Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill

Tēnā koe e te Māngai o te Whare. Tēnā koutou katoa. I move, That the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Governance and Administration Committee to consider the bill. At the appropriate time, I intend to move that the bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2022, and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting, except during oral questions, during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House, and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196.

Today is an incredibly important day for Paige Harris, Kyle Harris, and the Harris whānau. The Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill will require the registrar-general to enter the details of Katherine Elizabeth Harris as mother on the registration of the birth of Paige Katherine Elizabeth Harris, as well as the details of Kyle Jason Harris as if a notice under section 23 of the Births, Deaths, Marriages, and Relationships Registration Act 1995 had been received containing that information, and an adoption order had been made in favour of Kyle Jason Harris and Katherine Elizabeth Harris.

We are here today debating this private bill brought to the House by Kyle Harris because under the Adoption Act, the person who gives birth is the legal parent, and the only way intended parents, such as biological parents in the case of surrogacy, can be recognised is through adoption. Paige’s mum, Katherine Harris, died before Paige was born by surrogacy. Katherine’s death from lung transplant complications in December 2019 meant Kyle and Katherine Harris were unable to complete Paige’s adoption after her birth, the only way intended or biological parents of a baby born through surrogacy can be officially recognised as parents. In preparing for the debate this morning, I asked Kyle what he wanted to share. These are from Kyle: for him the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill fulfils a promise Kyle Harris made to his dying wife, Katherine Harris. As she was dying, Kyle and Katherine were well aware that there was an issue given the requirement to adopt their genetic child as she was born by surrogacy. This bill is very important not only to Kyle and Paige and Katherine; it is also incredibly important to Renee and Josh Johnson, Paige’s surrogacy family, and Katherine’s surviving family, her parents, John and Alison Fraser, and her brother Stuart.

This bill will finally give Paige her right to her full identity. This bill finally allows for Katherine to be rightfully listed as Paige’s mother. Kyle and his family have found this process unnecessarily hard. Our law is not fit for modern New Zealand. Our law must be reformed. I particularly want to take this opportunity to thank the internal affairs spokespersons from the National Party, from the ACT Party, from the Green Party, from Te Paati Māori, and, obviously, the Leader of the House, Chris Hipkins, who, through the Business Committee, have provided for the reading of the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill this morning. It really does highlight how Parliament can come together to rectify what is a huge injustice to this whānau. So on behalf of Kyle and his whānau, thank you very much.

I would also like to take the opportunity to thank people who have helped Kyle and the whānau highlight the issue that we have. We’re using this family’s experience to solve an issue for Paige Harris, but, in fact, I think there are generic issues that will have to be addressed. There are approximately 60 children born in New Zealand every year via surrogacy, and, in spite of, in many instances, that child being the genetic child of the intending parents, they have to go through an adoption. So I want to acknowledge the over 50,000 New Zealanders who signed a petition in support of Kyle Harris and his family. I want to acknowledge Paddy Gower, who shared the experience of this family, which enabled some of us to understand that there was an issue.

I also want to acknowledge my colleague Tāmati Coffey, who has the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. Within the context of Tāmati’s bill, he will be able to address this issue for any child who is in this situation in the future. The principle within Tāmati’s bill is that the intending parents will become the parents of a child born by surrogacy at birth. There will not be need for adoption, and, in fact, his bill will allow for full transparency for that child. So, for example, that child’s birth certificate will list parent, mother, father, it will also list the name of the surrogate, and in some circumstances it may also list the egg donor and the sperm donor. I think that principle is incredibly important because in modern New Zealand society where surrogacy is being used more and more to help families, to help loving couples, to help people who want to add to their family, this issue is going to become more and more relevant. I know that Tāmati engaged with the whānau, he tried to find a solution through his bill, but ultimately Kyle Harris and his family decided that this was the best avenue for them.

I also want to take the opportunity to thank the officials at the Department of Internal Affairs and acknowledge Minister Jan Tinetti. I know her officials spent a lot of time engaging with Kyle, and looking at the law, and what the law could do, and in this instance they could not help. But they have been incredibly quick and very responsive through the Minister to offer their support to the Governance and Administration Committee. I want to thank her and her ministry for that support. I also want to acknowledge that the Minister of Justice the Hon Kris Faafoi also supports this whānau. He, too, was looking through some of the work that he is doing on surrogacy to see whether or not there was an opportunity that he could assist. So on behalf of Kyle and the family, I thank him also.

Just finally, preparing a private bill is quite complex, and I want to especially take the opportunity to thank Pavan Sharma in the Office of the Clerk, who’s an expert on parliamentary law and practice. His guidance throughout this process has been exceptional. I thank him dearly on behalf of Kyle for navigating through a system that required quite a few steps to be taken before we were able to bring this bill to the House. I also want to acknowledge Prue Tamatekapua, who drafted the bill initially. The family, obviously, had exhausted many resources to go through a process to see whether the law was fit for purpose, and within the context of a private bill there has to be a draft for the Parliamentary Counsel Office then to review. So I thank Mel Bromley and Jessica Kruger, who checked the bill to ensure it was ready for publication. I want to thank Wendy Stevenson, who helped with the advertising for the bill, which was conducted in a very prescribed process. I want to thank the parliamentary staff who assisted in the dissemination of the bill. And, again, I want to highlight the responsiveness of Paul James, who’s the Secretary of Internal Affairs, and also Jeff Montgomery, because within the advertising of this bill we actually had six other New Zealanders contact me that I was able to refer two of them on to Jeff, who had issues that they wanted resolution for.

So again, I just want to acknowledge that Parliament has the ability, when injustices such as this are presented to us, to come together. And so from my perspective and from Kyle Harris’ perspective and his whānau, again, we thank this Parliament sincerely for providing the opportunity for this family to get resolution, and, ultimately, for Kyle, it is to fulfil a promise to his now dead wife, Katherine. Kia ora.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s great to be able to take a call here this morning. Can I first acknowledge Louisa Wall for the work that she has done in bringing this private bill to the House. I can’t recall in recent memory a private bill getting up to this stage of debate. We often enjoy our high tide of comradery and collectivity when we are doing members’ bills, but they nearly always have a wide impact on society—at least we hope so, as member’s bill promotors.

It’s quite rare to get something that is reaching into an individual family who has had to go through a very painful experience because of a rule that is, by any rational measure, archaic and outdated, and have it brought to this House for it to be individually adjusted for that person. That is quite remarkable, and it does talk to Louisa Wall’s tenacity and persistence. But I must add to this conversation that Kyle Harris had also raised the issue with the National Party, both initially with Simon Bridges, as our then justice spokesperson, and specifically with Simon Watts, who worked with them to try and find a solution. It was then signalled that the Government side would pick this up, and, frankly, there’s no better person, in my view, with a track record of advocacy and getting outcomes for communities and individuals, than Louisa, who has brought it to this stage today.

When Louisa sent me the email, I have to admit I had to read it twice, not because the issue was complex, but I found it quite remarkable that biological parents who had established a close relationship with a surrogate who would carry their child, who would then go through the tragedy of losing, in this case, Katherine, and for them not to have Katherine noted on the birth certificate, because that was the rules—I looked at it again and I said, “Surely that can’t be right.” Surely in 2020, when you are the biological parents and you have a tremendous partner, if you like, in a surrogacy journey, there should be no reason that your role, be it past or present in terms of being the biological mother or father of this child, should not be able to be captured in an official document. It makes, I think, all of us wonder, regardless of our political persuasions in this House, how many rules over time have distilled, which at the time might have seemed relevant purposes but now seem completely out of whack with what an open, pluralistic, comfortable Aotearoa New Zealand is in terms of being able to express who they are and their connections with their own family and whakapapa. It seemed quite remarkable.

So it didn’t take us long from a National Party perspective, because of the good work that Simon Watts had already done on behalf of Kyle and Paige, for us to support this here today. I think Louisa has set out very clearly the problem that this specific bill seeks to address. I think all I would be doing is filling time if I went through it again. It’s very precise. It’s a specific change. It’ll enable Paige to have on her birth certificate a reference to Katherine, her mother, and that is just so important for Kyle, for Paige, the wider whānau, and the fact that we here as a Parliament can spend a short amount of time, as Louisa Wall said, fixing that injustice I think should really require no more conversation. The National Party entirely supports this.

This is a really necessary piece of legislation that’s happening here, and I want to thank my colleague Louisa Wall for bringing this to the House. And can I acknowledge the family out there, who will, no doubt, be watching Parliament TV or listening to this in their little part of New Zealand.

Our surrogacy laws need a lot of reworking. This is a really big area, where lots of families who have entered into surrogacy arrangements seem to fall through the cracks. It happens regularly. Our surrogacy laws are not fit for purpose. Our surrogacy laws need to be modernised, and we need to be able to say with our hands on our hearts that we here in New Zealand have modern laws for modern families, and, unfortunately, this is one occasion where that hasn’t quite worked out.

Can I thank Kyle and his support network around him, actually, for championing this and for making sure that he’s delivering on, as we’ve heard earlier, a promise that he made to his wife, now passed. He said that he would get baby Paige’s mum recorded on that birth certificate, and that’s why we’re all here today.

Before, my member’s bill was talked about, and it’s still waiting for its first reading; it’s sitting there on the Order Paper. We will get to it, but when we do, one of the things in the bill will talk about the fact that if we are modernising our laws, if we are creating modern laws for modern families, then the idea that a family should have to go through a pretty arduous adoption process through Oranga Tamariki, as our child agency—actually, we should have other means to be able to do that. In my member’s bill, I’m proposing that we put forward a surrogacy order, and that surrogacy order goes through the courts, and from the time of birth, baby then becomes the child of the intending parents, and that transfer happens at the time of birth.

So we’re discussing those options, but if we had already had surrogacy orders in place, the surrogacy order would have dealt with this. The fact that the mother, Katherine, had died would have been secondary to the fact that the surrogacy order would have been approved by the courts and everything would have just happened as it should happen. Paige’s mum would have been recorded on the birth certificate because it would have gone though that formal court process. Unfortunately, we don’t have that law at the moment, so while we’re waiting for it to happen, this is a private bill that’s been brought to this House to deal with this very specific issue. As the previous speaker, Todd Muller, said, there’s not too much more that needs to be said on this, except to say that we are standing alongside the people who brought that petition forward on behalf of Kyle and his family, the 50,000-odd of them who saw the injustice and reached out to us as members of Parliament, whether from that side or this side, really seeking that solution.

I want to take a bit of time to acknowledge the angst, probably, is the best way to put it, of Kyle, who I have had the pleasure of having a few conversations with. In those conversations I realised just how overwhelming it must seem from his perspective and that of his network around him. All he wants to see is a name on a birth certificate, but it’s taken all of this—it’s taken our parliamentary counsel, our lawyers, our MPs really turning it on—to figure out how we can do this. It is daunting process. The legislative process can be incredibly intimidating for people that don’t walk into this House every single day, such as ourselves, so I want to acknowledge Kyle for his persistence and also for his network of people around him who have stood next to him and provided strength for him and his baby girl at a time when he really needed it most.

So, Kyle, to you and to the family, who are listening, we’re on the journey now, and, hopefully, it won’t take as long as it’s taken to get us to this point today. I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. First of all, I wanted to acknowledge the aroha behind this bill—the aroha for the whānau, the aroha for Kyle Harris. When this was brought to my attention, that’s what kind of radiated out of the email and the pages, for me, and the connections between that whānau, the father, the intending mother, the whānau that carried baby Paige, as well. I would like to acknowledge that: tēnei te mihi atu ki a koutou te whānau i whai wāhi te hari tēnei kaupapa ki mua i te aroaro o tēnei Pāremata nā runga i te aroha, nā runga i te ngākau ki tēnā, tēnā o tātou, ki tō mokopuna, ki tō pēpi, otirā ki ngā uri whakaheke.

[This is an acknowledgment of the family that took the opportunity to place this issue before this Parliament with love and affection to each and every one of us, to your grandchild, to your baby, as well as to the future generations.]

When I looked at this, I really thought about it from the perspective of whakapapa and the importance of whakapapa and how that can play a really crucial part in shaping the identity of our children, of our babies. It helps to centre them in this world, it helps them to understand their connections with their close-knit family but also with their wider families as well. For me, that’s what whānau is all about, and I acknowledge what Louisa Wall was saying earlier, how our laws are archaic and not fit for purpose in terms of our modern families, but I would also say that sometimes it’s not fit for purpose for the ways that families have always been, the way that families have been connected in different ways. It’s not just about families; it’s about whānau and what that means for our tamariki mokopuna.

Also supporting the calls around the House to Louisa for bringing this to our attention. This showed up very quickly and I knew that we were going to support it, and just being able to go through that process as well.

The Greens are very supportive of this kaupapa. It puts the child at the centre of the whānau; it puts the child at the centre of how we should be thinking about how to do these things. I was surprised at the inflexibility within the legislation. I was surprised with how rigid it was—that it wouldn’t be able to bend into shape in ways that would meet the needs of modern families, but in many ways not meet the needs of the way that whānau have always been.

So the Greens will be supporting this bill. Nā runga i te aroha ki te whānau, ki te Pāpā Kyle, otirā ki tō hoa rangatira i wehe atu. Anei mātou ngā Kākāriki e mihi kau ana ki a koutou, otirā tēnā tātou katoa.

[With love for the family, for the father, Kyle, as well as for your late wife. We the Greens acknowledge you. Greetings one and all.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and I say, on behalf of ACT, thank you to Louisa Wall for bringing this work to the House. This was one of those cases when it came through where I thought—again, reflecting on the nature of the system and the outdated laws—that it was extraordinary that it needed to need legislative intervention like this to get this issue sorted. So I think it really highlights just how archaic and out of date our laws are, and, certainly, we’re very interested in working to see those changed.

ACT will, obviously, be supporting this, and I just want to say to Kyle: thank you for your perseverance. This has been a long journey and a lot of work to get it to this point, and, obviously, my colleagues around the House have put their thanks out to the many people involved in this. So thank you once again. You’ve highlighted a change that’s necessary in our legislation, and I’m sure we’ll get to it, but I wish you and your family all the best.

ACT is certainly very supportive of this. Thank you.

Just in conclusion, can I again thank Todd Muller, who represented the National Party, Teanau Tuiono from the Greens, James McDowall from ACT, who, as your internal affairs spokespeople, took this through your caucus; and also Te Paati Māori for their tautoko, and obviously, from our Labour team, we have been 100 percent supportive of this piece of legislation.

Just finally, I want to say to Kyle, specifically, that your tenacity, you’re fortitude, and your love for your wife is commendable because you’ve put your family’s experience out there and you have allowed us to experience all the emotions that come from not only having a child but losing a spouse. And it has been an incredibly painful and traumatic journey for you, but I hope that there is some peace in your heart as we as a Parliament have come together to support your aspiration, and your aspiration is for your daughter, Paige, to have her mother’s name on her birth certificate before Paige turns two on 25 March. I know, from everybody here in this Parliament, we share your aspiration and we will do all we can as a Parliament to fulfil your obligations to your wife and your aspiration. Nō reira, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā tātou katoa.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be considered by the Governance and Administration Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Governance and Administration Committee.

I move, That the Paige Harris Birth Registration Bill be reported to the House by 4 March 2022 and that the committee have authority to meet at any time while the House is sitting (except during oral questions), during any evening on a day on which there has been a sitting of the House, and on a Friday in a week in which there has been a sitting of the House and outside the Wellington area, despite Standing Orders 193, 195, and 196(1)(b) and (c).

Motion agreed to.