Lees-Galloway Iain: Natural Health Products Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Lees-Galloway Iain: Natural Health Products Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 20 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8812. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY (Labour—Palmerston North) 
: 
 I would like to echo the thoughts of Dr Hutchison in respect of the officials and the submitters at the Health Committee. This Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill was a challenging piece of legislation. There is a range of balancing acts to be achieved in this legislation and at the select committee we drew heavily on the advice of officials and the large range of submitters who appeared before us as well and I thank them for the time they took to work with us. This is an attempt—and I think a very good attempt—to secure consumer safety whilst balancing the scientific view with the traditional view in respect of natural and supplementary products and I think we have done well to achieve that. 
It would be remiss of me not to recognise that on the one hand we could have done this—I think we have now figured out—more like 7 years ago. It goes back to 2006 when Tony Ryall played politics with this piece of legislation and withdrew the National Party support. We could have made progress. We could have secured consumer safety all those years ago but National as it so often does preferred to put politics ahead of health care and the well-being of New Zealanders. That point was actually raised by a number of the submitters who came to the select committee because they actually felt duped by the National Party. As much as I disagreed with their position that there was no need for this legislation I could understand why those submitters felt that they had been duped by the National Party which said one thing in Opposition and then did completely the opposite thing in Government. Those submitters came to the select committee and they said there is no substantial difference between this legislation and what had been proposed by the Labour Government back in 2006. They pointed out the hypocrisy on display from the National Party regarding this issue. They came and said: “We do not understand how the National Party could have held that view 7 years ago and be progressing this legislation now that it is in Government.” Nevertheless I happen to not agree with those people and the Labour Party has been consistent with that approach. We did not agree with them in 2006 and we do not agree with them now. We think this legislation is important and it is great that we have broad support across the House for a sensible regulatory environment for natural health products. 
I appreciate the statements made by a number of the submitters that natural health products—and actually I like the new title of the bill. I do not know when we are actually going to refer to this bill with the new title but in terms of the natural health and supplementary products industry I appreciate that it is a low-risk industry in that the products themselves are low-risk. Where I see the great risk and I know that the Minister touched on this as well is when people choose a substance for which there is very little scientific basis to support the claims made around that substance over a more mainstream medical approach. The risk there is that they may not be getting the appropriate treatment for the ailment they have or they may in fact be putting themselves at greater risk by avoiding using something that we know works and using instead something for which either the scientific or the traditional evidence basis has not been established. 
That is what this bill does. It says that if you are going to put a product on the market and make a health-related claim associated with that product you have to provide evidence whether it be scientific or traditional that this product does what you say it will do. There is still an element of consumer choice here. There is still an element of consumers having to accept a level of risk because consumers will have to look at the type of evidence available and they will have to consider whether they want to follow a scientific approach or a more traditional approach. That is people’s individual choice and that has been accommodated for in this legislation as well. 
There is one particular aspect of the select committee report that I would like to refer to and that is the advice that the Health Committee received from the Regulations Review Committee regarding the “Henry VIII” clauses—those clauses that empower the executive to override primary legislation with regulations. 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: He died a long time ago. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Sorry? 
Hon Simon Bridges 
: He died a long time ago. 
IAIN LEES-GALLOWAY 
: Henry VIII did die a long time ago. That is true but nevertheless we still call these things “Henry VIII” clauses. Such is the sometimes anachronistic nature of Parliament Minister Bridges. Labour agrees that it is dangerous in the health sphere to allow the executive to override with regulation policy established by Parliament in legislation. It is particularly dangerous I think to let the current Minister of Health wield that power because we know that Tony Ryall will always put politics ahead of health. The idea that Tony Ryall would have the power to override legislation in order to make a political point or to achieve some political point-scoring—we just cannot trust that man with that kind of power. So I agree with the advice from the Regulations Review Committee that “Henry VIII” clauses are not ideal. We have to ensure that this legislation and the regulation established by this legislation cannot be overridden by the executive with regulation. 
This bill is well past its time. It is well past its due-by date. It is a pity that like the Medicines Amendment Bill it has taken an awfully long time to come back to the House. But I think actually one of the reasons for that was the desire to align the Medicines Amendment Bill and the Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill because of course they actually belong together in a single piece of legislation that could have been passed back in 2006. But it is good to see these bills being progressed in these extended sitting hours—a time for non-controversial legislation that has the broad support of the House. Once again it is just a pity that National insists on putting politics ahead of health care and consumer safety and that this bill was not passed in 2006 when it should have been.