van de Molen TimTIM VAN DE MOLEN (National—Waikato): Thank you Madam Chair. It's a pleasure to take a call in what has been a largely respectful debate throughout the numerous stages of this. I do just want to highlight that because of the particularly serious nature of this proposed legislation people have very strong opinions one way or the other and I appreciate that there has been a range of views expressed and canvassed here. Now I have supported this bill to date and fundamentally I believe that there is a place for this legislation. I've also from the start expressed my concerns around the risks of coercion and how in fact you can have confidence around a diagnosis of a terminal illness. So those are the couple of aspects that I just want to touch on with this contribution. I'd like to start with the debate under clause 8 around the involvement or not of family members in this decision-making process noting Dr Smith's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) suggesting that direct family members should be consulted as a requirement as opposed to simply encouraging the applicant as it were to consult with them. I also note Louisa Wall's comments in relation to that around the risk of elder abuse or coercion. Now my personal perspective on this is that there is a risk that by requiring someone to consult with family those family members are more likely to be ones who may if there is any elder abuse be the perpetrators of that. Indeed immediate family members are more likely to be benefactors of the outcome of an inheritance for example which could even independently or subconsciously rather influence their decision or input into that debate. So that's a very serious concern. On the other hand I absolutely agree that family is the most important social construct in our society and the thought that someone would not consult with their family on this is very concerning for me as well. This one really highlights to me the complexity of what we're trying to do here and neither of those scenarios are particularly palatable to me because family personally is hugely important and yet the risk of coercion always is there as well. So it highlights that complexity of how we actually navigate a potential solution in this legislation—can that actually be achieved or not?The other aspect that I want to touch on is around the practitioners the medical practitioners. Look I have absolute confidence that medical practitioners involved in this would be very aware of the implications and the seriousness of what they are doing and would typically err on the side of caution. If there was any uncertainty or any doubt in their mind I would expect through their professionalism and their roles that they would make an appropriate decision. So whilst I note some of the concern I feel that we need to have trust and confidence in our medical practitioners that they can indeed make appropriate decisions. Having said that my concern around clause 10(2)(c) is that because of the seriousness of this legislation we may well see scenarios where the attending medical practitioner might suggest Yes this person is eligible but actually I don't want to be the one making that decision. I don't want to take that risk on board myself. I'll kick it up the chain to the psychiatrist." therefore shifting that responsibility. Again the second—the independent medical practitioner could indeed do the same under clause 11(3)(c)(iii). So the risk there then is that the decision for eligibility or not is shifted from two people to a single person being as I say a psychiatrist. That was the reason why I actually supported the SOP put forward by Agnes Loheni in Part 1 requiring a minimum of five years' experience for that psychiatrist because to me that puts a significant amount of pressure potentially on that one person to make a decision when that indeed may not have been the intent or is not the intent by having two people make the decision. So these are some of the complexities. Look I haven't landed on a firm position of support or not on this and those are some of the reasons for it. My overlying concern is how we navigate clear rules with these issues that have been expressed eloquently on both sides of the committee as this debate continues and I do look forward to hearing a few more contributions."