Groser Tim: Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill — First Reading 
Groser Tim: Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:636;Page:7073] 
TIM GROSER (National) 
: 
 In the light of what has already been said I think it is of some importance to work out what the difference of view about this bill is about or is not about. It is not about whether we need appropriate regulatory frameworks in place for pharmaceuticals for complementary medicines and for the other products covered by this bill. I would be astonished if there were a single member in this House who would argue that we should have an unregulated market and that we do not need appropriate regulations. It is not about that. This debate is about the level that is appropriate to fix the scale of the problem. 
Nor is this debate about closer economic relations although we have just heard a great deal along that theme from one of the Ministers. It was a National Government that initiated the closer economic relations negotiation in 1979. It was a National Government that oversaw the negotiation right throughout that process which I spent 7 years of my life on. It was a National Government that put in the 1988 review clause precisely because the Government of the day foresaw the need to continue to allow the closer economic relationship to mature to keep it up to date and to respond to the needs of the day. So it is not about who is committed to closer economic relations and who is not. The next National Government will be as committed as any Government has ever been to continuing the tradition of establishing with Australia the right type of policy frameworks to carry our two countries forward in the age of globalisation. That is not what the difference of view is about. 
The difference of view is essentially about the level of regulation required to fix a problem. It is also about how we manage—or in this particular case I would have to say mismanage—an international negotiation and the democratic processes around that negotiation. Let me tell members how we manage a negotiation properly by referring right back to the founding document for closer economic relations. What happened in that case was the most intimate connections and involvement between a group of Ministers and a group of officials on both sides of the Tasman. We established a joint working party on an inter-agency basis. Hardly a week went by without officials checking not only with their individual vote Ministers but also collectively with what was then the driving political force of the Government of the day—the Cabinet economic committee. This process of interaction between the community the political leaders chosen through the democratic process and the officials responsible for the negotiation gave us under very delicate circumstances a very workable framework. That is how one manages responsibly an international negotiation. 
What I think we have here is a perfect reflection of a sickness that is not just in the health sector but in the State sector in particular. It reflects a bureaucratic mindset a sledgehammer to crack the proverbial nut and it comes from leaving the matter over to officials and expecting that a few reports to the vote Ministers is sufficient to achieve some liaison between the people who are affected by this and the actual end product of this negotiation. 
 What we know is the following: we have in our health sector officials who are wonderful public servants and who are dedicated to the public interest. We applaud them we will always need them and we admire their commitment. But if we step back from that unquestionably fair and true assessment of the state of our health bureaucracy and look at what has happened since the year 2000 in order to understand how it is possible that we could have negotiated this enormous bureaucratic monster we just have to consider the following facts. First of all since 2000 although the number of general practitioners per 100000 New Zealanders has declined from 87 to 73 the number of managers—and I think I am using an exceptionally polite term by using that word—has increased by a fraction under 25 percent. Expenditure on their salaries has increased by 34 percent. Their total salary bill is half a billion dollars. We could build a stadium for that—not necessarily on the waterfront but possibly somewhere sensible elsewhere in New Zealand. What benefits New Zealand derives from this downgrading of the core services and the upgrading of the bureaucratic element is a very wide subject and beyond the compass of this particular bill but it is precisely that tendency that has produced the massive document here with us today. 
In case people do not understand exactly the culture that this bill comes from—the “managerialism gone mad” culture—I will quote again in case people missed it at the time what the retiring chief executive officer of the Waitemata District Health Board said on precisely the cultural problem this bill represents. Dr Crombie stated: “The amount of compliance of auditing and monitoring is gobsmacking really. It has become an industry in itself. What we are doing is demonstrating that it should be safe by showing the paperwork”—like this bill—“whereas we should be putting more of our energy into changing some of the systems.” It is exactly this mindset that has produced this bill. There are only two possibilities. One possibility is that the Ministers were deeply involved—and this bill does indeed reflect their own personal predilections and approach to policy formulation and negotiation. The other possibility is that it was done with a very light regime over the top of officials and that this was presented as a fait accompli at the end of the process. 
Steve Chadwick 
: What a strange speech. 
TIM GROSER 
: I just heard the point made about Australian officials. I have spent years working with Australian officials and with the exception of the Australian Treasury and some sections of the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade I can tell members that their mindset and regulatory frameworks are if anything more bureaucratic than the typical default option of most New Zealand public sector workers. If people do not believe me they should get hold of any publication issued by the Australian Productivity Commission and comb through its reports. There they will find abundant evidence of why our negotiators should have gone in on an inter-agency basis with their eyes wide open as to what would happen in this negotiation and of why Ministers should have been involved intimately and continually throughout the negotiation process. 
We have here a mixture of legislation that unquestionably does some useful things—let us be clear about that. But on the other hand it contains a whole lot of unnecessary overlay of sectors— 
Darren Hughes 
: Like what? 
TIM GROSER 
: —well like the complementary medicines sector if members really want to know—that is simply not required to fix the problem. Nobody has explained to the New Zealand public precisely what the problem is in the complementary medicines sector that this bill is intended to fix. What is the dimension of the problem that requires a one-size-fits-all heavy-handed approach to regulation? I personally am not a great user of natural medicines. I am rather more inclined to be a folklore sceptic I will use the phrase. 
Darren Hughes 
: Like John Key on climate change—don’t worry; you’ll change. 
TIM GROSER 
: I was deliberately doing that to set the member up. I prefer to rely on the European Enlightenment and the science that it produced. But I do recognise that those are my views. Health is a very very personal matter. We know that increasing numbers of New Zealanders hold different views from mine and we know that many of those people will deeply resent the vastly increased costs that this will impose on that particular sector once the subsidy regime has come and gone. 
I was simply astonished by the way when I heard the political fix. This is from a Government that wants to talk the talk on all occasions about reducing compliance costs and speeding up regulatory frameworks but on every occasion when we come down to the wire we find that Government members cannot walk the walk. When I found out that the fix to get this legislation through the House was a subsidy to offset the cost of implementing the scheme I simply refused at first to believe it but this is the approach we are landed with. 
I would like to see the following: if this bill is indeed enacted into legislation—which remains to be seen—as it passes through Parliament and the select committee process the National Party will be looking for signs that we can put down as a marker for the future when we can address all the cost compliance issues that unfortunately we are certain this legislation will involve.