King Annette: Radiation Safety Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Radiation Safety Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 03 March 2016. Volume:711;Page:9381. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): I have to say that when I completed the first part of my speech the other night we were thoroughly enjoying this debate except for the Minister who had gone to sleep while giving his speech. But for the rest of us and those on the Health Committee we had really enjoyed this debate and enjoyed this bill because it had been one where there had been considerable cooperation to amend an old Act that is 50 years old and was in desperate need of overhaul—something that started with a review a long time ago when I was the Minister of Health. That was 11 years ago although you would think it was just yesterday. So it was time to review and update the Act.When I was last speaking I had just started a little explanation as to why we needed to change the name of the bill from the Radiation Safety Bill to one that really did tell you what this bill was about. I wanted to change it so that it was the “Ionising Radiation Safety Bill” because at the select committee there was no doubt that there was some confusion between what was ionising radiation and what was non-ionising radiation. The members of the committee were very fortunate that we were well served by some superb officials from the Ministry of Health who were able to lead us through the explanation as to what the differences were—although I must give credit to Kevin Hague who probably understood a little better than most.We were led through the differences and understood what we were doing but my concern and why I wanted the Government to change the name so that it was more clear was that I do not believe that many of the public know what in fact we are legislating for. This would have made it very very obvious. What we were not passing legislation to regulate was non-ionising radiation and this is things like your cellphone towers your Wi-Fi and your microwave ovens and ultraviolent tanning machines—although I have to say that that is another debate we will have at a later date and why we are not regulating them out of existence I do not know but they are not included in this bill. It does not include your power lines although some people think that they are included.So it was a great disappointment that the Government did not accept a name change and I know that the members of the Health Committee including my colleagues in the National Party would not have minded that change because they knew that there was confusion in the public’s mind about this. But you know in the way that this place works it did not happen and so we now have a Radiation Safety Act coming into place. It is going to update our legislation as I said. It is going to bring us into high-level compliance with international best standards and also with our commitments to international treaties. That is pretty important and long overdue.So Labour supports this bill. We are pleased to see it come to its conclusion 50 years after it was first passed and after many many years of it being reviewed and looked at. I want to say that I think that the members of the select committee worked extremely hard on this bill. We came back to this House with a bill that I think is fit for purpose—maybe not for the next 50 years because as has been pointed out a lot of technology has changed in that time. There are some members on our select committee who can remember when there was not television but there was also—Hon Member: Only that member.Hon ANNETTE KING: Well I will not name them but there are some who can remember it.Chris Bishop: Don’t name yourself.Hon ANNETTE KING: Mr Bishop of course would not remember it because he in fact remembers hardly any of the modern appliances. So—