Penk ChrisANNIE OXBOROUGH BIRTH PARENTS REGISTRATION BILLFirst ReadingCHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): I move that the Annie Oxborough Birth Parents Registration Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill will be reported to the House by 19 July 2023 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions) during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area despite Standing Orders 193 195 and 196. This bill is the Annie Oxborough Birth Parents Registration Bill. The law specifically relates to Annie a constituent of my Kaipara ki Mahurangi electorate. Annie has had a number of different names throughout her life. Therein lies the story parallel to such other deeply fundamental questions about personal aspects that we will consider tonight: where she comes from who her family might be and therefore who she is. While the bill is ostensibly specific to Annie only there is potentially wider significance. I'm aware of many other Kiwis—and others around the world for that matter—who have faced the same difficulties and distress. This law change will not directly help their situation but by shining a light on the plight of those adopted away from their birth parents without the informed consent of anyone involved—that is to say the birth parents and the child herself or himself—the passage of this bill will help them indirectly. A broader look at this area of law and policy is needed in my view. Annie's story then: Annie Oxborough was adopted as a child and the identity of her birth parents was removed from her—young and unmarried as they were—just as she was physically removed from them. Annie has subsequently formed a relationship with her birth parents and is seeking now to have their names added to her legal birth certificate to formally register her biological and legal parentage. As it happens her original birth certificate pre-adoption did not include the name of her biological father as this was not provided at the time of her birth. In any case neither Annie's original birth certificate nor her legal post-adoption birth certificate provide a true and accurate account of her lineage. This private bill would rectify the issue and provide to Annie the right to have your biological heritage reflected on her birth certificate. So what you may be asking happened? Well Lisa Clarke was born February 1971 the biological child of Susan Cox née Clarke and Scott Sinel. Lisa was subsequently adopted. In accordance with the Adoption Act 1955 a new birth certificate was issued in December 1979 at the Magistrate's Court in Auckland. In that Lisa Clarke had become Angela Joy Marshall being the legal child of an adoptive mother and adoptive father. The child's name was subsequently changed to Ann Joy Marshall known as Annie by deed poll by her adoptive parents in June 1976. Annie married in 1990 and changed her surname to Oxborough. Both of Annie's adoptive parents are now deceased. As an adult Annie was eventually able to contact and form a relationship with her biological parents. Annie seeks to replace the names of her adoptive parents—now deceased—on her birth certificate with those of her biological parents so that the record of her birth represents a true account of her lineage. To cut a long story short but I note to assure the House that the requirements of a private bill have been met this bill is the only legal mechanism that exists by which Annie can achieve in a certain fashion this outcome. The way that the bill would do this is to instruct the registrar-general to record the names of Annie's biological father and mother on her birth certificate as her two parents in accordance with section 24 of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Act 1995. In this respect it is not dissimilar to the Paige Harris Birth Registration Act 2022 passed relatively recently by this House in the name of Louisa Wall in unanimous fashion. I point out that Annie's biological parents have consented to this step being taken. I wish to acknowledge a number of key figures who have been involved in the formulation of this bill. First actually the journalist Duncan Garner—who interviewed Annie Oxborough on his show and I understand has spoken to her more recently too—who encouraged Annie to take steps to address this situation which had clearly troubled her all her life. He suggested that my colleague and friend Todd Muller might assist Annie. He in turn contacted me as the local member of Parliament for Annie. I acknowledge also the team who assist in Parliament—they assist in providing legal advice drafting and so forth—as well as my staff colleagues Jo Irain in particular but also Cheryl and Emily at the electorate office end. Other parties of this House have very generously indicated in advance of today's first reading that they will support the bill at least today and that's all that I could have wished for because I'm confident that if you have the opportunity colleagues to hear directly from Annie herself the story of her life as it relates to this matter you will be more than happy to continue to support this bill at subsequent stages. I also acknowledge those who have reached out to me already inquiring about the implication of this law for their own situation. As I started by saying tonight for those people this bill will not do everything but at least it may do something. Finally of course I wish to acknowledge Annie herself. I salute her courage from cold-calling strangers in the phone book to ask if they might be her parents—with no better guide to her own origins than the similarity of surname—to telling her story in the present day to strangers including me. Colleagues I thank you for joining me and listening to Annie tell her story. Today it is a story being told through me but on another day I very much hope that she will tell it to you herself. So please now let us help Annie write a chapter of her life story that is happier than the first chapters have been. I commend this bill to the House.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Poto Williams): The question is that the motion be agreed to.