Alexander Marc: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Alexander Marc: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 16 June 2004. Volume:618;Page:13625. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
1. MARC ALEXANDER (United Future) 
 to the  
Minister of Health 
: Does she intend to provide for the registration and labelling of all beauty products for the presence of any of the 20000 chemicals and other substances that are used in such products as called for by Sue Kedgley following Reading University’s research into parabens and what would such a regime cost? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Associate Minister of Health) 
 on behalf of the 
 Minister of Health 
: The Government has no plans to put in such a regime. Chemicals in cosmetics have already been approved through the Environmental Risk Management Authority. New Zealand already has legislation to ensure the safety of ingredients contained in cosmetics. It is legislation dear to the heart of the Green Party—namely the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Act. 
Marc Alexander 
: Does the Minister think that such an enormous cost could be justified if there is one on the basis of a survey that based its results on a sample size of 20 and did not include an analysis of non-cancerous tissue for a comparison or is that the kind of thing that will pass for scientific proof if the Cabinet table is ever adorned by a few potted Greens? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: As Associate Minister of Health and speaking on behalf of the Minister of Health my advice to those who want to have a good complexion is that they do not need either unregulated herbal remedy potions or so-called beauty products. They just should not take drugs do regular exercise and eat their greens. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What is the estimated comparative risk associated with regular lipstick use as opposed to using dietary supplements such as bitter orange? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I am advised that clinical experts are not aware of any reported ill effects other than aesthetic from using lipstick whereas side effects reported from the use of bitter orange include high blood pressure and increased risk of health arrhythmias heart attacks and strokes. I find it somewhat bizarre therefore that the Green Party seems to be asking for tighter regulation on lipstick but it is somehow against regulation of herbal remedies and at the same time is in favour of decriminalising cannabis. 
Rt Hon Winston Peters 
: Is the Minister concerned that if the registration and labelling of the chemical components of beauty products does not go ahead then some of the more conceited members of this House may be at greater risk of chemical contamination or unsightliness? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The Minister may comment but only in general terms. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I would hate to comment on any unsightliness of any member of this House but I cannot say that I am entirely aware of what the member has asked. 
Hon Matt Robson 
: Has the Minister received any reports of the potential benefits arising from the establishment of a joint therapeutic agency between New Zealand and Australia? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Yes only last week while visiting Nelson the management of Alaron Products—a firm that manufactures a high-quality range of dietary supplements from natural raw materials—urged me as a Minister in the Labour-Progressive Government to proceed with the establishment of a joint trans-Tasman agency to regulate therapeutic products as soon as was possible. Alaron Products see a number of potential benefits flowing from such a regulatory agency including a reduction in compliance costs increased capacity to meet a new wave of innovative products and ensuring customers have early access to high-quality new products entering the market. 
Sue Kedgley 
: Is the Minister aware that I was calling for a simple electronic system of registration along exactly the same lines that the Green Party is proposing for dietary supplements and why would he seek to ridicule a proposal to introduce cosmetic regulations and mandatory labelling requirements that other countries like Australia the USA and the European Union already have? 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I think it is because a recent study carried out in Australia indicates that a number of adverse events are associated with herbal medicines. The recorded use of nutritional substances and homeopathic medicines in Australia is substantial as it is here of course. The types of events that are negative in terms of their use are not trivial and this most recent study indicates precisely that. 
Larry Baldock 
: Does the Minister think that health issues of this type which are often raised by Sue Kedgley and her ilk perform a useful public service or does the Minister of Health see them as dangerous scaremongering in the pursuit of an increasingly narrow political agenda? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: That is asking for a matter of opinion. The Minister will be careful. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: Parliament is a robust arena and members individually and collectively as parties have the right to raise issues that they deem to be important. I think it is equally important that those who advise Governments from a specific and specialist point of view have their viewpoints and that the information they give to the Government is advised to members and to the general public. Members of the public then have to make up their own minds and I am sure they will. 
Larry Baldock 
: In the role of Minister of Health is the Minister of the opinion that parabens cause more or less of a concern for public health than dihydrogen monoxide a potentially deadly substance used in nuclear reactors that the member for the Greens also tried to have banned until discovering that its more common name was water? 
Jeanette Fitzsimons 
: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. You really cannot allow questions that make a statement like that that have no basis whatsoever in fact. 
Mr SPEAKER 
: I think that the question was getting wide of the responsibility of the particular Minister and I will not allow it. 
Marc Alexander 
: When Auckland University Senior Lecturer in Toxicology Dr Malcolm Tingle said that more research is needed and that it would be “a difficult nut to crack” does the Minister think he was referring to the scientific findings that he believes are almost certainly blown out of proportion or to the fathoming of the policy processes of the Green Party? 
Mr SPEAKER 
: The first part of the question can be answered. 
Hon JIM ANDERTON 
: I think that all members of this House and the public of New Zealand at large would always welcome research that defines and identifies specific scientific evaluation. I would always welcome that sort of research and the Government puts an awful lot of money into it. 
Sue Kedgley 
: I would like first of all to table the Reading study which showed that parabens can accumulate intact in the breast tissue of the body and mimic oestrogen. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Sue Kedgley 
: I would like to table the mandatory cosmetic labelling regulations of the American Food and Drug Administration. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House. 
Sue Kedgley 
: I would like to table something that outlines the mandatory cosmetic regulations and labelling regulations of Australia. 
Document by leave laid on the Table of the House.