Chadwick Steve: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
Chadwick Steve: Financial Review Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:637;Page:7926] 
STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I wish to follow on from the previous speaker Sue Kedgley who was talking about the establishment of this trans-Tasman therapeutic agency and about how incorrect and fallacious some information tabled in the House can be. That member is no longer on the Government Administration Committee which is now looking at an entirely new agency. I chaired the Health Committee that first considered the inquiry into a proposed trans-Tasman regulatory agency and the matter was of genuine concern to the New Zealand public. We produced a report and made recommendations to the Government and those recommendations were taken into account. Then we looked at the agency itself which was to be established under a treaty. Several of the issues raised about the treaty we considered which were concerns of the Health Committee have been taken into account in respect of the subordinate legislation that the Government Administration Committee is now considering. How strange it is that the previous speaker and I who have both been on the select committee see the world through entirely different glasses. 
Proposals in respect of this agency were initiated by the previous National Government when Bill English was the Minister of Health. I wonder what sort of discussion Mr English and Mr Key are having now as co-leaders of the National Party. I wonder what sort of discussion John Howard who came to New Zealand had with Mr Key about listening to Mr English who first proposed the trans-Tasman agency. How divided the Opposition is and what a lack of foresight its members are showing in Opposition. 
The Opposition has an intransigent view in respect of this entirely new proposed trans-Tasman agency. It will not be Food Standards Australia New Zealand as the member Sue Kedgley seems to believe. It will not be the Therapeutic Goods Administration that we know now. It will be a new agency set up—quite correctly—by law in Australia but with subordinate law in New Zealand. The so-called bureaucrats that that member runs down have been working on the very issues that the Health Committee raised in terms of our concerns about issues of sovereignty issues about the not unfettered powers of the managing director and issues about the relationship with the new board that is yet to be established. All of those issues are now considered in the legislation before this committee. 
That member went with me to Australia where we looked at the Therapeutic Goods Administration. Every member of the Health Committee at the time agreed that we did need a new regulatory regime and that in no way did Medsafe have the capacity to measure the harm the risks and the public safety issues that were before us with the ever-growing market of complementary health-care products in New Zealand. We all agree that it is a great market. It is a great opportunity for New Zealand. We are leaders in the development of many of these remedies but it is absolutely critical where there are health claims about any remedies that there is a regulator to check out whether those health claims are scientifically robust. No one argues about that. 
The other issue here is the one I heard in the House today. Taito Phillip Field is quite concerned—and obviously someone from the Opposition has already got that member on his own—about the role of rongoa Pacific Island natural therapies and new players that may want to come into the market and he asked about whether we would be constraining the market. All of us are very concerned about issues of rongoa and they will be excluded from this new agency. So it is important that we brief those members in their confusion— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Why? 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: Because they do not make health claims. It is an old custom and practice of Maori to go out and collect— 
Gerry Brownlee 
: Rubbish! Of course they do. 
STEVE CHADWICK 
: No they do not. They do not market those products commercially. That member of the Opposition is clearly confused. 
I turn to some of the other claims we are hearing about the cost for new product registration. For goodness’ sake if we have a joint regulator now it will be the envy of the European Union. Its representatives have been over to look at this proposed new agency. They are impressed that new market entrants can come in from Singapore and Asia. This will be an ASEAN issue that will really strengthen us as a regulator internationally. I am confident that that legislation will be passed by this House. 
Report noted.