O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Thank you Madam Chair. I actually wasn't going to take a call but I thought I'd have to respond to the member who's taken her seat for a couple of reasons. Firstly I'd encourage her to go and look up the statistics of Iceland for those who get testing for Down syndrome not just those who are born without testing. Secondly she noted that her Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) came about because well it hadn't been raised in the select committee. So I just sort of posit the argument rhetorically if you will that had the committee decided which she chaired by the way to actually hear from people who wanted to come in and speak bar the 120 that they chose then they might have actually got a broader understanding and would've done their job more fully.But also in the aspect of facts and you know I'm a great believer in facts as well—very useful. She talked about the emergency contraceptive pill (ECP). I just need to make it really clear for the committee that actually a person can get the ECP without a prescription. The member who took her seat was very quick to have a go at one of my colleagues about the whole having to go to a doctor; you actually don't. That's what they call a medical fact. It's what they call truth. So I just thought I'd just put that out there.I also might just want to point out this whole—again it's these faux straw arguments which are put up that the doctor in Kaitāia or arguably again it's sort of a moot point around the ECP because you don't need to go and spend $20 $40 or $60 with the doctor; you can just go to the pharmacy. But for the sake of fact and truth for Ruth Dyson she'll find that if you went to the pharmacy in Kaitāia and the pharmacist chose to send you to Invercargill you'd be able to take said pharmacist against the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Act and basically put them in their place because that's right against what they are meant to do as a competent person. In other words the pharmacist who has a conscience problem and sends them to Invercargill from Kaitāia is already doing the wrong thing.But now we step into the whole philosophical problem with Supplementary Order Paper 483 because I believe those who are for this legislation are all about pro-choice. If you accept that then it's funny that there's to be no choice for the doctor or the pharmacist to exercise their conscience right. The counter argument that often comes up: Oh it's power dynamics. The person who's asking for the ECP"—the emergency contraceptive pill in this case—"they might feel awkward or unsure." If that's the case—if the person's not competent enough to go to the next pharmacy to have a discussion—then that probably begins to and should raise questions in members' minds as to just how competent calm and rational that person is in making the decision. But as I said philosophically the key point for the pro-choice is they're pro-choice for ECP they're pro-choice for abortion but boy there's to be no choice for doctors nurses and others around these topics.Finally Simeon Brown: what a great SOP 480; it's all about data. Not the sexiest topic. I could probably try to up the rhetoric and make statistics sound sexy but I won't. The great thing about statistics is to help us understand what's going on. SOP 480 is effectively making changes to Schedule 2. When anyone looks at Schedule 2 the information that the Director-General of Health has to collect is interesting it's useful but just to show why we need SOP 480—and Simeon Brown himself might choose to talk to it—is particularly but not exclusively around sex selection. So as I say we've got the wet bus ticket approach that we've said in the bill: it's not a good idea.At the moment there is no direction in this legislation for data on the sex of a child to be collected. So what difference does that make? Well if in two three five 10 years we're going to mount an argument or otherwise that sex selection is happening without the info being collected we're going to have the pro-abortion side say "Well there's no evidence. There's no evidence of sex selection." Well of course that's what they're going to say because we haven't collected the data. So it's pretty simple. Again the challenge to those who vote for this legislation is perhaps let this through because I'm sure those people can be courageous enough to not be afraid of the data. Find out as Simeon Brown's SOP is doing how many previous live births and how many previous abortions. I would say that the sex of the child should be noted.This is an obligation importantly on the doctor or the health practitioner; this is not the woman involved. We're not putting stress on her but if we are going to accurately report particularly on sex selection then we need to have that information otherwise it makes a mockery of any discussion of what's occurring. So I implore members to vote for SOP 480.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): I did let the member go because he had been seeking the call for a while but actually that's Schedule 1 which is part of Part 1 and we're on Part 2 Schedule 2.Simon O'Connor: I think it's a new—is it a new Schedule 2 though or is that still because it falls in—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): No.Simon O'Connor: Oh then I do apologise. Thank you.CHAIRPERSON (Hon Anne Tolley): It's all right."