O'Connor GregGREG O'CONNOR (Labour—Ōhāriu): Thank you Mr Speaker. As a child growing up I was an avid reader. One of my favourite fables or stories was about the boy who cried wolf. That was a story about a lad who for fun for any reason was an alarmist and people eventually just stopped believing him. I'd point to Dr Nick Smith—there will be people sitting at home those who are used to watching parliamentary TV. They'll be familiar with Dr Smith standing and being absolutely outraged about proposals. Any proposal in fact—Hon Dr Nick Smith: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. In my 10-minute contribution I did not choose to personally denigrate other members; I focused on the content of the bill. This is the fourth Government speaker whose large concentration of their speech has not been on the bill but has been on a personal attack on myself. I'd ask you to do your role as Speaker and ask the member to focus on the bill and to cease the personal attacks.ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): This debate has been wide ranging and members on both sides have contributed in a robust manner both in their contributions and in their interjections. I take the father of the House's point and encourage members to at least refer to the bill rather than to other members.GREG O'CONNOR: Thank you Mr Speaker. It's a shame that the member did interrupt me because I was about to go on—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! Order! No. Just carry on with your speech.GREG O'CONNOR: Well yes Mr Speaker. I'll say that the quality of the arguments by the Opposition around this whole issue is based clearly on a belief of an absolute necessity to be seen to be outraged by anything that's proposed.Hon Tim Macindoe: 166 years of democracyGREG O'CONNOR: But anyway I'll move on. The speakers opposite have talked about democracy and I think it's very good that some of the later speakers did concentrate on democracy—it's where this argument actually belongs. One of the most democratic and admired democratic countries in the world is Switzerland. Now Switzerland: anyone who understands anything about their system of Government will know that referenda feature highly and that relatively few decisions—if any—that are going to affect any of the cantons or any individual are conducted or put into being without a suitable form of referenda.We talk about evolution and what we're seeing now is—I think even the way that our MMP Government is working—I think for the first time we've got a true democratic MMP Government something that I think the Opposition are finding quite frustrating the fact that we do continue to work together. This is another really good example of when three parties—relatively disparate parties—can come together and end up looking at a situation looking at a policy particularly around this and through the use of the democratic system can come together for the best result for New Zealanders. Now the best result for New Zealanders obviously is going to be for them to make the final decision. In doing so it's important that you can't just have a referendum; what you've got to do is make sure that you've got a very good framework around it. So you can't just start and go to the crease; you've got to start by building up—and part of the build up to that is always going to be to ensure that there is as much cooperation as possible at every level which is why the Opposition were invited to be part of the development of policy on this. They have chosen not to; it's clear where their politics on this are because they've got a member in charge of basically anti-cannabis referenda the Hon Paula Bennett. Now it becomes very difficult when you paint yourself into a corner when that is actually one of the mainstays and most days in the House there's a question coming from that member related to that particular topic. Well it makes it very difficult then to be part of what is an evolving and becoming a much more effective democratic process. The very democratic processes which we are now going to put in place—put the framework around. This bill Mr Speaker is about ensuring that we have a good solid framework so that when we do go to the people when we do go and undertake the democratic process they are going to get the best information.Now it's a shame that the Opposition have chosen not to be part of this unfortunately. I do give absolute respect to the Hon Mark Mitchell for his presentation and sharing some very personal knowledge here. But unfortunately that's not the point. The point is not about how clearly he has a strong view of what the outcome of the referenda should be; that's not what the point of this debate is. The point of this debate is about ensuring that when we do get to that it's how we get there.So this is about a democratic process. The Electoral Commission will have oversight of this. We've talked about the Regulations Review Committee who will actually have the opportunity—in fact chaired by a member of the Opposition—to have a say on this.So for those looking at home you may find—ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Adrian Rurawhe): Order! The member's time has expired.