Sharma GauravDr GAURAV SHARMA (Labour—Hamilton West): Mr Speaker first of all I want to congratulate you on being appointed as the Deputy Speaker. I rise today as the third qualified medical doctor on this side of the House to speak on the Food (Continuation of Dietary Supplements Regulations) Amendment Bill.Jamie Strange: And I've got an appointment booked in after this!Dr GAURAV SHARMA: That's right! I want to acknowledge the two people who have spoken before me who are qualified to speak on health—first is the Minister Ayesha Verrall who's done a really good job on this bill; and second is Dr Liz Craig who is the chair of the Health Committee.The demand for health and wellness products in New Zealand and overseas is quite high—trust me when I say that. As someone who's worked as a general practitioner in the community nobody can say this with more confidence than I can. Before I move forward I want to acknowledge David Bennett who was just talking about clowns. Jamie and I were just referring back to the last time we saw you in Hamilton where we were all dressed up as clowns at the Christmas parade.Going back to the point dietary supplements are products that provide specific nutrients or substances that supplement the diet usually in the form of capsules tablets liquids or powder. Many of us here in New Zealand will have used at least one of these products—one of the members just talked about using a blue pill on the blue side—Kieran McAnulty: Ha ha!Dr GAURAV SHARMA: —somebody get the joke?—products which include vitamin and mineral supplements omega 3 fish oil and glucosamine tablets. Normally the regulations that govern the composition and labelling of dietary supplements include some specific risk-mitigating measures such as maximum daily doses for specific vitamins and minerals and prohibiting misleading statements and therapeutic claims. Without the proposed amendment the regulation will expire on 1 March 2021. As a result dietary supplements will then be regulated by general laws which are applied to food. These general laws do not address the specific health risks associated with dietary supplements. One likely impact would be an increase in the risk of unsafe and unsuitable dietary products in the market but also a large proportion of dietary supplements sold at present would likely be non-compliant with the general food laws and would not be allowed to be sold. This impacts a lot of businesses and consumers.I reflect back on my time working as a doctor and I was talking about glucosamine recently. For some of my patients who I have had the chance of looking after they really swear by products like glucosamine. It helps their mobility; it helps their joint pain. Can you imagine if one of these people didn't get their medication for a day or a week or a month because we didn't pass this bill? The bill proposes to extend the expiry date of the current dietary supplement regulations of 1985 by five years. The bill will achieve this by amending the two sections of the Food Act 2014 that set an expiry date of the regulation. The expiry date in both sections will be amended from 1 March 2021 to March 2026. Through regulation oversight we can then provide confidence and assurance to consumers that these products are safe and do what they say they do.It is estimated that in New Zealand the natural products industry is worth $2.3 billion on last count in 2019 which is a growth of 64 percent. By extending these regulations we will secure the ongoing growth and sustainability of the industry and make sure that our patients have some sort of guarantee that they will continue to receive the medications that help to make a positive difference in their lives. It also makes sure that businesses have time to comply with any further changes in the law—whenever they may be. At the moment the laws that are present are working really well. One of the members pointed out that in the last 20 years there has been a call for regulation change. Well I just want to mention that in the last 20 years there has been a different Government as well which hasn't really done much about it. So it can't all be just somebody in the last three years changing it.So I would like to say that the bill that's been proposed by Minister Verrall which is being supported by everybody in this House should go ahead. Thank you.