English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15907] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 The importance of this bill to the House is perhaps underestimated. I do not share the view of the ACT party that the bill is to do with the welfare system. It is to do with much more complex issues than that in many ways. The reason why this is important is that under this structure as set out in Part 1 it is really the only time—and could be the only time for many years actually—that Parliament has an opportunity to discuss what it regards as the bottom lines that will apply to human-assisted reproductive technology. That is of some concern to me. 
Part 1 sets out the objectives of the bill—the robust and flexible framework. One word that does not appear anywhere in there is “accountable”. We have the mechanism of the advisory committees and ethics committees that are advisory to the Minister but I just want to reflect on a number of years spent in this Parliament trying to get at such committees. In fact members may be interested to know that it is fairly difficult for the Minister to get at such committees. 
When I was Minister of Health there was a committee of some name with a similar function—I cannot recall the name—making decisions that in my view were ground-breaking in the science that was put to them. As the Minister who appointed the advisory committee I was greatly anxious about what would happen if the committee made decisions that I believed were wrong—were against the public interest and outside the scope of what Parliament would accept. As it turned out in those cases the advisory committee made decisions that I believed were right. In my view they made the correct call consistent with the public interest. 
But there is no guarantee of that and this is the only chance that I as a member of Parliament will have to set the bottom lines that those committees have to act within—which puts an unfortunate burden on the list of banned procedures. Quite frankly I would like the list to be an awful lot longer than it is. Unless that is the case I will not get the chance to come back. 
I know that the members of an advisory committee will not have to face the same scrutiny as a ministry. I know that any ministerial interference with that process will be regarded as a breach of good faith because that is what was threatened when I sought advice about what role I might take as Minister of Health in those decisions. 
So that is where I believe there is something missing from Part 1—the clarity of the accountability mechanism. The purposes and the principles in the bill are sufficiently general that committees could be able—I am not saying they will be able—to make decisions that from a public policy point of view a future Parliament would like to challenge. There is no direct or effective way of doing that. It may require Parliament to bring in legislation at some urgency. 
Again the bill forces that process. It forces a confrontational process with Parliament because Parliament is not able to exercise the kind of ongoing accountability and public policy guidance that those committees might need. So I think that that is a concern. 
I have also been concerned on looking through the principles about the way the Health Committee has downgraded the paramountcy principle in respect of the welfare of children. This bill is not about children only. I have almost more concern now about the alleged therapeutic benefits of a lot of this research.