Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): Thank you Madam Chair and thank you to the members who have risen to their feet so far and made a contribution to the debate in committee tonight. We had Melissa Lee who said that she was worried an administrative error could lead to death and would only be punished by a $10000 fine or three-month prison term. As I explained in my opening contribution if somebody dies at your hand and you were negligent or didn't follow the provisions in this bill of good faith then you fall on the mercy of the Crimes Act where the penalties are much much greater. The administrative penalties are there for scenarios where someone fails to follow the Act but a person doesn't die. Melissa Lee then said something about people participating under the Act needing to be able to talk to me personally. That was novel. I would say to Melissa Lee that I can almost guarantee that every person involved in the drafting and passing of the Crimes Act 1961 is no longer around to be talked to. Nevertheless the Crimes Act continues to function very well. Chris Penk suggested under Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 381 that we should have the option of a person to access a medical practitioner who can somehow declare or be clear that they do not participate in end of life choice—that they are a conscientious objector. There's nothing to stop a doctor from saying that they're such a person but to make it a legal right I think would be deeply troubling because it would amount to Parliament saying to the community that we can't trust doctors to treat each different patient that comes before them without fear or favour. I don't think that's a very good signal for Parliament to be sending to the people out there particularly the medical profession. Simon O'Connor asked Well what happens in relation to the cause of death being recorded as being the thing that qualified the person to have assisted death or to be a person eligible for assisted dying under this legislation?" There were several people actually who raised the fact that under the requirements of this legislation the death certificate says that the person died of the illness that qualified them to be eligible for assisted dying also the fact that they died from assisted dying. So anybody reading that certificate I think can figure out that this was done under the law. The person had a given condition which qualified them for the End of Life Choice Bill and also that they died from the End of Life Choice Bill. There's no subterfuge. It's very easy for anybody to read and understand what that's saying. Simon O'Connor also raised the possibility that doctors would not be able to say accurately when the onset of a person's terminal illness was and therefore could be subject to legal challenge. Well clearly we rely on the medical expertise of doctors to act in good faith. Currently under the law if doctors could be sued for getting things like that wrong currently there'd be a lot of doctors in court. Agnes Loheni said that under SOP 372 she wanted clause 24A to be amended so that there didn't need to be any particular words when expressing a gesture was in effect what she was saying. She wanted clause 24A(3) to say that a gesture could be used. Well clause 24A(2) the clause right before it says that a gesture can be used. Clause 24A(3) just clarifies that if you do use words you don't need any particular words. It would be a nonsense for the legislation to say that a gesture needn't have any particular words behind it. I used to think this Parliament would be better with more engineers in it but I'm becoming less and less certain. Paulo Garcia—where is he? Mate slow down. I couldn't keep up with what he was saying. Chris Penk: I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I believe that the member in the chair has referred to the absence of another member of the committee. Whether or not deliberately it's a breach of the Standing Orders. CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I think that's a bit unfair. I think he was looking for him. He didn't actually say he was absent but I will remind him to be careful. DAVID SEYMOUR: Thank you Madam Chair. If I couldn't have seen him I certainly wouldn't have remarked upon that. I did honestly seek him because I wanted to address him. I try to address as many members as possible. Simeon Brown wanted to remove the criminal immunity provisions from this bill. In my view that amendment is actually out of order because the Chairperson gave very clear instructions to the committee that there would be a form of assisted dying and an assisted dying law is nothing if not a set of provisions under which somebody can be immune from the criminal law that would normally apply to aiding in somebody's death. So it's not something that's at all compatible with the rest of the bill. Then he also asked "Why do we have the term 'good faith'? What does that mean?" "Good faith" means that the person wasn't harbouring any other motivations that they did not reveal. Alfred Ngaro asked about cultural competency. I think that's a very serious concern. It is critical that medical professionals—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I'm sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to leave the Chair. Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. DAVID SEYMOUR: I was addressing some of the concerns that members had raised in earlier speeches before the dinner break and I'd addressed what had been said by Melissa Lee Chris Penk Simon O'Connor Agnes Loheni Paulo Garcia and Simeon Brown. I then come to what was said by Alfred Ngaro. Alfred Ngaro asked that an amendment be supported asking medical practitioners playing a role under the Act to respect the cultural values of their patients. I'd point Mr Ngaro to the Health and Disability Commissioner's code of rights that all patients have access to. Of course we expect all medical professionals in New Zealand to be respectful of who their patients are. It would be quite extraordinary if that wasn't the case and I think it would be a terrible signal for Parliament to send that in specific instances they're required to carry out those kinds of duties because the implication might be that they weren't expected to carry out duties of cultural competency in other settings. I think that's a terrible signal to be sending. He also spoke to Kanwaljit Singh Bakshi's Supplementary Order Paper 373. That amendment asked why the bill doesn't explicitly rule out the use of a power of attorney given that there is a clause—clause 24B—that says "Welfare guardians have no power to make decisions or … actions under this Act". The reason is that welfare guardians are people who act for somebody who has never had the competency to make a particular decision. We felt we needed to clarify that. On the other hand when it comes to powers of attorney those are people who express previously expressed views by a person who can no longer express them. If we look at clause 24A(2) it's already quite clear that "any provision expressing such a wish is included by the person in an advance written or oral directive will contract or other document (not being a rescind document)" is an invalid provision. So that has already been addressed. Finally we come to Simon O'Connor who advocated for SOP 378. He noted that the penalties set out in clause 27 I think it is are offences for a medical practitioner a nurse practitioner or a psychiatrist and he asked why there wouldn't be offences identified for other people. I want to just go into this in a little bit of detail because the way that this bill works is it provides immunity to the sanctions under the Crimes Act if a person carries out the duties required under this Act. If you're not carrying out a duty under this Act then you can't be eligible for the immunity from the Crimes Act and you're subject to all of the sanctions in the Crimes Act for anything that you may do. So the reason why pharmacists for instance are not included in clause 27 is simply that there is not a requirement on them to do any specific thing under this Act QED there is no way that they could gain the immunity provision anyway. So it would be rather odd for them to be in any way required not to carry out an offence. I'd comment to Mr O'Connor—he said several times that he felt the drafting of the legislation was sloppy. Well I'd like to reassure members of the committee that this bill initially drafted by me has been overseen through a select committee. It's had advice from the justice department thanks to the Minister of Justice and had oversight from the Parliamentary Counsel Office. They are very impressive legal drafters; I would say the best in the country. It's also had advice pro bono from Russell McVeagh one of New Zealand's oldest and most reputable law firms who've given a huge amount of their time for free. So when you put all that together the quality of drafting and the advice that's gone into it is very high and I'd caution members against saying it's sloppy particularly when they reveal that they fundamentally don't understand the bill in the amendments that they put forth. So that's the contribution I have in the time that I've got in this particular slot but I welcome any other contributions people may make assuming of course that they are new material and things that I haven't already addressed and are relevant to provisions in this bill particularly Part 4. Thank you Mr Chair."