Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Madam Chair. I'm going to be in the unusual situation of both agreeing with the Minister for Sport and Recreation partly and agreeing with Nicole McKee partly. Hon Kieran McAnulty: No pick a side. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Well so there's no side to pick—I think that's the point that the Minister was trying to make. And to the degree that the amendments made by the Social Services and Community Committee to clause 5 is a belt and braces one effectively what Karen Chhour's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 410 seeks to do is to make it clear that the exceptions in section 41 are included in the bill. But there's no need to because paragraph (c) of the definition of threat to integrity" in clause 5 makes it very clear: discrimination that is unlawful under Part 2 of the Human Rights Act—discrimination on the basis of sexual disability according to section 41 is not unlawful and therefore there is no need for the SOP. Now I am going to give the Minister a little bit of a rebuke in my view on the question of libertarianism and the heavy hand of the State because actually one of the reasons why there was so much concern was because of an interpretation on Sport New Zealand's guidelines on the participation of transgender athletes in sport where the three legs to that are very important: participation safety and fairness. But those guidelines described participation as paramount and that has got a lot of people worried that that means that the fairness and safety aspects of participation would be subordinate. I think those fears are legitimate and as I said in the second reading—quoting my question to InsideOUT in the select committee—is it possible to express those concerns without being labelled transphobic? We didn't get an answer. It's homework for us all I think to be able to have a moderate discussion on both sides of this argument without resorting to epithets. By the way I should qualify it: I don't think that that was what the Minister was doing at all and I wouldn't want to leave the impression that that was the case. I want to finish by coming back to the earlier response that the Minister made in respect of the question of voluntary compliance with the code by pointing out—and I've got to find it in my scribbled notes here. It referred to clause—was it 31? Hon Grant Robertson: Clause 32. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Clause 32 sorry—clauses 31 and 32 basically. So clause 31 says that the commission may investigate anyone who's bound by a code but then—and I don't think I picked this up in the select committee process—at clause 32 the commission may also "investigate anything to which neither section 31 nor the anti-doping rules apply" if effectively it's a threat to integrity and—Hon Grant Robertson: It's the public interest bit Michael—yes. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —it's in the public interest. So does that mean therefore—and I'd ask the Minister just to clarify if I've him right—even though a sport may not be subject to the code or may not have signed up to a code the commission may still nevertheless investigate a breach of it if it's in the public interest to do so? Because that's actually quite a big—I wasn't aware of that I don't think. But if that's the case that's going to be quite difficult for sports organisations not to sign up to the code. It's kind of a Hobson's choice at that point. Hon GRANT ROBERTSON (Minister for Sport and Recreation): I think I know where the member Michael Woodhouse is coming from but I don't think it's the choice that he thinks it is. The codes are the codes and they will govern the way in which sports operate and the standards that are expected of them the participants will know where they're going—you know it's something that everybody will buy into. What clause 32 does is it creates something that's of a much higher nature—I mean the concept of the public interest takes you to a different place than the day-to-day complaints that might come through as a result of a code breach or an anti-doping rule breach. I just would invite the member to look down to clause 32(2) and then go through the list of things that the commission has to take into account as to whether or not there is the particular place and role for this kind of investigation. I'd just reiterate what I said to him in my first intervention on this: I think this sits between the things that would be normally covered by the code—the things that are automatically referred to the police because they represent activity that is in breach of the law—and now we're in a space where there is a threat to integrity that is of sufficient seriousness for it to be regarded as being in the public interest for the commission to pursue it. So I believe it fits. It actually does exactly the thing the member was asking about and I think it fits well into the framework."