Smith NickHon Dr NICK SMITH (National—Nelson): The key portion of Part 3 deals with the issue of referendum advertising and I'm very interested in the Minister's view about who the referee will be in respect of that advertising. Now we have the Advertising Standards Authority that under this bill will be responsible for any complaints that arise from advertising. What is extraordinary and what causes real concern for members of the Opposition is that only two weeks ago the Minister in the chair Andrew Little described the Advertising Standards Authority as both—and I quote—incompetent" and also he said that he has no confidence in them. And he nods his head. Now essentially it came down to the fact that he had had a dispute that he took to the Advertising Standards Authority involving myself and the Advertising Standards Authority decided on four issues out of four that I was correct and that he was wrong. Now if the Minister in the chair takes that view of freedom of speech around that issue why should we have any confidence that unless people's advertisements and statements say what he thinks is right around cannabis—I'll give an example. I will argue very strongly that the medical evidence of cannabis shows that it increases the incidence of mental health problems and lower educational achievement for young people. Now there are people that dispute that and I am happy to have that argument. What I do not want to have is the Government through this part limiting people's freedom of expression as we have that referendum or equally so on the issue of euthanasia. There are very strongly well-informed people who say that if you legalise euthanasia you are indeed changing the culture around suicide and you're going to make the problem of New Zealand addressing suicide more difficult. Now whether you agree or disagree with those views I hold a very strong opinion around the right of freedom of expression and equally the right of people to be able to advertise and express those views. So I'm very interested particularly with the number of the public comments and measures that have been taken by the Government to constrain freedom of speech as to what is their intent in respect of the section around freedom of speech issues in respect of these referendum. We actually do not know all the topics that there will be referendum on and that is because the Government is asking this Parliament to give this Government a blank cheque to have as many referendum as they want. If they want to have 20 referendum at the next election they could lawfully do so at the next election and the key question is whatever those topics might be—whether it be euthanasia or whether it be abortion or whether it be the issue of recreational cannabis—how strongly does the Minister in the chair believe in freedom of speech? We know that he will condemn as a Minister of Justice an independent authority like the Advertising Standards Authority simply because it doesn't agree with him and that causes great unease—almost a sort of Orwellian view—of what the Minister's commitment is to areas of free speech. The Minister's view is that people who agree with the Minister should be able to have free speech but people like myself that disagree with the Minister often "Well we'll try and shut him down remove his capacity to be able to advertise or his express his views." So I do ask the Minister in the chair given that he has confirmed this evening that he has no confidence in the Advertising Standards Authority—he nodded his head and says he thinks that they are incompetent—why in Part 3 of this bill is he relying on them as the arbitrator of the appropriateness of advertising? I frankly think that it is incredibly dangerous.I've just come from an interesting visit in Singapore where actually it's the Ministers that get to decide. When we've got the Ministry of Justice under the Minister's instruction that's going to decide what might be in the information campaign this material matters greatly. I'd ask the Minister to comment on the role of the Advertising Standards Authority around those provisions that relate to referendum advertising. I would really like him to express and to assert as the Minister of Justice the freedom of speech values that are so important in any sort of debate such as those before the referendum."