Only a few weeks ago I turned 40. Yes the big four-oh. And once I got to that age—unfortunately as I turned 40 I tested positive for COVID 19—I had a lot of reflection time in self-isolation. One of the things that caught up with me was thinking about future generations but thinking about the possibility if at some point turning 40—probably I needed to make a decision soon about having children. Not only just for myself but the other thing that I think of within my wider whānau is the importance of continuing whakapapa or our genealogical lines between my family and our family in Mōkai Pātea. But there's some challenges in front of me that this particular bill I guess aims to address to work through to deconstruct and to repack into modern legislation. So I consider myself I guess an end user and so I'll take particular interest in this piece of legislation and how in fact it's going to affect some of the decisions that I make moving forward and the decisions for my wider family. It's a privilege to be the deputy chair of the Petitions Committee. We do a lot of work and I acknowledge those members in the House that are part of that select committee. But when you see a petition that comes through—and we see many—one of 32000 signatures is significant. We've seen large-scale signatures like this one in things like banning conversion practice and some of the other work that we have done but this is a lofty amount of New Zealanders in Aotearoa that want to see change in this outdated law. We support this bill because we understand that New Zealand's existing laws around surrogacy and adoption are not up to date and are in need of modernisation to bring them into the 21st century. The evidence of this can be seen as I mentioned in the petition that was presented to Parliament in 2019. Currently prospective parents must await the birth of their child before beginning the process of adoption and the child of a surrogacy arrangement is born into a situation where his or her or their social or caregiving parents may have no legal responsibilities and rights in relation to the child. And one of the challenges that is before me is that while I can contribute to a child being made at birth there's a few steps that I would have to go through to be the legal father. The Government has asked the Law Commission to conduct a review of surrogacy laws in New Zealand and they are expected to report back on their findings in the first half of 2022. I really look forward to those findings because they will address significant pieces that the member Tāmati Coffey has acknowledged in this first piece of legislation. When I look across the areas that I'm involved in—in petitions in Māori caucus Māori Affairs Committee and as Labour's chair of the Rainbow Caucus Committee—this particular piece of legislation is important in all of my professional and political roles. But more important it is a piece of legislation that will impact my life and my family's life and our future generations. I commend this bill to the House.DEPUTY SPEAKER: I call Tāmati Coffey in reply.