Reti Shane: Radiation Safety Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeReti Shane: Radiation Safety Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7648. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr SHANE RETI (National—Whangarei): It is a pleasure to speak to the Radiation Safety Bill which provides a modern framework to the safe use of ionising radiation. We have heard that ionising radiation is used most frequently in the health space and that sits in the speciality of nuclear medicine. It is used most frequently for cancer treatments. When we use radioactive material in medicine there are generally two pathways that we apply. There is a diagnostic pathway and a therapeutic pathway.Diagnostically what we often do is attach a radioactive isotope to a molecule and look where it goes. We are primarily looking for cancers or over activity because cancers metabolise. They take in nutrients twice as fast—sometimes faster—than other tissue and they metabolise it and catabolise it as well. So we attach a radioactive isotype and for people who have thyroid disorders we attach a radioactive isotype to iodide. You take it as a pill and the radioactive material goes into the thyroid gland and accumulates in places that are overactive.We also very commonly do it with what are called PET scanners—positron emission tomography—and that is when you think there is a cancer in the body but you just do not know where it is. That is because in the early stages of cancer it can actually be too small to see with a CT scan or magnetic resonance imaging but the cancer is there and it is growing fast and what it is doing is it is eating nutrients twice as fast. Well one of those nutrients is glucose so what we do with a PET scan is we put a radioactive isotope on to the glucose the patient drinks it and 45 minutes later we do a CAT scan. Over those 45 minutes the cancer in the body—if there is a cancer—has taken up the radioactive glucose and when you scan for it you see what is called a hot spot on a film. It is a very important part of diagnostics for cancer and we are really focused on cancer.We also use radioactive material in nuclear medicine therapeutically. That is once we have made a diagnosis once we have found a cancer we can use radioactive material to kill that cancer—to obliterate it if you like. That would be very common of course for breast cancer also for cervical cancer and also for prostate cancer. So it is a very important part. This bill really solidifies and provides a really robust framework around the use of radioactive material in nuclear medicine and in medicine generally.This bill is also a very important step in advancing our international responsibilities. Some of the conventions that this will help us deploy towards include the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. This comes under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency and it is a convention that talks about the safe use storage and transport of nuclear materials and the facilities that are involved. So this bill assists further progress towards that implementation. The second major convention that this bill assists is the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism. This is under the United Nations. New Zealand signed this in 2005 and this has a broader application than the previous convention. It is more applied to a definition of materials and facilities and it covers both military and peaceful applications. It talks to the criminalisation of planning threatening or carrying out acts of nuclear terrorism and it also requires international cooperation.So this bill assists further progress towards implementation. On that subject I would like to conclude with what the Minister led off with in the introductory speech to the first reading and that is to reassure people and reiterate the comments around nuclear materials in New Zealand. He commented that this bill does not in any way alter the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act the Nuclear-Test-Ban Act or the Atomic Energy Act. These are well-established laws. They deal with nuclear weapons and atomic energy. These matters are outside the scope of this bill and this bill has been drafted to ensure expressly that there is no doubt that these Acts are not offended. So on that note I would like to commend this bill to the House.Bill read a second time.