Kuriger BarbaraBARBARA KURIGER (National—Taranaki - King Country): Thank you Madam Speaker. It's a pleasure to rise and speak on the second reading of the Births Deaths Marriages and Relationships Registration Bill tonight and to support taking this bill back to the select committee. I rise not only as a member of the National Party caucus but also as chair of the Governance and Administration Committee and I would like to echo the words of Mr Tangi Utikere which is that we are a good collegial committee and we will make our best endeavours around doing our best with our inquiry powers on this piece of legislation. What I would also like to do is say that this bill underwent its first reading such a long time ago in December 2017—and it has been expressed tonight that the time has come to bring it to the House—but the select committee at that stage made substantial amendments including an allowance for individuals to change the sex on their birth certificate via an administrative process based on self-identification. The change occurred after the public submissions had closed and following the presentation of a petition with 23 signatories. Now what I would like to say about that is I really want to commend Minister Jan Tinetti for coming in and being very thorough with the legislation which she puts in front of the House and for recognising the fact that those changes had been made. The bill had previously been withdrawn by the then Minister of Internal Affairs Tracey Martin in February 2019 noting the significant changes. Minister Jan Tinetti has come in and recognised that those changes were rather too significant to just plough through with the bill. As we often see with pieces of legislation sometimes pride in having things getting passed gets in the road. This Minister I believe is a good Minister who is intent on making sure that the legislation that we pass ends up in a very fit for purpose state. So the National Party minority view that went with the first session of this through the Governance and Administration Committee back in 2018 included: members are broadly supportive of the bill as introduced into the House in 2017 along with the technical and clarifying amendments recommended by officials. While the National Party members do not wish to stand in the way of reform of self-identification of nominated sex on birth certificates … serious concerns remain with respect to some aspects of the recommendations.". The specific aspects of those were: "proceeding with reform before amendments to Corrections Regulations 2005 are determined; the broad scope of the definition of health professional; no defined criteria and/or tests to be applied to determine that a change to nominated sex for under 18 year olds is in the individual's 'best interests'; no defined test to evidence that the consequences of an application are truly understood for an eligible adult." So those were our concerns and they weren't just the concerns of the National caucus. Obviously Minister Tinetti has become aware of a range of concerns and I welcome her Supplementary Order Paper 59. Obviously there's been some work done here because there's some changes in here that we will definitely be looking at as a committee. I want to give the commitment that the Governance and Administration Committee looks forward to using our inquiry powers and being objective and thorough. We'll be listening to the feedback that comes through to make sure that this bill is fit for purpose so that we can bring it back to the House in a state where we can stand and say that we have listened to the concerns of the public we have taken the submissions in and we have fully considered them and turned the bill around. We will bring it back to the House so that we can be comfortable that the legislation has had a fair hearing from the public because at the end of the day when legislation hasn't had a fair hearing from the public it doesn't always turn out in the way that is expected and again I commend the Minister for taking this into account. So with that I recommend and commend the second reading of this bill. Thank you."