Parker DavidORGAN DONORS AND RELATED MATTERS BILLFirst ReadingHon DAVID PARKER (Attorney-General) on behalf of the Minister of Health: I move That the Organ Donors and Related Matters Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Health Committee to consider the bill.The bill amends the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Act 2016 and the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. The bill encourages and supports live organ donation. In the future we will also want to make it easy for New Zealanders to make their deceased organ donation wishes known to family and whānau and to help those involved in those decisions with the best possible support and confidence. There are a number of parts to the bill. Part 1 of the bill amends the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Act 2016 in relation to earnings compensation to be paid to live organ donors while they recuperate from surgery. The bill provides for those who are currently not eligible for compensation under the Act but who clearly fall within its purposes. Currently organ donors are eligible for earnings compensation for up to 12 weeks while they recuperate from donor surgery. Once the donor returns to work they're no longer eligible to receive compensation. Donors also stop being eligible for compensation if they return to work on reduced hours—being less than their usual hours of work. The bill amends the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Act 2016 to allow compensation to be paid to donors who choose to return to work for reduced hours during the recuperation period or return to work and subsequently reduce their hours due to the effect of surgery.Currently for a donor to be eligible for compensation while they recuperate from donor surgery both the donor surgery and the transplant surgery must take place in New Zealand. Further the organ recipient must be eligible to receive services funded under the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000. This means that a donor who donates for example as part of a proposed trans-Tasman kidney exchange programme and where the transplant surgery then takes place in Australia that New Zealand donor is not eligible for compensation. The bill then amends and futureproofs the compensation for live organ donors by amending the principal Act to provide for compensation to be paid to donors of organs if the donor surgery is undertaken as part of any future approved overseas organ exchange programme. Part 2 of the bill amends the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 to enable the establishment of a national organ donation agency which in future will provide oversight and clinical governance of the organ donation and transplantation system. The national strategy for increasing deceased organ donation and transplantation sets out a number of initiatives to help New Zealand increase our organ donation and transplantation rates from deceased organ donors. The national agency could play a role in raising the profile of organ donation and by providing expert advice and information to the sector to the Government to the media and to the public. It will also support effective clinical governance and work in the health sector to coordinate donation and transplantation processes. To enable this the bill amends the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Act 2000 to provide for a broadening of the functions of the New Zealand Blood Service which will then allow it to serve in this national leadership role. On behalf of the Minister of Health I commend this bill to the House.