Bishop ChrisCHRIS BISHOP (National—Hutt South): Thank you very much Mr Speaker. I'm rising to speak in support of the End of Life Choice Bill. I want to outline why my conscience and the evidence I have heard compels me to support the bill. I believe the law should allow for a dignified death. I believe palliative care is a wonderful thing but it cannot end all pain and suffering. The status quo actively denies terminally ill people the choice of dying at a time of their choosing with their autonomy recognised and dignity affirmed and instead gives them an invidious choice: take their own life—often dangerously—or suffer needlessly. I believe we can and must do better. I had the pleasure of sitting on the Justice Committee for the consideration of the bill. We heard excellent arguments for and against the bill. We also heard some poor arguments and I intend to discuss those in my contribution tonight but first I'd like to make a comment on process. As members have mentioned we undertook an exhausting process of meetings around the country to hear from as many people as possible. We went around the country and I know that that was actually welcomed by the communities we visited. I visited Napier New Plymouth Whanganui—along with my colleague Ginny Andersen from the Hutt—Christchurch and Auckland and a frequent comment in the regional centres we visited was how good it was to see MPs making the effort to get out of Wellington and engage with the communities in frequently the hotels where we held the meetings. I want to pay tribute like the chair of the committee did to the Justice Committee staff who worked on the bill alongside the officials from the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Health. It was a long process. Some have criticised the length of time we took. I think that criticism is misplaced. For a bill as contentious as this and as politically charged as this to not take our time and to report it back without proper consideration would I believe have been a dereliction of our duty. We took our job seriously. I took notes on my laptop during the hearings. Sometimes they were detailed; sometimes they were just a few sentences. I wanted to record every person who was in front of us. I have 150 pages of notes in 11-point font. I have 30000 words recorded. The committee alone had over 38000 submissions—a record. If this bill passes—and I hope that it does—nobody will be able to say that it wasn't considered thoroughly and that there was no mandate for the bill. So let me return to where I started. The Canadian author academic and former MP Michael Ignatieff has said There are few presumptions in human relations more dangerous than the idea that one knows what another human being needs better than they do themselves." and as a liberal the starting point for my consideration of the bill is that individuals make better decisions about their lives than Governments do. End of life choice is fundamentally grounded in human agency and autonomy. It affirms and upholds human dignity. It places primacy on the individual and their choice to end their life.My other starting point is a practical one. I want to make three particular practical points. First the best palliative care cannot provide relief from physical suffering in all cases. During the committee process many doctors and palliative care experts appeared before us and so did many nurses. Some were in favour of the bill some were not—some were vehemently not—but most agreed that there were rare circumstances when palliative care could not ease all suffering when people died horrible painful deaths. Some doctors were at pains to emphasise that they are a minority of cases but a minority is still a collection of individuals for whom we should have compassion. That was the evidence we heard that was led also in Seales v Attorney-General and actually accepted by both side of the argument in the court case of Seales v Attorney-General accepted by palliative care experts: that no matter how good palliative care can and should be there are some people for whom it just cannot end all suffering.The second point is that people take matters into their own hands. Justice Collins in Seales v Attorney-General drew on the evidence provided by Drs Weaver and Munro who conducted research into suicides in New Zealand from 1900 to 2000—a comprehensive study. It suggests that between 3 percent and 8 percent of suicides in the last century were committed by people who were rational competent and suffering a terminal illness. In a substantial number of those cases it was expressly found that the deceased had ended their lives because they still retained the ability to do that but believed they would not be able to do so if they waited any longer. The Supreme Court of Canada has considered this issue extensively and has summarised it in this way: "A person facing this prospect has two options: [they] can take their life prematurely often by violent or dangerous means or [they] can suffer until [they] die from natural causes." The choice is cruel—and I want to repeat that: the choice is a cruel and invidious one.The third point that I want to make in a practical sense is that medically assisted dying happens already. A 2017 study published in the New Zealand Medical Journal found that nearly one in 10 doctors who responded to the question had at some time provided or administered a lethal dose of medicine intentionally to help someone have a hastened death. Nearly 1 percent of doctors had done so several or many times. This happens now; it's just unregulated. Now we have the opportunity to regulate it properly.During the select committee process we heard I believe poor and good arguments against the bill. Let me start with the good arguments. The first is that end of life choice would result in coercion and inappropriate pressure towards vulnerable people. I believe that is a good argument; many submitters were concerned about this. Ultimately though the bill has clear safeguards based on international best practice. Moreover the expert opinion from people who've done research into this is that in Oregon and the Netherlands the predicted abuse and the disproportionate impact on vulnerable populations has not materialised.The second argument that I believe has merit is to do with people with disabilities. There was fierce debate on this in the Justice Committee. We heard from the Disability Rights Commissioner. We heard from the Disabled Persons Assembly. We heard from disability advocates. Some argued that assisted dying diminishes the value of life for disabled people; others said that disabled people should have the same rights as other individuals. Let's be very clear: the eligibility criteria in the bill would not include a person on the basis of disability or mental illness only; all the criteria in the bill must be met—and people often conflate them. The issue was recently considered in Victoria which has become the most recent jurisdiction to legalise end of life choice. The Ministerial Advisory Panel considered the impact that the law change would have on people with disabilities and concluded that disability does not satisfy the eligibility criteria for access to voluntary assisted dying nor does disability exclude a person from eligibility to access voluntary assisted dying. In other words all people should have the same rights and protections under the law.A lot of people came before us and talked about youth suicide. They told us that end of life choice was suicide and asked what sort of message it sends to young people when youth suicide is a national tragedy—and I agree. But I think when most people think about it they quite rightly draw a distinction between a young person with their life ahead of them who suffers from depression ending their life irrationally and a person suffering at the end of their life facing a potentially horrific and painful death bringing forward their death in some cases by only a few days—because that's what it's about it's about terminal illnesses; these people are going to die anyway. It's about the manner in which they die. On the Justice Committee we considered the issue of youth suicide very closely—so did by the way the petition of the Hon Maryan Street in the committee in the last Parliament and they sought advice on whether suicide rates are higher in jurisdictions where assisted dying is legal. The select committee report in the last Parliament said "The Ministry of Health told us there does not appear to be any connection between assisted dying or euthanasia and rates of suicide. Causes of suicide are complex increases in suicide rates are unlikely to be caused by one single factor. The certainty in the area is very difficult."There were quite a few poor arguments made against the bill. Let me quickly run through them to conclude. The first is that it's poorly drafted therefore we should oppose it. The problem with this argument is that it isn't true. The bill is based on international best practice it's been drafted by legal experts it's going to be improved later I hope as well. The second problem is that that is an argument for improving the bill; it's not an argument for voting it down. Often it was made by people fundamentally opposed to end of life choice generally but they were using the words in the bill—it's an argument for improving it not for voting against it.Another argument we heard is that the majority of submitters are opposed to the bill therefore Parliament should vote it down. Well that might be true of the majority of the submitters to the Justice Committee except the polls of New Zealanders show that a clear majority of the New Zealanders support end of life choice. At the end of the day I think the argument goes really nowhere. We should do what my colleague Greg O'Connor said which is do the right thing and act on our conscience.We heard that doctors don't support it but a survey in 2017 found that 37 percent of doctors and two-thirds of nurses were supportive of legalising assisted dying. So some may oppose it; some support it. We heard from doctors who came before us say that they were very comfortable to participate; we heard from some who said they weren't—that's fine. A supplement to the argument was that people would be having to go against their conscience—but the bill contains extensive conscientious objection provisions.We heard that many countries have not legalised end of life choice. That's true but many have—over 120 million people live in a country where it is legal. Just recently the Australian state of Victoria legalised end of life choice.There were many poor arguments made there were many good arguments made against the bill but ultimately this is about individual dignity and alleviating human suffering. I commend the bill."