Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill

Kia orana. Tēnā koe, Mr Speaker. It’s a wonderful opportunity to move from one great bill to another this afternoon. Can I just, obviously, speak in support of the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, and, in doing so, I want to congratulate and acknowledge my colleague and friend Tāmati Coffey. I recall, actually, Mr Coffey’s contribution in the former bill that has just succeeded with its third reading, where Mr Coffey identified that he had not actually had a member’s bill that had been drawn from the ballot at that point, and then, I think, in the very next ballot that followed that contribution from the member in the House, his bill was drawn. So I know what it’s like to have a member’s bill drawn and I certainly congratulate the member on what he has brought to this House.

The title of the bill says it all, really. It is a bill that is seeking to improve the arrangements for those that are involved in surrogacy arrangements. Having said that, though, it does seek to do three key things, and the first is that it seeks to simplify surrogacy arrangements. The natures of them can be quite different from individual and whānau to whānau, but simplification is certainly a good thing.

The second is that it seeks to ensure that the information that is contained on a birth certificate is complete and that it recognises the child’s right under international obligations and conventions to know the genetic origins of the child themselves but also for identity purposes. This House has spent some time, certainly in this current term of Parliament, looking at issues around birth certificates and the nature of the information that is contained on those certificates. I know that the Governance and Administration Committee, which, obviously, has been kept quite busy from time to time, often does turn its mind to issues of that particular nature. But it’s also important for the historical record and for archival purposes as well. So that’s the second point.

The third one is that in the context where surrogacy arrangements have been made, there is actually provision for some form of enforcement. Enforcement certainly provides for certainty, and I hope that there is never a need for enforcement, but it acknowledges in the member’s bill that there may be situations and occasions from time to time where enforcement may be a necessary option and it may be needed. One such example that is cited in the member’s bill is that where intending parents don’t follow through, there is a requirement for child support to follow. So there are obligations and responsibilities that are contained within the member’s bill.

To me, it’s actually quite clear, and that is that New Zealand’s current laws where it concerns surrogacy but also, more broadly, adoption are not currently fit for purpose, they are not modern, and they are not up to date. So I congratulate the member on bringing forward a bill that seeks to address those concerns: to make the legislation more fit for purpose, to make it more reflective of modern situations, and to make sure that it is up to date.

When we look at the current context, those prospective parents who wish to adopt in the adoption space must wait for the physical birth of the child before they can even commence the adoption process, let alone consider the various aspects of diversification within a family unit that that might lead to as well. If a surrogacy arrangement is in place, then in that circumstance the surrogate child born into that arrangement is, effectively, arriving into a situation where there are no initial rights or responsibilities in relation to the child. Even if the parties—the parents and those that are the participants—are in agreement, there is currently no opportunity in law for that to be considered. So it is such an important issue.

It’s very clear that there is a need to balance the rights and responsibilities of all parties and all participants: the child, the intending parents, and, of course, the birth mother. When I have a look at the bill, the bill itself will actually seek to amend a number of Acts—five Acts and two sets of regulations—but also it introduces a number of specific clauses, which I won’t go through, that, obviously, give effect to what will occur in practice.

Just in conclusion, I do want to acknowledge that I understand that this will go to the Health Committee. I know that the Health Committee is a hard-working one, and I look forward to having that come before the committee and to work alongside colleagues. Again, I commend this bill to the House and, again, congratulate my colleague Tāmati Coffey.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and it’s a real pleasure to finally—it feels like there’s been a few attempts where I thought this bill was going to come up that didn’t quite eventuate—get to speak and offer the Green Party’s support for this member’s bill, the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, in the name of Tāmati Coffey. And I too want to acknowledge Mr Coffey for getting this bill drawn—it’s a special moment in your experience in Parliament for that to happen—but also the amount of detailed thinking that has gone into this piece of legislation; part of and the will of it from lived experience and connection to others who recognise the importance of this. I believe they’re special moments when Parliament’s considering matters from people’s experience and members of our community, whose experiences are being brought into this House.

The Law Commission recognises—I think there’s about 50 children every year; that is their best estimate because we don’t actually know because there isn’t a formal framework at the moment for surrogacy arrangements, but 50 children, they think at the moment, every year in this country, are born in a surrogacy arrangement. But we have no enforceable or formal arrangements around surrogacy, so this bill seeks to do that. I do want to acknowledge the intersection between this bill and the work that the Government initiated in 2020, asking the Law Commission to look into surrogacy arrangements, and the Law Commission has had a consultation period over options that they’ve been considering, that closed in September last year, and we are expecting their report back this year. And the Greens will be looking at that really closely and are happy to support this bill, and hope that it aligns with the work of the Law Commission, because we don’t want to undermine that really chunky piece of work, but also recognise that it’s an opportunity to speed the implementation of what they may recommend, if the timing aligns with this bill, and that there are parts of this bill that go beyond what they were looking at that can be fruitfully examined.

I do need to say, too, that the Green Party—in terms of where we sit at the moment, not having heard the detailed evidence or the commission’s report back—do tend to gravitate towards the option A of the Law Commission’s Part 1 model, and that this bill is based more towards the option B. Our point around where we’re leaning more towards A is our understanding in terms of international best practice of enabling the person who gives birth to be that parent at that point and then sign a declaration around confirming the transfer of parenting responsibilities. The reason for that is: one, just around recognising that role of giving birth, but, secondly, if in a terrible situation something went wrong, that there’s a guaranteed parent. If those who are receiving the child actually decide that they’re not going to go ahead with that, the child doesn’t become parentless for any time in their life.

So that is why we are, at this stage, leaning towards the option A, and we are really excited to be able to explore this finally, because I do want to re-emphasise the point made by the previous speaker around how overdue it is for us as a country to be looking at this and to be looking at adoption laws as well—adoption laws 50 years out of date, at the time it was written, where we treated children as chattels. And it’s quite revolting, in terms of the framing of that legislation. I do want to acknowledge the member for some of the really sensitive framing in this bill around some of the detail that seeks to acknowledge that right to knowledge of your biological information, as well as your whakapapa in the fullest sense, as well as trying to create certainty and care and support for everybody involved in this process. And that, for us, is what’s at the heart of this, and we look forward to engaging on the select committee to get the details, to get the best result for our children and for birthing parents and for intended lifelong parents, out of this piece of legislation. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and thank you for the chance to make a contribution on this bill. If I could be a little bold, just to start my contribution, given the contribution of my colleague Tangi Utikere, I’d also like to note to the member Tāmati Coffey my congratulations, and also that I, too, given his comments to Tangi, haven’t had a member’s bill drawn. So hopefully that will spur some sort of chain reaction. Let’s see how that goes. But anyhow, I digress.

My congratulations to my colleague Tāmati Coffey are very sincere, and it does feel like this bill has taken a wee while to sort of come to fruition, so the member who has just resumed her seat, Jan Logie, certainly hasn’t imagined that. It feels like over a matter of several weeks that we’ve been preparing to talk to this bill, so I can only imagine how excited the member whose name is on this bill feels tonight.

Modern families are increasingly diverse, and it’s vital and incredibly sensible that our legislation simply recognises that and that it facilitates and supports loving whānau and all of the various ways in which they’re made up. This bill, the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, is, in fact, a modern bill for a modern family, and it’s also importantly closely aligned to this Labour Government’s broader commitment to children and our commitment to families. It’s a commitment that’s expressed and has been implemented in various ways.

One of our election commitments, which we take very seriously, was to review the adoption laws and, in particular, to have a keen eye at removing any kind of discriminatory sort of provisions. In June last year, the Minister of Justice announced that he and his department are delivering the suite of legislation, including this bill, that will ensure that we also deliver the latter.

In recent years, it has been simultaneously—I was going to say “sad”, but let’s say “moving”—moving, and, importantly, quite heart-warming to read and to hear of the very personal stories shared by my colleague Tāmati Coffey with regard to his own whānau, and also to hear the personal stories and the experiences of the Harris family and that of Christian Newman and his husband, Mark Edwards. I note tonight in making this contribution that their experiences really are the genesis for this bill. Each of those experiences have, in their very different ways, highlighted some pretty obvious flaws in our adoption and our surrogacy system, and those flaws affect a wide range of people and whānau. But fortunately, the good news is that those experiences also reveal, in a pretty meaningful way, I think, the things that we need to do to illuminate a sensible sort of path forward.

I’d also like to acknowledge and confirm the Kiwis—I think it was tens of thousands—who signed a petition to this end at the end of 2019. I’m sure that they’ll be absolutely delighted to see the introduction of this bill today.

The birth of a child is one of the most special events in family life for a lot of people, but it is never stress-free, and it’s especially true for those who face difficulties or who can’t conceive a child of their own. The law governing surrogacy in New Zealand certainly doesn’t help. I think my colleague Tangi Utikere has run through several examples, so I won’t say those again, but it’s really clear that when you look at the legislation and the arrangements in place, that it just places really unnecessary burdens on both the surrogate mother and the intending parents. I think there were a couple of quotes at the time when this bill was drawn, alluding to the fact that it really amounted to people having to jump through unnecessary hoops and to experience a very different experience than most people would assume was fair and reasonable.

So this legislation is an important step forward to easing those burdens so that families can simply focus on what’s important, and that’s each other and doing the best by each other. So I’m pleased that this bill is receiving broad support from across the House. I’d again like to congratulate my friend and colleague Tāmati Coffey. I’m trying not to sort of go into a string of puns about the conception of this bill and how we’ll be looking forward to nurturing it through probably only a trimester of readings and, hopefully, in a few months’ time adopting it as law, but that does sort of capture the sentiment. I look forward to hearing from the submissions as a member of the Health Committee, and—

Order! The member’s time has expired.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I rise on behalf of the ACT Party today in support of the first reading of the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. I want to commend my colleague Tāmati Coffey for bringing this important bill to the House. ACT offered our 10 votes in support to bypass the ballot process because we did believe that our laws around surrogacy do need modernising. And as luck would have it, Tāmati Coffey has been lucky enough to have his bill drawn from the ballot and not requiring those votes.

So we’re one step closer by having this reading to modernising our laws for a modern New Zealand. This bill will simplify surrogacy arrangements and ensure the completeness of birth certificate information for New Zealanders whose child is delivered via surrogacy. Our job as politicians is to create laws that make life better and easier for New Zealanders. This law change would simplify those surrogacy laws and make the process of having a child via surrogacy easier, and that can only be a good thing for modern New Zealand.

Children are wonderful. I love the curiosity of children, as their minds work a million miles to figure out the big wide world around them. I often walk through Cornwall Park, which is near where I live, and I see families with their children all the time playing in the park, dads teaching their kids how to ride a bike and how to fly a kite, and we see mums pointing out the cows and sheep and seeing their children’s eyes wide with amazement. There are so many firsts that parents love to see their children have. And many, many people dream of having those options for themselves in the future. Options of starting their own family and seeing them bring a new life into the world that will grow up and become good citizens of New Zealand, wondering what on earth their children might do with their lives. I think it’s beautiful.

For many New Zealanders, it’s as easy as that. They want to have a child, and they do. But for others, they seek more alternatives because it’s not as straightforward. And for myself, I’m personally going through egg freezing because I know in the future that I may need IVF. And so that’s an option that I would like to have for myself, because many New Zealanders know that IVF gives them more chances to have a child in the future, and similarly with surrogacy. Surrogacy allows people who may have difficulties to have a child and have no other option, to have that option of bringing new life into the world. I think it’s wonderful, and I think it’s great that our new laws should reflect that.

But the law currently is not very simple or clear, and this bill clarifies a few things—that is, that a couple could pay actual and reasonable expenses for somebody going through the process of carrying that child for them; you know, somebody who’s given up their time and their energy, and their body, to carry that baby. I think our laws should reflect that a person should be able to pay the costs that go into that. It creates a register for matching people who wish to put themselves forward to be a surrogate, and I think that’s wonderful too, because, many times, people reach out to their family and they can’t find somebody—they reach out to their friends, and they can’t find somebody, so they go online and they try to find people through forums who might give up their time and their body. But having a register of people who are willing and able would simplify that process. It also ensures that the person who is the intended parent could be on the birth certificate at birth, to make sure that in those first days and weeks of that new child’s life, they’re not having to go through those legal hurdles and worry about the implications of getting that right or wrong, when they’re just wanting to spend time with their newborn child. I think that’s important.

This is a complex ethical and legal area. The ACT Party supports modernising our surrogacy laws and looks forward to seeing the work that the Health Committee will do. But we also know that the Law Commission is looking into this law, so we look forward to seeing the scrutiny of this bill versus the Law Commission’s reports.

The ACT Party commends this bill to the House for the first reading because we believe that our laws do need to be modernised. Many New Zealanders struggle with fertility; our laws should make that process easier for people, and we look forward to working constructively on this law.

Thank you so much, Mr Speaker. I rise with pleasure this afternoon to speak on the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, which has been brought here by my friend and colleague Mr Tāmati Coffey. I’d like to congratulate and commend him for bringing this bill forward to the House. We’ve heard from many of the previous speakers about the importance of this bill. I just wanted to highlight that the petition that was brought to Parliament in 2019 had on it 32,239 online signatures that recognised that this law should be changed, because it does need to be simplified. At the moment, we need to update the legislation in order to balance the needs and rights of both the expecting, intending parents, the surrogate themselves, and, of course, the child. This bill is designed to simplify those arrangements.

Currently in New Zealand, the law doesn’t actually give any automatic rights to what the law describes as the “intending parents”. So, when born, the child’s parents, in law, are the surrogate and their partner, and the intending parents then need to go through the full and dense adoption process. The child itself may have come from the implanted embryo that was made, if you will, from the intending parents’ egg and sperm and it may bear no genetic similarity to the surrogate, but still the intending parents are not regarded as the parents until they have gone through that full adoption process.

Now, Mr Coffey, in his first reading speech, did say that this is not a gay issue, and it’s not. It’s not a straight issue either. There are a multitude of reasons why a person might seek the support of a surrogate. The reasons for infertility, for example, are many, and are often the cause of great distress. Having worked, myself, with people who are experiencing loss after sad loss in their attempt to complete their family, I’ve seen the benefits that the use of a surrogate can bring. Some women may not have a uterus; for some, pregnancy might be dangerous; or, yes, like my colleague Mr Coffey and his husband, they may be a same-sex couple who seek the support of a surrogate.

To be a surrogate is, in my view, an extraordinarily altruistic thing to do for somebody else. I can’t say, with all honesty, that it’ something that I could do myself, so I stand in awe of those who do, because as a surrogate you really are putting someone else’s needs before your own. Even if you experience a completely uncomplicated pregnancy in birth, you’re going to be experiencing challenges, you’re going to be experiencing physical and emotional challenges, and that is really for the benefit of somebody else.

So surrogates will know that some of those challenges are unavoidable, but one of the challenges that I feel should be preventable is the financial challenges that might come from actually carrying a child and giving birth. Personal, reasonable, and actual expenses in this bill are to be covered. This isn’t the same as being paid to be a surrogate. I think that all of us can quickly see that paying somebody to be a surrogate, in itself, could open a whole new can of worms, but also that it’s completely reasonable and fair to cover actual expenses. I’m thinking back to my own pregnancies; I probably would’ve needed some financial support for my Russian fudge cravings that I experienced in both pregnancies! But also, more reasonably, things like if the pregnant person needs to pay for additional scans, if they need new clothes to fit their changing body, transport to appointments, and there are many things, I don’t really feel that it’s fair for them to be paid for by the surrogate themselves.

But we do need to have this conversation; it does seem fair and sensible at first glance. I’m really looking forward to this bill coming to the Health Committee, ably chaired by my colleague Tangi Utikere. I commend Mr Coffey for bringing it to the House. I’d like to commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to stand here and to listen to people’s personal stories, and for this piece of legislation to actually be about people’s lives. So thank you for those who have shared personal stories, have shared their own experiences, and have shared the challenges that they are facing and that they may face when it comes to surrogacy.

I want to speak in favour this evening of the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. I really want to talk about this bill being about enabling, it being a bill about empowering people. It’s a bill, as we’ve talked and heard about already this evening, that is looking at the 21st century—2022. The ways that families are formed in 2022 are quite different to the good old, or the bad old, or the whatever old 1950s, or before—was it 2.1 children and a mum and dad? And there’s so many different variations of what families look like today.

I guess I stand here as someone in that category who hasn’t gone through the surrogacy process. My husband and I have talked about it but haven’t really landed on whether that’s something we want to do. But, in terms of being a foster parent, and through the Oranga Tamariki system, for years now, having young people who are my family who are now growing up and having their own families, it’s always a weird look. I know; I look so young and fit! But when a youngie in the supermarket says, “Koro Glen”, and everyone looks and thinks “Glen, you’re far too young for that.” But, actually, it is a makeup of family that is different to what was the norm back in the 1950s or 1940s or 1930s; we’re in the 21st century. So this bill is around recognising families and how they can be formed.

A colleague of mine actually asked one of their friends, who is looking into surrogacy, and said, “What is it you’d want shared tonight if you could have a say?” The first thing they said was: “Catch up New Zealand, come on. Let’s just get on with it. Let’s catch up. Let’s keep moving.” But they also talked about the fact that the bill, again, is around enabling and empowering. Here’s a few things that they said: “I’ve never personally felt more disempowered by something.”—in the process they’re going through at the moment. They also talked about that you’re making intending parents, basically, prove their fitness to be a parent. For many families that conceive in more ordinary ways, there’s never a question or a conversation around “Are they fit to be a parent, is it the right financial position right now to be a parent?” So the fact that we’re normalising and we’re bringing surrogacy into the 21st century is very much around protecting people and making people feel empowered.

We also went on to say that the power imbalance across the whole surrogacy process was really hard, that the power imbalance was tough for them, and is tough for them as they go through that process. So we want to tautoko those out there who are looking, who are exploring this space—as my colleague Sarah Pallet said, to acknowledge and thank those who choose to put themselves in a place where they are a surrogate, where they carry a child for someone else. What a gift that is; what a sacrifice that is. So as we move through the stages of this legislation, hopefully we can celebrate what others are doing, in terms of giving back and sharing with others.

So to Tāmati Coffey, thank you for your work. I don’t thank your work getting out of the biscuit tin because that is chance, let’s be honest, but your work in creating and developing this piece of legislation, and, obviously, having the foresight of your own personal journey but then sharing in the journeys of others around Aotearoa when it comes to surrogacy.

So I support this piece of legislation. I am not on the Health Committee—as much as I’d love to be, it feels like everyone in this room is—but I look forward to following and tracking, actually, with submissions and hearing people’s lived stories, lived experiences around this. I’m in support and I want to commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party in support of the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill. Like every other speaker this evening, I would also like to offer my congratulations to Tāmati Coffey—not only for having your bill drawn but, I think, to you and your husband, Tim, for going through the process of bringing a wee boy into the world in this way, and may that bring you all the joy in the world.

It is like other speakers have canvassed. You know, it’s so good to see proposed changes that update and modernise laws to fit modern society. This is going to be a curlier one, I think, for the select committee to deal with. It is a complicated proposal to amend, I think, five Acts and two sets of regulations—all in all, about 32 clauses—but let’s not be put off by that.

A number of speakers this evening have talked to the streamlining of surrogacy arrangements, but I’d actually like to focus my contribution on the slightly less canvassed component of the bill, and that’s Part 1, which amends the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Act—or, as we call it, HART.

This amendment will mean a law change that will allow for fair and reasonable compensation for sperm and egg donors for their time and expenses. I think that this is really important, and I personally would really like to see the select committee pay particular attention to this. We have a huge shortage in this country of people willing to donate sperm and eggs because, I think, of the significant time and costs of doing so. Like Brooke van Velden alluded to, I also know for a fact that having your eggs harvested and frozen is a $15,000 process.

In 2021, Fertility Associates reported they had just 39 sperm donors registered and 41 egg donors registered. This is to try and assist the fertility needs of hundreds of New Zealand couples seeking treatment these days. There are around 400 women alone waiting on a list for sperm donors and 160 waiting for egg donors. I think that these miniscule numbers of donors is quite clearly related to the lack of ability to compensate for those costs, for that time off work, for travel time.

As the current law stands, I think as much as a petrol voucher is in breach of the law, we are also so far behind other countries and other jurisdictions in this space. In the US, most egg donor patients will be recompensed about US$5,000. For the UK and Australia, it’s similar—in the UK, donors can get up to about £750, and Australian fertility clinics are offering about A$5,000. I think that, in doing this, these countries have vastly improved the supply of gametes available to couples and/or people who desperately need them.

I just want to be really clear, though, that this bill, and the comments I’m making, in no way are seeking to create any form of industry “for profit”. It’s simply seeking to allow for fair and reasonable costs to be covered, so as to encourage the donors to come forward for those couples—be they gay, be they single, be they infertile—who desperately need that kind of support.

So just to wrap up this evening, it seems that the current, strict prohibition is what is directly contributing to those very long waiting times and those very long waiting lists. I very much look forward to hearing the select committee inquiry and report back, and I commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. It really is my privilege this evening to speak on the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill, a particular bill that is put forward by my very good friend of a few decades Tāmati Coffey. I’ve been able to watch his journey to be married to his wonderful husband and to have our very beautiful nephew that’s a part of our lives within the Labour Party. But this bill is designed to simplify surrogacy arrangements, ensure completeness of birth certificate information, and provide a mechanism for enforcing surrogacy arrangements.

Only a few weeks ago, I turned 40. Yes, the big four-oh. And once I got to that age—unfortunately, as I turned 40, I tested positive for COVID 19—I had a lot of reflection time in self-isolation. One of the things that caught up with me was thinking about future generations, but thinking about the possibility if at some point, turning 40—probably I needed to make a decision soon about having children. Not only just for myself but the other thing that I think of within my wider whānau is the importance of continuing whakapapa, or our genealogical lines, between my family and our family in Mōkai Pātea. But there’s some challenges in front of me that this particular bill, I guess, aims to address, to work through, to deconstruct, and to repack into modern legislation. So I consider myself, I guess, an end user and so I’ll take particular interest in this piece of legislation and how, in fact, it’s going to affect some of the decisions that I make moving forward and the decisions for my wider family.

It’s a privilege to be the deputy chair of the Petitions Committee. We do a lot of work and I acknowledge those members in the House that are part of that select committee. But when you see a petition that comes through—and we see many—one of 32,000 signatures is significant. We’ve seen large-scale signatures like this one in things like banning conversion practice and some of the other work that we have done, but this is a lofty amount of New Zealanders in Aotearoa that want to see change in this outdated law.

We support this bill, because we understand that New Zealand’s existing laws around surrogacy and adoption are not up to date and are in need of modernisation to bring them into the 21st century. The evidence of this can be seen, as I mentioned, in the petition that was presented to Parliament in 2019. Currently, prospective parents must await the birth of their child before beginning the process of adoption, and the child of a surrogacy arrangement is born into a situation where his or her or their social or caregiving parents may have no legal responsibilities and rights in relation to the child. And one of the challenges that is before me is that while I can contribute to a child being made at birth, there’s a few steps that I would have to go through to be the legal father.

The Government has asked the Law Commission to conduct a review of surrogacy laws in New Zealand and they are expected to report back on their findings in the first half of 2022. I really look forward to those findings, because they will address significant pieces that the member Tāmati Coffey has acknowledged in this first piece of legislation. When I look across the areas that I’m involved in—in petitions, in Māori caucus, Māori Affairs Committee, and as Labour’s chair of the Rainbow Caucus Committee—this particular piece of legislation is important in all of my professional and political roles. But, more important, it is a piece of legislation that will impact my life and my family’s life and our future generations. I commend this bill to the House.

I call Tāmati Coffey in reply.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Lived experience is everything. And as I stand here, having listened to all of the speeches from around the House, I do get emotional, because this is a journey that I’ve been on for quite some time. When I think about our experience, I think about our surrogate that helped us get to this place, I think about her family that said, “Are you bonkers?” when she said to them that she was going to be doing it. But, actually, just sitting here, my colleagues right down in front of me both started talking about their mokopuna. They started pulling out the little phones, because that’s what this bill does, it actually encourages people to think about children, think about their grandchildren, their mokopuna, their moko tuarua. This is a bill that will help Kiwi families to grow, and that’s why it’s so special. And can I thank every party in this House for their support on what isn’t a gay issue, as my colleague said; this is a New Zealand issue, this is a family issue, this is a whānau issue. This is about making mokopuna decisions—that’s what we say back home.

I want to talk quickly about the New Zealand Law Commission mahi that they have done. I understand that that is sitting with the Minister, and it will be made public very soon. I look forward to looking through that report, like many members of this House, to see exactly what they’ve managed to do, remembering that this bill was dreamt up by both Louisa Wall MP and myself, and we decided at the time that we’d try and peel off a few things that we could contain inside a member’s bill, knowing that there was a lot more work that needed to be done. And I want to thank the Law Commission for the work that they’ve done—their deep dive—I look forward to reading that report.

This bill is going off to the Health Committee, and there have been a few questions raised as to whether or not that was the appropriate committee. We chose to send it to the Health Committee because this is a health issue. I wanted to take it away from previous conversations where, in this House, issues such as abortion, talking about women’s bodies, have been viewed historically by this House as a justice issue, as a law and order issue, and I don’t believe that that’s the right place for it. I believe that this is a health issue, this is a women’s issue, and we need to talk about it with the right framework, so therefore it’s going to the Health Committee. I believe it’s the right place to go.

I want to thank Christian Newman for putting the pressure on way back in 2019, in October, when he brought the petition, 32,000 people signed it. And last night, I was on the phone to him, saying, “We’re going to get there.” And he was saying, “Tāmati, it’s 2022. How long does it take in that place?” And I said, “It takes a little bit of time for some things to make it through the process.”, but we are here right now. I want to thank the New Zealand Labour Party. It is my party, and in 2020 it was put into the manifesto: a commitment to surrogacy. And I want to thank Andrew Little in his role as the Minister of Justice in the last Parliament where, in his role, he made sure that the Law Commission did do their report. It’s an issue that I’ve felt passionate about, and I’m glad that our party have been there to help champion it along the way.

I want to acknowledge the science that’s involved is surrogacy and shout-out to all of our scientists out there who make this happen. Right now, there are 13 embryos sitting in a freezer in Hamilton somewhere that belong to me and my partner, Tim. And the wonder of science and the miracle of science and the advance of science is one of the reasons that we’re here right now—as my colleague said before—trying to catch up with the law. And, thankfully, this law is going to be able to do that. So thank you to our scientists, actually.

A biological parent should never have to adopt their own child—I’ll say it again: a biological parent should never have to adopt their own child. And when we had to go through that, that was painful, because we were standing in a court of New Zealand law, knowing that this was the system and that, as the biological father, we were standing there having to go through this insane, archaic process where we had to adopt our own biological child.

So this bill is for all of the beautiful children that have been born as a result of a surrogacy arrangement, this bill is for all of these surrogates that have thanklessly but beautifully given over themselves to be able to help other families grow, but, most of all, this bill is an acknowledgment of all of those families out there that have been able to grow because of surrogacy arrangement. Modern laws for modern families is what we’re trying to achieve here. I look forward to championing this through the select committee process. It’s going to be a journey and I’m up for it. I commend it to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a first time.

The question is, That the Improving Arrangements for Surrogacy Bill be considered by the Health Committee.

Motion agreed to.

Bill referred to the Health Committee.

Members, it’s come time for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. The House will resume at 7 p.m.

Sitting suspended from 5.56 p.m. to 7 p.m.