Mr. David Seymour:

I will go first in replying to the honourable gentleman. I did not catch his name. I do not know if he is a very good politician but I heard all the arguments that he has just made many times, and the people who used to make them do not make them any more because they have just been discredited by the facts. Yes, it is true that the Bill in New Zealand has only been in place for two years. We do not claim anything different but we do make it clear that none of the concerns that we heard beforehand have come to pass.

Second, on the Senator's question about my will to expand the Bill, the Bill that I introduced in 2015 did not have a restriction where a person had to have a prognosis of six months, or a grievous and irremediable medical condition.

That would mean that a person who had, for example, motor neurone disease or somebody who had another neurodegenerative disease like Huntington's, who possibly was not likely to die within six months, would be eligible for assisted dying. During the legislative process, I compromised and introduced the six-month restriction but that was a political compromise. I stand by my original version of the Bill and hope that in some point in New Zealand's future it will be restored. The slippery slope argument comes out repeatedly but this is not an example of that, nor are there any good examples-----