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 third time.

Can I begin, as Kyle’s agent, given his promotion of this private bill, to do a few thankyous. I’d like to thank Pavan Sharma, who’s at the top of my list, from the Office of the Clerk, who guided us through the private bill process. It’s incredibly prescriptive and Kyle, Josh, and myself could not have done what we have managed to achieve without you, Pavan, and I want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for your work to ensure that we complied.

I would also like to thank Prue Tamatekapua, who provided the draft for this bill. She did so without charge. I think that deserves recognition. I would like to thank Jessica Kruger from Parliamentary Counsel Office, who helped edit and oversaw the draft of that bill in terms of its compliance with the Standing Orders. I want to thank Wendy Stevenson in my office, who helped ensure again that we complied with the Standing Orders, advertising the bill, having the bill available, enabling the public to engage with this process as they so choose. And finally, can I thank the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA), its advisers and those who will continue to assist in the implementation of this piece of legislation. To Jeff Montgomery and your team, can I thank you for already reaching out to Kyle to make sure that the next part of the process is as seamless and easy as possible for the whānau.

So to the congratulations, and I say to Kyle: “Congratulations. You made a promise to your wife and you, through this piece of legislation, will fulfil that promise.” To Josh and Renee, you have stood by Kyle and Paige and the whānau throughout this process, and I want to thank and acknowledge you for your work. To Katherine’s parents, John and Alison Fraser, I want to thank you for your contribution to this process, and I acknowledge Katherine’s brother, Stuart, and I want to acknowledge Kyle’s family—his mother, who sent an email after the first reading and wanted to make sure that all those who spoke to the bill were extended her gratitude. So to Kyle, to the Harris family and friends, congratulations to you. Your collective effort has brought about this piece of legislation, which will enable Katherine to be recognised on Paige’s birth certificate.

I also want to extend appreciation to Paddy Gower and also the 59,435 people who signed a petition, and that petition was to let Paige have her mum’s name on her birth certificate. So to all those New Zealanders who took an interest in those kaupapa, who supported this kaupapa, I want to thank you. And finally, I want to thank all those colleagues across the House that came together to support, as I highlighted before, the expedited process. We went through the Business Committee. We all universally accepted that this was an injustice and we wanted to work collectively as a House. And I think that this is symbolic of the way that Parliament can come together and can work together for the greater good.

Finally, I’ve got some words for Paige. So for you, darling Paige, this process highlights how much you are loved, how much you are adored, and how the adults that surround you will do anything and everything for you, and this process also highlights how much your dad loves your mum. As I said before, he has fulfilled his promise. I have a poem or a quote from Maya Angelou, for Paige, on loving our children, and I quote: “Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination, full of hope.” So darling Paige, I wish you a happy early birthday. And by 25 March, I know that your dad will contact DIA to make sure that your mum is on your birth certificate. I commend this bill to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I’ll just take a moment; I cry at sad movies. In the interests of not blubbing in the House and expediting this process, I want to associate myself with all of the thanks and congratulations that Louisa Wall has mentioned.

I was going to mention Paddy Gower in my second reading speech and I forgot, so I will just make a mention of that. Many of us, those who were here from when he was in the press gallery, will have fond and not-so-fond recollections of him. I used to refer to him as Bruce, the shark from Finding Nemo—“Politicians are our friends.”, I think I could imagine him saying in the press gallery corridor. But when he took on an issue, he did so with a gusto that was tenacious and to generate an interest in an issue around an individual that created a petition of 50,000 signatures is indeed quite some feat in highlighting the folly, I guess, of the law and the fact that we have to be here to make things right. But we will, and I’m sure Paige Harris will live a happy—I hope a long—life surrounded by loved ones, but in the knowledge that her mum, Katherine Harris, is on her birth certificate. I’m sure there’ll be stories told of her every day. This is a good day.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Some say that the wheels of Parliament move very slow, and on this particular occasion it’s moved pleasingly fast. And so it should have, because there’s a family out there that really needs it. And again, they’ll be listening to everything that we’re saying. So again, I want to acknowledge them. It has been quick and, again, I want to thank Louisa Wall for her tenacity. If there’s one thing that Louisa is, she’s tenacious. She picked up this and she ran with it, and here we are 34 days later, I think she said, with the third reading of this bill helping to settle something that’s been outstanding for far too long.

There’s a few Māori words that I want to use to describe this moment that we’re going through right now, and taking into account all of the kōrero that’s been said. The first one is ōhākī, and that word is a very significant word. Ōhākī, in te reo Māori, it refers to a dying wish. And that’s what this is. The reason that we’re all here is because Katherine Harris made a dying wish that she had friends that would pick up the mantle and run with this and not rest until her name was on baby Paige’s certificate, so that baby Paige would always know that her mum was there for her, walking beside her through every step of her life. So ōhākī is the word, and I think it sums up perfectly the reason that we’re all here right now.

The second word is the word that I referred to before, around whakapapa. Again, whakapapa is everything. It can make you furious, it can make you want to dig deeper. I sometimes describe it as a 1000-piece puzzle that you’ve got plenty of pieces missing, and sometimes it’s really hard to find all of those pieces. But for people that have a real knack for genealogy, whakapapa is the thing that binds us and it connects us. Today, this is all about whakapapa and acknowledging the power that it has to bring people together.

The last word that I wanted to mention here was the word aroha, because actually aroha is an all-encompassing word, but it shows that through this process there’s been a lot of aroha that has been shown, given, displayed for us to all be here today. The aroha of, first and foremost, Katherine for her daughter Paige and her ōhākī to correct a wrong. The love of Josh for his mates Kyle and Katherine, and Baby Paige—the love that you have for them has been on display here and is very apparent and we feel it. I want to mention Renee, the love that you had for your mates as well, to be able to give over your body as a surrogate for nine whole months—well, it’s actually longer than nine months, but the love that you have for your friends to be able to step into the breach for them when they were unable to, when they needed a friend that was able to produce a baby for them, you stepped in. So Renee, the aroha and the selflessness with which you and many surrogates around Aotearoa and the world have done, I want to acknowledge you.

I want to acknowledge the aroha that’s being displayed in the House, and may we all continue to feel the aroha for moments like this. Sometimes, our parliamentary House can get a little bit rough and rugged, and it’s nice to know that we can all agree on certain things, especially when it comes to crucial moments like this.

I also want to finish on a note to baby Paige, who is only two, and if she’s anything like my two-year-old, she’ll be just picking up the odd word here and there and will be at the start of her very long journey. But to baby Paige, who will one day, hopefully, look back on all of these speeches and all of the good things that people are saying about her mum and her family and her village, to baby Paige I want to say this to you: a mother’s love is always with her children, and losing a mother is one of the deepest sorrows that a heart can know. But her goodness, her caring, her wisdom, they all live on like a legacy of love that will always be with you. May that love surround you right now and bring you peace. On the many Mother’s Day days that you will face and people will ask how your mother is and where she is, may how you find strength on those days and know that her legacy lives on in you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, I commend this to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’ll just take a short call on this. I think we’ve got overwhelming and fierce agreement right across Parliament. I often to say to people that Parliament is best in select committees, because we knuckle down, we get down to it, and we sort things out—and we so often agree. But, actually, on days like today, when we have wild and fierce agreement across the House, with everyone saying, “Go little Paige—you’re going to get your mum’s name on your birth certificate, your dad’s going to know he’s fulfilled his promise, you are going to be acknowledged as someone who had a mum.” I can’t think of anything much worse than to be born without your mum—it’s just totally unacceptable that we could ever have little Paige to have a birth certificate without her mother being acknowledged.

It is a joyful moment not only for Paige and her family, but I think for MPs who come to Parliament to do their very best; even if we often disagree, we try to do our best and it is wonderful to see that this has come to pass. So, again, a big acknowledgment to the family of Paige Harris, and to her very close friends, and also Renee for the work that she’s done to help allow Paige to have a life. What a wonderful thing. And a big thankyou to all the MPs involved.

I’d also like to acknowledge Ian McKelvie for the work he did in the National Party, bringing this bill to us as an issue, and, obviously, encouraging our support for it. I believe it’s the right thing to do, and I’ve already acknowledged Louisa Wall this afternoon—thank you for making this happen—and a big thankyou to Parliament for being at our very best. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This whole entire afternoon, I’ve been thinking about what else I could say to add to this debate already. And I think, apart from echoing everything that my colleagues have said—all of the facts that they’ve given—I would like to add my own, I guess, well wishes to the family as they begin the next part of this journey as well.

I know that there will always be a hole in everyone’s heart in the shape of Paige’s mother, and I think it’s always got to be something that—she’ll always be dearly missed and it’ll be something that will always bring about pain. But also I hope that this bill will bring a bit of healing, will be the start of that journey to healing, but also to finding a different way of remembering Paige’s mum, as well, through her birth certificate and through all the speeches that we’ve given here this afternoon in the House.

Can I just, please, add my admiration to Josh and Renee for everything they’ve done for the Harris family—and everything, especially, that Josh has done in terms of advocating, of speaking to our select committee. I was extremely humbled to be able to take part in this legislation process through the Governance and Administration Committee. I was very humbled to be able to talk to Josh and ask him questions and hear his stories from his mouth and be able to just, kind of, feel what he has felt as a surrogacy dad in this whole situation. All I have felt is just pure love for his friend and for his friend’s family.

To little Paige, I just wanted to add my well wishes to you. Just know that the whole nation is behind you, and at this moment—as representatives here in Parliament—all our love goes to you. And just know that you’re always loved and supported. If you need anything else, please, we’re always here for you, and we’re always rooting for you. So, on that note, I commend this bill to the House.

Kia ora, Madam Speaker. There has been some great kōrero going around the House tonight. It’s my privilege and my honour to join with colleagues around the House in support of this bill. And, yeah, I’ve got a kōrero for future Paige, as well. Two-year-old Paige probably wants to play with Duplo, but future Paige, I hope, will look back at this time, at this night, at this particular time in the Parliament, where the love of her parents made this Parliament stop, that the love of her parents and her wider whānau made this Parliament actually take a step back and really think about that. So, future Paige, you will, hopefully, go back in the Hansard and you will note that the love that your mum and dad had for you and the love that Josh and Renee and your whānau had for you made us all take a step back, made us all really reprioritise and think about those things that are really, really important: te aroha o te māmā ki te pēpi, te aroha o te pēpi ki te whānau, te whānau ki te hapori whānui [the love of a mother for her baby, the love of the baby for the family, and the family for the wider community]—that love and connection that parents have for their children, that connection that parents have with their whānau, and also that wider village.

I’d also like to support the kōrero around all the hard work that went into this. I haven’t been here that long, and the 34 days seems like a long time, but my short time has shown that that has been a very, very quick time. So I would once again like to commend Louisa Wall for her mahi around the House, getting to talk to all of us, getting us up to speed, showing the massive hypocrisy—if I can put it that way—looking at the way that the legislation was put together without knowing that the fluid nature of family and whānau would change in ways that we should really think about how families have always been different and diverse.

So I have no more to add to that. Heoi anō me pēnei ana te mihi, e mihi ana ki te ōhākī o Katherine, ki tōna pēpi, ki tōna hoa rangatira, ki a Kyle. Nō reira, Paige, i a koe e pānuihia tēnei o ngā kōrero nā te aroha o tō whānau, nā te aroha o te hapori, nā te aroha o tēnei o ngā Pāremata māhau e arataki i tēnei wā ki roto in ngā āhuatanga o te aroha, te manaakitanga. Otirā tēnā koe, otirā tēnā tātou katoa.

[However, my acknowledgment should be this: I acknowledge the dying wish of Katherine, to her baby and to her partner Kyle. So, Paige, when you read this story, because of the love of your family, because of the love of the community, because of the love of this Parliament you will be led at this time in love and care. Therefore I acknowledge you, I acknowledge one and all.]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It’s a real privilege to be able to speak on this particular bill today and I have a couple of reflections to offer before some final words to the beautiful family.

The first I want to offer comes from my own experience and my husband’s experience as we battled our way through infertility ourselves, and our three daughters are the great blessing of our lives. But because we battled our way through infertility, it made me think about the nature of what it is to be a parent, and I think we can separate parents out in many ways. There is a genetic parent, the person from whom the DNA comes, and then there is the gestational parent, the woman who carries a child and the person—usually a man; sometimes someone else—who supports her, who is also a gestational parent as they support, go through a pregnancy. And then there is a social parent, the parent who raises a child.

Usually all those three roles are contained within the one person: a person is a social, a gestational, and a genetic parent and they never really think about dividing those roles up. Why should they? But it turns out in our times, we have learnt through the use of science, we have learnt through love, to see those roles as being something that can be done by a number of people. But our law doesn’t recognise that yet. Our law doesn’t understand the difference between a genetic parent and a gestational parent and a social parent. And, hopefully, in Tāmati Coffey’s bill, we’ll discuss that a little bit more because it does deal with this particular issue. In this particular case, the law simply had not caught up with the particular circumstances that applied for wee Paige’s family—that there was a difference between the gestational parent and the genetic and social parents. Today, we’re helping the law to catch up to that particular problem and to sort it out today. I’m very glad we’ve been able to do that.

The second reflection I want to offer is about the process that had to be gone through here before we could make the law fit this family. Josh, one of the gestational parents, came along to the select committee and he told us about how hard he had worked to get Parliament to take notice of this issue. He’d emailed and emailed and emailed some more and he’d taken to emailing every day and couldn’t get a response. Eventually, he went to the media and thank goodness he did because from then, of course, the issue was picked up by Louisa Wall and we have resolved it very quickly in parliamentary terms. But what it showed to us—for me in particular—was that Josh just didn’t quite know how to approach our Parliament.

I’m really worried that that’s the case for lots of other New Zealanders—that they just don’t know how to approach our Parliament, how to get something done. In fact, it was an experience of mine a few weeks ago when I sat down with a local who just didn’t know how to get going in politics. We live and breathe politics in Parliament every day, so we understand it. But so many of the people we try to serve don’t, and I think that’s a real challenge to us. When I was an MP, I spent a lot of time out at community events and the like, and in part it’s just so that people get to know how to approach our Parliament. Again, I don’t want anyone like Josh to have to go through that again—that they email and email and just don’t know how to do it. So that’s another reflection from this process.

But today, we’ve spent the time of this House, which is quite precious and we normally spend it on big matters like human rights and the health system and budgets and the like—today, we have spent it on in some ways what is quite a small matter. But it is huge for Josh, for Renee, for Katherine, for Kyle, and for Paige, and it has been wonderful for us to stop and take notice of this incredibly important matter for this beautiful family. I’m so glad we could do it for them. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. This is a beautiful time in the House, a beautiful day in the House, and I appreciate all of the support and the comments from my colleagues, and I know the family appreciates it and the work that’s been done. So just my love to the family, and I won’t make them wait any longer. I commend this bill to the House.

Motion agreed to.

Bill read a third time.