McLellan TraceyDr TRACEY McLELLAN (Labour—Banks Peninsula): Thank you Madam Speaker. Talofa lava. It is a pleasure tonight to speak in support also of this bill at its second reading the Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill.I'd like to start by acknowledging the Minister the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall not only for her work but also for the fact that she prioritised this amendment bill. Listening to the Minister's contribution earlier reminds us—on this side of the House in Government—we are committed to improving outcomes for all New Zealanders and this bill is yet another example of us doing that. I'm very pleased also to see colleagues on the other side of the Chamber also supporting this bill and the potential that it has to improve outcomes for women and for New Zealanders.What this bill does is it essentially seeks to bring the National Cervical Screening Programme (NCSP) into the 21st century progressing it from an outdated bureaucratic and laborious process into something that's much safer and a much more efficient sort of system. It's topical I think that we're debating this bill following the recent Budget 2021—a fabulous Budget which included amongst many other things up to $53 million for the design and implementation of the new test that the Minister outlined earlier on the new test for HPV to replace the current smear test. I think it's fair to say that there's no doubt this new test will save lives particularly wāhine Māori lives. So it is fantastic to stand here tonight and support a bill that will firstly facilitate the new test; and secondly strengthen the existing process in parallel—which currently as noted by several of my colleagues requires health workers to receive crucial screening history information via fax following an indirect authorisation process which is also cumbersome. So importantly this bill enables the development of a register that provides secure direct access to really valuable screening information. However having said that detail is also important as is expert input so I'd like to also acknowledge the work done at the select committee stage—the previous Health Committee—where it should be noted most submitters strongly supported the bill the gist of which could probably be summed up by the submission by the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners when they said and I quote The College supports this bill and views it as a significant improvement over the current situation where a fax is sent to the general practitioner. We consider the bill will result in better communication and outcomes for patients."Having said that I think it's also important to note that some people also raised privacy concerns and these concerns I think should be alleviated both by what the Privacy Commissioner John Edwards subsequently submitted and also the Minister's Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) which she outlined. So the Privacy Commissioner stated "I have no outstanding privacy concerns with the bill as introduced" adding that although "Providing more people with access to the register comes with some increased privacy risk … I am satisfied the bill provides for this risk to be mitigated through appropriate operational controls—access to the register will be controlled by the NCSP manager and the Ministry of Health has advised the activity will be auditable." So in addition to that as I said the Minister also introduced an SOP which directly assesses concerns regarding privacy for Māori participants and should allay any of those outstanding concerns from the bill as was introduced. So in summary I think we are making important changes to the NCSP system while maintaining the appropriate safeguards so that women in New Zealand Aotearoa trust the system and actually feel safe getting what could be a lifesaving test. We know that cervical cancer as a couple of my colleagues have already pointed out develops slowly and is both preventable and treatable. The latter is of course highly dependent on early detection. We must do everything within our power to assist those health workers responsible for the screening process. By improving the programme to expand information accessibility and to make the system more efficient we go a long way toward facilitating prevention and early detection in a timely intervention. The bill may seem technical in nature but it is actually about decreasing bureaucracy retaining trust in the health system and ultimately improving those outcomes and saving lives. So I don't want to hold up the progress of this bill any further except to say that it is an important contribution. With that said I have no hesitation to commend this bill to the House. Thank you."