Worth Richard: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
Worth Richard: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2808] 
Dr RICHARD WORTH (National) 
: 
 In the course of this debate we have been privileged to hear from the Hon Tony Ryall in a hard-hitting careful and well-constructed speech on behalf of the National Party. He indicated in his comments just some of the issues that will arise as the Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill is considered by the Government Administration Committee. There are a number of significant issues. I would like to start from a quite different basis and talk about the experience for New Zealanders in very practical terms in 1918 when we were hit by a pandemic flu epidemic. Pestilence has not been one of New Zealand’s besetting problems. Even in the earliest days of settlement when preventive and medical services were very limited the salubrious climate and also the austere living conditions were guarantees of a reasonable standard of physical health. 
There were of course outbreaks between 1910 and 1920. The incidence of smallpox warranted preventive measures on a national scale. Similar widespread immunisation and precautionary methods were found necessary in respect of diphtheria. Infantile paralysis—or as it later came to be called poliomyelitis—was also responsible for varying death rolls. From the 1920s onwards it developed on occasion to the point where restrictions on school attendance and public assembly were necessary. However the overall death roll was not high by epidemic standards. 
All of that changed in 1918 when two waves of influenza spread across the country the first being followed by a virile wave that swept through the country from October through to December in that year. Everyone was personally affected in one way or another and special restrictive measures were imposed as the death rate rose sharply. People became depressed. It was not just a matter of months but rather years before the adverse effects of the epidemic were overcome. 
Many people in a way that might be appropriate for Mr Hughes on occasions were treated for the flu by being wrapped in cotton wadding and flannel. At the time there was a lot of discussion and disagreement about the correct way to treat influenza patients. Families were left isolated in their houses for days only collecting bread and milk after it had been delivered and people became too afraid to visit others for fear of catching the disease. 
The disease was in fact carried from the sick soldiers and crew returning home from World War I on the steamship  
Niagara 
 which arrived in Auckland on 12 October. By the middle of November the influenza epidemic in Auckland had peaked with Auckland having approximately 2000 deaths alone. So it started in Auckland and it then spread rapidly south causing an alarming death rate of 1860 people throughout the country in only 8 weeks. By the 13th week it had begun to decline. The total number of deaths from the disease or its complications was believed to be more than 6500 people. 
There were particular challenges in Auckland. On 31 October the Mayor of Auckland Sir James Gunson held a special meeting in the council chambers to form a committee to take appropriate action to help sufferers and also to cope with the epidemic. [ 
Interruption 
] I can tell Mr Hughes that the city was divided into 22 blocks with each doctor being allocated a special area and six temporary hospitals were set up in schools and halls. Houses hotels and boarding houses assumed the aspect of hospitals as so many of the guests and members of staff were affected. 
I speak of these things because if a pandemic does come these are the sorts of situations that our citizens and our residents will have to confront and deal with. There were particular problems in dealing with the dead and that is an issue that I will come to in a moment when I look at specific provisions in the bill before us. But in the result with a huge pile up of corpses in the Auckland Domain an order was made requiring all bodies of persons who had died from influenza or its complications to be buried and special trains were provided from that place of death to the Waikumete Cemetery for burial. 
It is all very well and it is appropriate that we support this bill going to a select committee but we need to realise that all it does is construct the statutory frameworks for dealing with a limited number of situations and there have to be sitting behind this statutory work the physical measures that need to be taken to engage in pandemic planning and the implementation of remedial work. 
So what does this legislation do? Well it makes pandemic influenza a quarantinable disease. It enables quarantine powers at the border it clarifies the emergency powers available to medical officers of health it provides powers for the New Zealand police to assist medical officers of health and it supports action to prevent or manage a health emergency. I am not myself convinced that this epidemic notice technique will actually be very satisfactory but that as the bill describes is a “trigger provision” and it enables the Prime Minister to issue a  
Gazette 
 notice declaring that she—it will be “he” by then—is satisfied that the effects of the outbreak of an infectious disease are likely to disrupt essential governmental and business activity in New Zealand. The  
Gazette 
 notice then triggers a range of possible actions. However just on the face of it they seem to me to be quite limited. 
The Resource Management Act will be amended so that resource consent is not necessary to establish community treatment centres mass graves and so on for 24 months if there is an epidemic. Other Acts will be amended to provide for temporary relief from use-of-money interest and penalties for taxpayers and the relaxation of immigration provisions parole provisions probation conditions and then the relaxation of benefit provisions and the providing of emergency benefits for people who would not usually be entitled. 
A further plan is to amend the Births Deaths and Marriages Registration Act so that doctors and appropriately qualified nurses can issue death certificates without having necessarily attended the person before death. [ 
Interruption 
] The clapping by Darren Hughes on the other side of the Chamber reminds me of the strength of the proposition I initially advanced that there are in this community as there were in 1918 a number of people who might well be treated by being wrapped in cotton wadding and flannel. It seems to me that Mr Hughes would certainly lend himself to such a treatment. 
As we look around the world we see in what is going on in countries like Viet Nam the high probability that this pandemic might break out in a country like that despite the very best efforts by authorities in particular countries. For example in Viet Nam in the Ninh Binh province a mass vaccination programme has been initiated by the Viet Namese Government. It has been a huge project staffed by 80000 workers and I understand that by January 2006 more than 240 million poultry had been inoculated against bird flu. 
 It seems for the present that that has worked because in January the agricultural ministry in Viet Nam declared that the country had contained bird flu with no more outbreaks reported in the previous 3 weeks in the 21 cities previously affected. I instance Viet Nam because the risk of bird flu transferring to humans will continue there for many years. The country has a bird population of 84 million and those birds in small flocks are located in backyards with people living in close proximity. It is the perfect incubator for the H5N1 virus to mutate into one easily transmissible between humans.