Ghahraman GolrizGOLRIZ GHAHRAMAN (Green): Thank you Madam Speaker. I would like to begin by congratulating the member David Seymour for having this odd and interesting in some ways bill pulled from the ballot. I also commend him for the approach that he has outlined by way of contacting members from each party—though I didn't in fact have that communication as the justice spokesperson for the Green Party but maybe next time!I also want to begin by commending the aspect of this bill which as a former human rights lawyer I do find commendable and interesting which is to say that we should have as lawmakers guidance from our higher courts when we do legislate or when previous Parliaments and Governments have legislated in a way that sits inconsistently with our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act. That is something that our Privileges Committee is considering at the moment in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act itself and it is an exciting time to have that full package of rights in Aotearoa New Zealand recognised as significant enough to have input from our higher courts.What we as Greens don't agree with in terms of this particular bill and every iteration of it that has come to Parliament before now is the subjugation of certain rights below individual property rights which this bill seeks to elevate. That is not in the public interest. We point in particular to the fact—and I would highlight again as someone who values the international rules-based order and the package of rights that we've all ascribed to in this country—that human rights are indivisible. So we have civil political cultural economic all together. That means that you can't say that an individual's property rights can sit above something like putting health regulations and health warnings on tobacco which this bill may curtail. You can't say that our environmental rights are rights to a healthy environment by setting the carbon price for example should be weighed up against an individual person's economic rights. We wouldn't want Governments and Parliaments to engage in a weighing-up process that places special emphasis on individual economic rights a neo-liberal system that has failed again and again that has caused havoc across the world above the collective rights of us all that we know ultimately benefit us as individuals.This bill is not commendable but the principle of having a regulation and a court intervention into whether or not lawmaking is consistent with rights is. But let's take all of our rights the full package of rights—the full package of rights that again and again we've all agreed need to be taken together as being indivisible as being interdependent as sitting together and look at the way that we can have court rulings that point us as lawmakers in the right direction in respect of them all. That is what the Privileges Committee is doing right now. That is what makes me happy. This bill—and others have said and this is getting down to the detail of it now—doesn't do that. So in principle we oppose it.But also in terms of the mechanism it sits uncomfortably with what others have pointed out is now the regulatory impact statement. It seeks to take very very specific rights and ways of lawmaking and put them next to what are quite general principles. One of the things that is puzzling to me is the requirement to produce benefits that outweigh the costs of legislation to the public or persons. That seems vague. That seems like what lawmakers do any way. Every Government every Parliament would purport to say that we are balancing the interests of individuals in the public when we legislate. So what is this adding? What is it adding on top of the regulatory impact statements on top of the Bill of Rights Act section 7 declarations of consistency?It is a bad piece of lawmaking. It is based on principles that don't uphold the public good. So I don't commend it to the House.