Wood MichaelMICHAEL WOOD (Labour—Mt Roskill): Thank you Mr Speaker. I stand to speak in favour of honest law and honest debate. At the outset of this contribution I wish to make clear that the debate on this piece of legislation is not a debate about whether we have abortion in New Zealand or not. And I make this point because much of the public debate around this piece of legislation has misconstructed that point and this has been echoed by many of the contributions in this Chamber by those who are opposed to this legislation.I believe that many of the contributions opposed to this bill come from people of good conscience who genuinely oppose on philosophical or moral or religious grounds the practice of abortion. I respect that belief and I respect the right of those members to express that view but it is not correct. And I believe at times it is mischievous to pretend that the debate that is going on in this House about this legislation is about the fundamental question of whether abortion occurs in New Zealand or not. That issue can be answered very simply by answering this question: what happens if this legislation does not proceed in the House today? We will revert to the existing legislation under which approximately 13500 abortions occur each year.This debate is about in my view whether we have an honest piece of law that governs abortion in New Zealand or the existing 1970s compromised hotchpotch of a law which puts abortion in the Crimes Act but then effectively sets up a convoluted workaround for women to access that procedure and facilitates around about 13000 people per year to do so.In my view our role as lawmakers in this House is to make good law and to make honest law and I challenge any member who is voting against this piece of legislation to say that the existing piece of legislation that they defend is good law or is honest law. This point has been made on both sides of the debate for many years. The Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child and the Abortion Law Reform Association of New Zealand and Right to Life have all gone through the courts to say that the current legislation is not fit for purpose and that is why we are addressing this issue in the House today.My plea is for honest debate on this issue. If we have honest debate on this issue then I would challenge those members who genuinely hold the view that abortion should not be occurring to deal with the really tough issues which come with that view. Should young women who have been raped by family members have access to abortion or not? Should women who have children in utero with serious congenital conditions that will die awful deaths after short lives have access to abortion or not? It is my view that they should and this legislation honestly allows for that. If we have an honest and constructive debate around this issue we might also search for some common ground. I have wrestled with this issue myself on the basis of the principles and the faith that I hold to as well. I believe that probably most people in this House and most people in this debate would wish to see fewer unwanted pregnancies in New Zealand and would wish to see fewer abortions in New Zealand. I believe that if we had an honest debate we could actually begin to seriously tackle that issue. The international evidence is actually very clear—that the level of restriction in the law around access to abortion has little impact on the number of abortions that occur. The part of the world with the highest rate of abortions is Latin America which until recently has had the most restrictive controls around abortion. Canada which has no controls whatsoever has a lower rate of abortion than New Zealand. The evidence is also very clear that the factors which lead to a lower rate of unwanted pregnancies and abortion are things like access to high-quality comprehensive sex education and high-quality accessible and affordable contraception—particularly long-term contraception. That is why our abortion rate in New Zealand has been declining for a number of years. So that is my final plea in this debate that the remainder of the debate in the House today and that in the time we go forward we don't turn this issue into a culture war for political advantage—I do not want to see us go down the track that other countries have in that regard—but that we have an honest debate we try and find some common ground and we respect women and their capacity to make choices within an honest legal framework. It is on those grounds that I have approached this debate. In the committee stage of this bill I haven't just voted with the herd; I have voted against safe zones because I believe that while there is a real problem there they were not the right solution. I have voted for stronger protections around conscientious objection because I do believe that that is important in our system. But I have and I will continue to vote for honest law and that is why I support this legislation and commend it to other members.