Wall LouisaLOUISA WALL (Labour—Manurewa): Tēnā koe Mr Chair. Tēnā koutou katoa. Can I also say Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Daoibh" which means Happy Saint Patrick's Day everybody. It's appropriate in a way that I begin there because I actually want to speak to Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) 292 in the name of Darroch Ball. That SOP essentially wants if this bill is successful within the context of this Parliament to force a referendum.The reason that I say it's appropriate that I'm dressed in green and that we're talking about the Irish is because the fundamental question I think we all have to ask each other is: do we need a referendum to pass this bill? The answer quite clearly is no. The reason Ireland had to go down the referendum pathway was because they had to repeal the eighth amendment which was part of their constitution. That was the only way that they could get abortion law reform in Ireland. We are not in that situation; so do we need a referendum to approve of this bill? The answer is no.But what I did want to highlight was that what they repealed in fact in Ireland was that the life of the unborn fetus had the same value as that of its mother. That was in the context of a woman who was pregnant who needed an abortion and she had to endure several days in hospital. They actually didn't help her. The fetus was unviable but its heart was still beating and in fact this particular woman died. That's what created the opportunity for abortion law reform in Ireland.So I think fundamentally we have to think about that because the pros and cons of having a referendum actually provides what the academics call an opportunity for false actors. These false actors then perpetrate misinformation and disinformation and they misrepresent these positions to the general public. It is in fact like the issue that I've received emails about in terms of aborting Down syndrome children up until the 40th week and people saying for example that we're going to be aborting babies that are ready to be born. That is not true.The reality of the testing regime in New Zealand—and I've looked at the 2016 monitoring report on antenatal screening which includes trisomy-21 and other conditions. Eighty-one percent of people who get pregnant in New Zealand actually choose to have these screenings. We provide them as the State from the 14th week and then the 20th week which provides parents with information about whether or not there is something wrong with their child. Do they have these abnormalities? So we provide this tool so that parents can make an informed decision.I use it as an example because we've all received this propaganda saying that we're going to abort children with Down syndrome. But the reality is that 50 to 80 children with Down syndrome are born every year—50 to 80. So we are not aborting all children with Down syndrome. In fact if you go online to the Health Navigator we have the New Zealand Down Syndrome Association we have the Health and Disability Commissioner and we have IHC New Zealand who are there to support and provide information to parents who in spite of the screen want to continue to have their child and they will support and love their children—as I mentioned last week with Barry and Colleen Brown and their 40-year-son Travers. So the disinformation out there that all children with Down syndrome are going to be aborted is incorrect—is absolutely incorrect. At the end of the day it's the choice of the parents. I would have thought as a fundamental principle this Parliament would reinforce that.The other thing it does is it creates divisions. That's what referendums do: they create divisions create divisions between the people who are for it—well I certainly am as a woman—a lot of women's groups the National Council of Women and those who believe in bodily autonomy as a human rights condition: that it's my body it's my choice. Who are we up against in this debate? You see a lot of them have been the churches and the church leaders and we've all started to receive correspondence from our churches and church leaders—[Time expired]"