Bishop ChrisCOMPENSATION FOR LIVE ORGAN DONORS BILLThird ReadingCHRIS BISHOP (National): I move That the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Bill be now read a third time. Let me start my speech by explaining how I became interested in issues around organ donation in New Zealand. In July 2014 I was the new National Party candidate for Hutt South—very excited about life—and I held a public meeting at Boulcott's Farm Heritage Golf Club with the then Minister of Education the Hon Hekia Parata and the then Minister of Health as well the Hon Tony Ryall. I remember the evening quite distinctly because one of the very first questions was from a woman—who is here watching this afternoon—called Sharon van der Gulik. Sharon was 68. She had been living with renal failure for more than 2 years. She could barely walk and she needed 15 hours of dialysis a week. In fact she could barely make it up the stairs at the golf club. She was at one point given just 2 weeks to live and the dialysis had become so awful that she said she could not think of continuing with treatment past the age of 70. By far her best option was a live kidney transplant and she explained to the meeting that only a few weeks earlier her brave 27-year-old grandson Matt had donated a kidney to her. But Sharon told us all at the meeting about how tough it was for Matt. He was getting only $206.21 per week from Work and Income which did not cover half of his mortgage and it had been difficult convincing Work and Income that Matt was entitled to the money. In fact Sharon herself had to help keep Matt financially afloat. Sharon said to the meeting Surely there has got to be a better way." and it was very hard to argue with that. I remember sitting there at the meeting and remembering that Michael Woodhouse had had a member's bill about this exact issue kicking around for a while. I went and talked to Sharon at the end of the meeting and I said to her "Look if I'm privileged enough to be elected to Parliament at the 2014 election I would be very interested in taking this issue on." and of course I was elected—very privileged to be elected—as a list MP based in the Hutt Valley. I was fortunate enough to inherit the bill from Dr Cam Calder one of our former colleagues who had taken it over from Michael Woodhouse when he became a Minister. Then I was very fortunate of course to have the bill drawn from the parliamentary member's bill biscuit tin quite soon after being elected. So I want to say thank you to Michael and to Cam for their custodianship of this bill in the past. I know they are both very pleased that it will pass its third reading this afternoon. I also want to say thank you to the people whom I have talked to over the last 18 months in our hospitals in our health agencies and in our communities about this bill. There are many people out there in New Zealand who are passionate about increasing our organ donation rates and I know that this is a big day for them. There are two main purposes to this bill. The first is to more fairly compensate altruistic New Zealanders who through the goodness of their hearts choose to donate an organ to a friend a loved one or even a stranger. It needs to be said clearly for the House that live organ donors are national heroes. The current compensation regime amounts to the equivalent of the sickness benefit and it inadequately recognises and supports the hardship that these individuals face when they make the choice to give up an organ in order to save a life. The second purpose of the bill is to reduce the financial barriers to becoming a live organ donor. We know that one significant barrier to people becoming a live organ donor is the financial hardship that donors suffer through lost wages and other associated costs of recovery. More than 500 New Zealanders are waiting for an organ transplant and approximately 450 of these people are waiting for a kidney transplant. People waiting for a heart lung or liver may die without a successful transplant while those waiting for a kidney transplant lead lives restricted by long-term dialysis treatment. So what this bill does is establish a legislative architecture around a compensation regime for live organ donors. The House will be aware that in its original form the bill set compensation for lost earnings at 80 percent of forgone income during recuperation. This is in line with ACC. The Health Committee recommended that compensation should instead be set at 100 percent of lost income and the House has adopted that recommendation which I am very pleased to see. The bill adopts a principle of cost neutrality for live organ donors. So in other words organ donors should be neither financially advantaged nor financially disadvantaged from their decision to donate. This is exactly the situation in the United Kingdom. The amount of compensation payable is uncapped in a monetary sense but it is available only for up to 12 weeks. Discretion will also exist for compensation to be paid to a donor before surgery in some circumstances not just after surgery. The bill has been significantly strengthened by the Health Committee and I want to thank its members for their hard work on the bill led by my colleague and friend Simon O'Connor. I also want to say thank you to Scott Simpson on the Health Committee as well for swapping out with me when the Finance and Expenditure Committee was meeting so that I could attend many of the meetings and make a contribution to the passage of the bill through the committee. The Health Committee heard many stories about the difficulties that claimants have when obtaining financial support through the Ministry of Social Development—in fact I was in my office talking to Matt about this just now. There are currently very few claims for live organ donor assistance through the Ministry of Social Development and the front-line staff are often unaware that the provision even exists. The bill therefore shifts responsibility from the Ministry of Social Development to the Director-General of Health and I know that this change will be welcomed by many people who have either donated in the past or who are thinking about donating in the future. It is also worth noting that the bill is futureproofed. There is a provision in the bill that will allow by Order in Council a regulation declaring a type of human organ to be a qualifying organ. This means that other types of potentially suitable live donor transplants that are medically possible and that are carried out in other countries such as small bowel pancreas and lobular lung transplants could be eligible in the future. In conclusion I believe this bill will make a difference. At the moment live organ donors are effectively penalised for their altruism. This bill ends that unfairness. The bill removes a large barrier to organ donation thus making it more likely that people will donate. As Agnes van Diepen submitted to the committee: "A 100% contribution … will go a long way towards tipping the balance between donating and not donating." That is what this bill is all about—tipping that balance in favour of donating rather than in favour of not donating. Or to put it in the words of Elsie Howarth who donated a kidney to her father: "[At the moment] you're being penalised for working and then doing this for someone. If you want people to step up and donate make it worth their while. Don't make it so hard to do something for somebody else." Although this is not the main aim of the bill the bill will save taxpayers money. Research at the University of Canterbury clearly shows that there are large fiscal gains for taxpayers from increased support for organ donors. In conclusion let me say that a caring society recognises sacrifice. A compassionate society supports those in need. This bill does both those things and I therefore commend it to the House."