Huo Raymond; Mallard TrevorRAYMOND HUO (Labour): Thank you Mr Speaker. I wish to take a call in my capacity as the chair of the Justice Committee to reflect among other things on the nature and the shape of the committee's report. First of all I want to thank all the submitters who have taken the time to be part of this very important legislative process. The Justice Committee received and considered 39159 submissions and we heard oral evidence from as many individuals and organisations as possible at 42 public hearings in 14 cities and regional centres across the country. It took lots of time and energy for us to organise such meetings—a big thankyou to both the Clerk of the House and the clerk of the committee and their respective teams for making the admin side of the Justice Committee possible. We received advice from both the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice as well as from the Parliamentary Counsel Office. I thank our officials and advisers and all the relevant parties. I want to pay tribute to the member who sponsored this bill Mr David Seymour and also the Hon Maryan Street who is in the debating chamber. She organised the petition under her name which was considered by the Health Committee of the last Parliament. The same applies to the Hon Maggie Barry who fought tirelessly and fiercely against this bill. I thank her for her passion conviction and her true belief in palliative care. I thank the many others who have been directly or otherwise involved in this very important legislative process on this bill which is one of the most socially and legally challenging bills that this select committee and indeed this Parliament have ever considered. The Justice Committee's report contains a summary of the 39159 submissions as well as a number of recommended amendments to improve the workability of this bill. This is a member's bill that involves conscience issues. The committee was unable to agree that the bill be passed. This was a conscious decision in keeping with the established practice of select committees dealing with such bills. By convention select committees focus on improving the technical workability of these bills without forming a view on whether they should be passed. This reflects the principle that it is up to all members of the Parliament individually to judge based on their conscience and assisted by the select committee's report to decide whether or not the bill should proceed. Consistent with that approach the committee did not recommend amendments of a substantive nature such as changes to who would be eligible for assisted dying. The definition of that term itself may be of a substantive nature and we have since learnt that by calling it assisted dying" it may be misleading to some and may be not misleading to others. Substantive policy issues raised by submitters are listed in Appendix C of the Justice Committee's report. The committee however unanimously recommended technical amendments to make the bill more workable regardless. The report follows over 15 months of work on the bill. This was the No. 16 bill when we reported the bill back to the House. The Justice Committee has so far considered 22 bills and we have sent 19 bills to the House. In 2018 alone we had 340 hours—SPEAKER: Order! The member's time has expired."