Ball DarrochDARROCH BALL (NZ First): Thank you Madam Assistant Speaker. New Zealand First will not be supporting this bill. It's for a number of reasons and most of them are actually mentioned within the general policy statement of the bill. I'll go through them in a second.I'm slightly confused. There was something that Mark Mitchell said about whether this bill was to do with just members of Parliament or to do with citizenship or justices of the peace. I heard the call from the Labour Party members of Parliament that it was actually only just for MPs and taking the oath in this House and then the second person who spoke William Sio stood up and said there were six members from this last election this past swearing in that used an alternative language. That means that we're going to be debating in this House a piece of legislation that affects six people out of 4.6 million people in this country—just six for this term. It's going to take up all of our time and all of the costs just for this House and just for MPs—just for MPs. Now if the member who's authoring this bill actually believes what she is saying in her explanatory note which is that New Zealand has become a much more multicultural society. As a diverse and tolerant society we should allow [this to happen]" then what I encourage her to do is to have a look at the languages with which she wants to make the oath or the allegiance and put bills through to make them official languages of this country because that's what this House does. It uses the official languages of this country whether it be English Te Reo Māori or sign language and that's what we do our oaths in. That's what we do our oaths in. Not only that but there are some quite concerning things that are stated in the general policy statement. First of all it says that this is "A good starting point for this change" in regards to allowing a "diverse and tolerant society" and that we should allow this to happen. This is a good starting point? Well what pathway are we starting down and what's the end point which the member wishes to get to? What is the end point which the member wants to get to? If we're talking about being a diverse and tolerant society a multicultural society why are we stopping at just the oaths for starters in this House? Why not make it for oaths outside of this House as well? Why not make the language spoken in this House not just with the oaths but just speaking during the debates and speeches—why don't we include all the different types of languages that are spoken in this country? Not only that but in this bill it says "any other language"—any other language. There are over 7000 languages that are being used in this world today—7000. Are we going to include those in this House? Are we going to include those with the oaths with the speeches with the debates? It needs to be taken into context what this bill is being asked to do and why because every single Labour Party member that stood up in favour of this bill has actually stated that what they wanted to achieve in the bill has already been achieved. What they wanted to do was to take the oath or affirmation in their mother tongue and then they said that they did it. William Sio said that there were six members of Parliament that did it at this last election. They already did it. There is absolutely no need for this to happen—absolutely no need. In Parliamentary Practice in New Zealand it states that "On occasion the House has given leave for a member immediately upon being sworn in to repeat the oath or affirmation in another language." So it already achieves what it sets out to achieve. The only thing of any substance that is any different to what is written in here that was said in the opening speech was that that member was offended when they had to ask to take that affirmation or the oath in their language—that that member was offended. That's the reason for this bill. It's because they were offended that they had to ask permission from this House to take it into another language even though they could already—even though they could already. Like I said if that was the case if it was true that we are an open diverse tolerant society then what I suggest to the member is that they put some legislation in to change the official languages of this country if they want to speak it in this House."