King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
King Annette: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8180] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health) 
: 
 I have been waiting for Part 9 of this bill for a long long time. I will begin by thanking Rodney Hide for his honesty and for having the courage to put forward an amendment that he believes in and which his party stands for. He was prepared to stand up in this Committee and support that amendment. 
I say to Mr Hide that the comments he quoted from me were absolutely correct. I firmly believe them. I would have very much liked to deregulate pharmacy ownership. I tried very hard to deregulate pharmacy ownership before the last election. I went along to the Pharmacy Guild’s conference before the election and said that I was very keen to deregulate pharmacies. I did not think that one needed to own a pharmacy in order to be a good pharmacist; I thought that one needed to be competent with the skills to be a pharmacist. I said that I would like to deregulate pharmacies and I was followed by one Bill English. When Bill English spoke at the Pharmacy Guild’s conference he said National did not support deregulation. He said that there was a safety issue in doing that and that National opposed deregulation. 
One could have knocked me down with a feather because I happen to have 1998 Cabinet papers in my possession and who signed those papers? A former Minister of Health named Bill English. What did those Cabinet papers state? They stated that pharmacies should be deregulated. Those papers were also signed by Mr Luxton who was an honest member of Parliament. He said pharmacies should be deregulated. Those members said that there were no safety issues in doing that and that we ought to deregulate pharmacies. What happened then? We got a little close to the 1999 election so they then put in a deferral proposal to Cabinet and that was in place until National lost the election. Now before the next election National is opposed to deregulation. 
 The story has not stopped—this is very funny—because Rodney Hide has put forward an amendment. Mr Hide who is an honourable man has told me that the National Party will support his amendment. National was in favour of deregulation—flip. Then it was opposed to it—flop—and what has happened? Now it is in favour of it again. There is another flip. National is the flip-flop finger-in-the-air which-way-is-the-wind-blowing party. What a lot of cant we have heard from that party. If any New Zealander wanted to know about a party that could not stand on its principles that person should look at the National Party. Now National is in favour of deregulation again and Mr Hide has said that National Party members will vote for his amendment. How could one trust them on absolutely anything? One could not. At least ACT through Mr Hide has had the courage of its convictions. 
No members of the National Party had the courage to even speak to the amendment. They want to vote for it but we should not ask them to speak to it because they just want to pretend that they are in favour of it to some of their constituents. But when those members are talking to their pharmacists they are real lions. They say that they have real courage and that they stand up for pharmacists. When they are talking to their business people they say that they stand up for them. One would not know where they are. 
I say to Mr Hide that I am sorry I cannot vote for his amendment and neither can our party because when we introduced this bill we gave a commitment to pharmacists that we would support 51/49 percent control. 
Progress reported.