Ardern JacindaRt Hon JACINDA ARDERN (Prime Minister): I am reflecting now as we enter into this debate on how long a journey it will have felt for many in this House and for many outside of this House to reach this day. In fact I've been in this Parliament for 10 years and even I have memory as a brand-new MP of sitting in a room with other female members of Parliament from the Labour Party discussing whether or not we thought the time was finally right for this debate. I reflect on how many other women from all over this Parliament will at various times have questioned whether or not the time was finally right. Well to those women who may not be in this House this day to see this debate finally arrive or indeed to those advocates who have been outside of this House studiously working and seeking support for there just to be the chance to have this vote I want to commit this debate today to your work and your advocacy.Now there are many here who it would be only right to name and acknowledge but today you'll forgive me for wanting to at least mention the name Steve Chadwick because in the time that I've been in this Parliament she was one of the staunchest and most consistent of advocates. Steve I want to acknowledge you. I also want to acknowledge the Minister sitting to my left on this occasion Andrew Little. During the election campaign I was asked the simple question on the hustings as to whether or not I believed there needed to be abortion law reform. At that point for me it was a simple intuitive reaction: yes. Abortion should not be a crime in this country. Did I think for a moment about the person who would then be given the task of drafting the legislation negotiating the text and bringing it before this Parliament? I did not. But that person and that role has fallen upon the shoulders of Andrew Little and he has done an exceptional job. Andrew I want to acknowledge you not only for the job you've done to bring this bill to where it is today but for the job that I know you will continue to do because you are at your heart of course someone who believes strongly in the rights of every individual but the rights of women in particular. You've been an excellent advocate and I thank you for that.Why has it taken us so long though to be in this Chamber this day? Well this is an issue that people feel deeply about they feel strongly about. Many hold personal views; many have personal experiences. I am one who takes a very simple perspective: that in spite of those personal views who am I who is this House to determine anyone else's reproductive rights? So in my view you can have a deeply held personal view—and in fact it can be deeply entrenched and religious; I myself grew up in a religious household—and I will defend always your right to hold that view but I will draw a line when holding that view then impedes on the rights of others. Currently it does impede on the rights of others. It is not a legal act for women to tell the truth when they seek an abortion in New Zealand. I'll say that again: women feel like they have to lie to legally access an abortion in New Zealand. I don't think we should be dismissive of that. If they do tell the truth then technically under our law they are a criminal and I don't believe that that is right. I fundamentally disagree with that.But why take my word for it? Enough of us have heard enough stories and indeed some of the letters that I've received since this debate has started I have found completely compelling including the woman who wrote this to me: Everyone in the process was lovely but the process was not lovely. I had to tell my story over and over. All I wanted was for it to be over but I had to go through multiple appointments rounds of judgment and justifications from strangers. It made a hard time considerably harder. I had no doubts no second thoughts but plenty of guilt and a lot of shame." Of course Margaret Sparrow put it best when she said after her own abortion in 1956 "I was a criminal. I'd committed a crime and if I'd been charged I would've faced up to seven years in jail." The time is right for this debate. The time is right for us to finally put women's dignity and their rights at the centre of this discussion and I ask as we do so that we do so with dignity.I finish with again the words of someone who wrote to me only recently: "It's time to change New Zealand's outdated abortion laws. Please show us your respect for women. Show us you recognise we're capable of deciding what's right for us. Give us our dignity back.""