Rich Katherine: Veterinarians Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
Rich Katherine: Veterinarians Bill — Second Reading In Committee Third Reading 
[Volume:628;Page:941] 
KATHERINE RICH (National) 
: 
 After that contribution I think it is important to note that it does not matter whether the issue is big or small—the National Party will take the issue seriously and I think that pet owners and veterinarians up and down the country will be concerned to hear the comments made by Dr Michael Cullen that he does not think that their concerns are important enough to warrant a serious and thorough debate. 
I turn my attention to Part 4 which is about the make-up of the Veterinary Council. Once again I turn my attention to the complaints assessment committee. I see the new member Shane Jones heckling away there. The point I would like to make is that the complaints assessment committee has greater powers than the committee that he currently chairs. I will recap for those who were not here earlier. This bill allows a complaints assessment committee by written notice to demand anybody it wants to come before it and to demand any information it wants on any complaint. It can demand anything whatever that thing might be to be brought to it. Basically it has stronger powers than a select committee of this House. 
I know that that member Shane Jones just wishes he had those powers right now as he oversees the TVNZ inquiry where impotently the Finance and Expenditure Committee invited Bill Ralston to come along to the select committee and he declined; invited Susan Wood to come along but she declined; and invited Paul Holmes to come along to the committee but he declined. Had Mr Jones been the chair of a Veterinary Council’s complaints assessment committee he would have had a better chance of getting all those TVNZ staff members to come along and talk about issues of import to him. 
So we have a committee that must have two or more people. How we can have a committee with just two people on it I do not know. It is more of a couple than a committee. They sit and deal with complaints that might be very important but might be less significant than some of the issues that the Finance and Expenditure Committee currently inquires about here in Parliament. 
One of the things that do concern me about this part is clause 74(5) which states: “A resolution of a complaints assessment committee is passed if a majority of votes are cast for it.” Well I have a bit of a problem with that provision because each committee has only three people on it. That is my reading of clause 74(2) which states that each committee has two vets and one layperson. Well in the event that there is a complaint that is contentious the vets can gang up on the layperson and they need to have only a majority of one for that complaints assessment resolution to be passed. 
That does not seem very fair. That does not seem to be due process. Surely if significant complaints are brought before the complaints assessment committee—for example the Bianca incident which my colleague David Carter mentioned earlier—and the debate is contentious and the members of the committee do not agree they need to have only a majority of one on a committee of three for the resolution to be passed. I think that as the complaints assessment committee may deal with some quite contentious issues that is not good enough. The complaints committee obviously needs to have more people on it and it needs to have a greater balance. Otherwise we will always be in a position of the vets ganging up on the layperson or two people ganging up on one. I really think the resolutions need to be passed by consensus given that the committee is so very very small. 
We have talked about the composition of the council and that clause has been renamed the “Hercus clause” by my colleague David Carter. I wonder why the Minister needs to appoint anybody on to a council that is basically going to oversee veterinarians. Why do we need to have any political influence at all? Why can we not trust veterinarians to put people on to their board whom they trust and vote for?