Wilkinson Kate: Sullivan Birth Registration Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWilkinson Kate: Sullivan Birth Registration Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 09 April 2014. Volume:697;Page:17092. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon KATE WILKINSON (National—Waimakariri):It is my real pleasure to stand and take a call albeit a split one on this third reading of the Sullivan Birth Registration Bill. Can I also acknowledge Rowen and Diane in the gallery and just commend you for your persistence your determination your bravery and your courage to have what is a very personal situation aired in the public gallery of the Parliament of New Zealand and to have a bill in your own names go through Hansardand go through the process because this is what is really important to your lives and I really commend you for that. I also obviously want to congratulate Louisa Wall with some envy on having her second member’s bill successfully shepherded through the House. It is not just the fact that the bill is in the name of the honourable member Louisa Wall; it is the way that she does shepherd these bills through the House and gets consensus and explains them in a non-partisan pragmatic sensible way because this is the right and fair thing to do.I must admit though when I first saw this bill I thought no it cannot be right. We cannot possibly need a separate discrete piece of legislation for just one New Zealand family. It cannot be right. Yet the experts the advisers said there was no other way. I was a simplistic lawyer in my old days before I was a politician and we have to think there must be another way. Surely surely the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages would have had power to change what seems so obvious—something that needed to be changed. Why did the registrar-general not have that power? But our experts our advisers—and we have to trust them—said there was no other way and that has brought us to where we are today.Then my second concern was whether it would set a precedent because there will be other families out there who perhaps are not happy with their birth records birth certificates or registrations; whether it would open the floodgate for a whole lot of other New Zealand families to also try to use the parliamentary process to right some wrongs; and whether it would result in a logjam if you like of bills and legislation through the House when there are other really important economic issues that have to be shepherded through. But again we were persuaded and convinced that it will not set a precedent so it is unique it is discrete and actually it is the best use of parliamentary time because we are all here to make a difference. I think that for most politicians that is our reason for being—we want to make a difference to New Zealand we want to make a difference in our country and we want to make a difference to New Zealanders’ lives. There is no doubt in my mind that this bill makes a huge difference to the lives of Rowen and Diane so it is a win-win-win really and I am delighted that I have the opportunity to speak at this third reading of the bill.I am also appreciative of the commencement date. We all want this bill to go through quickly and to get it righted and remedied as soon as possible. The commencement date is of course the day after the Royal assent which I think is quite timely when we have the royals visiting right at this moment. We are all reminded because they are a wonderful young couple Prince William and Princess Catherine and they have the delightful young George. I just think it is also quite timely that they are here at a time when the commencement date for this bill will be the day after that Royal assent.This is really a very straightforward bill. It simply requires the Registrar-General of Births Deaths and Marriages to record the details of Rowen’s mum on her birth certificate. I say to the registrar-general to just get on with it. Just do it. It is only fair. It is only reasonable. It makes a huge personal difference to someone’s life. That is what we are all in Parliament to do. To the registrar-general—do not waste time. Sort it out. I commend this bill to the House.