Dyson Ruth: Radiation Safety Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionDyson Ruth: Radiation Safety Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2083. Text is subject to correction.]Hon RUTH DYSON (Labour—Port Hills):Can I first of all commend the member who has just resumed his seat for that excellent contribution to a very good bill. A lot of people say of the member Simon O’Connor that he is no Rob Muldoon and I am sure that he would see that in two lights. He might see some good sides to that comment and some bad sides but I have heard people say more recently: “That’s right and he’s no Clem Simich either.” Clem came here to Parliament to give Wellington a message he said. I know that when he left a lot of us were still asking what the message was. I do not think they will be saying that about Simon O’Connor. I think he is very clear about what he wants to contribute in this House. He is the chair of the Health Committee now I understand. Is that correct? Yes he is and I am sure that he will do a very fine job of shepherding this bill through the House.I am not surprised that he got tongue-tied on occasions. I am not even going to attempt to say the terms that he used. I am not on the Health Committee so I do not have to fall into that trap but I actually think that he demonstrated a grasp of the key issues—not only the ones that are contained in this bill but the ones that have been omitted from the bill either because they were not considered a priority or relevant or because the Government made a conscious decision to omit them.I hope it is clear from the comments that our health spokesperson the Hon Annette King has made and from my introductory comments that Labour supports this bill being referred to the select committee. In fact it was a Government led by Labour in the early 2000s that started this process of getting to the Radiation Safety Bill in 2002 instigated by the Hon Annette King who is very knowledgable in this area. She has made some quite provocative comments to the House tonight which I hope are carried forward on to the select committee for the discussion and the submissions. In fact I will be joining in the audience at the select committee to hear the debate around some of the issues that I will mention later in the speech some of them that are omitted from this bill. The Hon Annette King said in 2002 that we need to start a review of this process and that was led by the Ministry of Health.One of the critical reasons for that is that this legislation we are now proposing to amend with this bill is actually dated 1965. That is older than you Mr Deputy Speaker or me—well pretty close to being older than you or me. It is in our age range but it is certainly in need of some substantial revamp given the technological changes that have happened in that time. It is also really important to recognise that people’s attitudes towards exposure to substances that damage deliberately or otherwise have changed quite markedly over that intervening time. People are much less reluctant now to be exposed to chemicals to treatments to therapies to medicines that in the past they would have just taken and said: “This might do me some harm but overall it is for the good.” So we are becoming a little more rigorous in our consideration. That extends also to where food is from how food has been grown and how food has been treated. That is another subject that I want to get on to later in my contribution.One of the purposes of this bill the Radiation Safety Bill is to enable New Zealand to meet its international obligations relating to radiation protection. Obviously that is something that has to be a no-brainer across the House. There would not be a member of this House who does not want us to comply with international obligations but also with radiation safety and security and nuclear non-proliferation under a range of international treaties.I did enjoy hearing the member talk so passionately and give his absolute commitment that this bill would not undermine New Zealand’s nuclear-free stance. How well the National Party has progressed over recent years. It was just a few short years ago that that member’s leader was assuring the country that under a National-led Government the nuclear-free legislation would be “gone by lunchtime”. Those were his very words. And this member is not a new member either. He has been here a little while. He has proven himself to be—[Interruption] He is hungry clearly. He did not make it through dinner time. He is not a new member and giving the House that assurance is really a bit of an indication of how much the National Party has progressed but only in this area—only in this area.Sometimes you do get mixed messages from the National Party. I have heard members of the National Party say they are business-friendly for example. I have heard them say that at public meetings and here they are charging businesses and employees in New Zealand $350 million more than they need to and costing 700 jobs.Paul Foster-Bell: What’s that got to do with this bill? That’s got nothing to do with this bill.Hon RUTH DYSON: It has got to do with people saying one thing and meaning another. There is a term for that which cannot be used in this House so I am not going to. But I was giving that as an example of a second occurrence exactly in line with the contribution that the honourable member Simon O’Connor made when talking about this bill not undermining our nuclear-free status. The link is very obvious. Even for you Mr Foster-Bell the link should be obvious.I just want to raise a couple of matters. One is the issue that my colleague Annette King mentioned and that is the increasing international awareness and concern about the effects that sunbed treatments have on people. In Australia the use is now illegal I think for people of any age. It may be illegal for people under 18 for young people and for children but I am more inclined to think it is a prohibited activity for people of any age. I think that that is something New Zealand really has to turn its mind to. We have a very high incidence in New Zealand of skin cancers of all sorts. We know that they are often not just a lump that can be removed and you are all OK as long as you keep up with the checks. They can be fatal. They can take people’s lives much earlier than when that person needed to die. It has got to be a 101 responsibility of central government to say that if there is harm that is being done to people we need to educate people and perhaps protect them against it by intervention. That is something that the Parliament should at least give consideration to.Annette King threw the gauntlet down on that one and I really want to add to that challenge by saying it is not something I know enough about in terms of the impact the occurrence and the effect in New Zealand but it is an area that I would certainly like the select committee to be looking at and providing us as parliamentarians with more information. Should this be an area where we should be following Australia and taking better measures to protect New Zealanders against something that is clearly doing harm? I think most New Zealanders regard it as a little bit of fun and would not really think of it as doing serious damage particularly damage that could be fatal and cause their premature death.The next point I want to comment on which is not covered in the legislation is the Government’s consideration of importing irradiated fruit and vegetables. This is something that has pretty well slipped under the radar. I do not really know why we would even be considering importing irradiated fruit and vegetables from Queensland when we are currently hosting their fruit flies which we do not want. Irradiation clearly did not do any damage to them because they managed to make it over the border and cause a great threat to our horticultural and agricultural sectors here. Why are we considering importing fruit and vegetables that we actually have growing in New Zealand—apples peaches? These are apples that they will not take in Australia let alone allow it to have even more. Scallopini even. I have got a surplus of scallopini in the garden at the moment so if anyone is a bit short of them come and ask me rather than bringing in irradiated scallopini from overseas from Queensland.That is an area that is not covered in the bill because as Simon O’Connor pointed out in his contribution this bill does not go as far in terms of what areas it covers as the original 2002 consideration the review of the 1965 legislation and then the regulatory impact statement. It has been narrowed a bit. I hope that further contributions in this debate can explain to us—and I think it would be of benefit to all of the House as well as to the select committee—at what stage of the debate those considerations were made to narrow the parameters of the bill and what the reasons were for that. They may well be very justified.This is not a party political piece of legislation actually. It is one that as I have said was started by the Hon Annette King. We thought it was a good idea. It is a little narrower than it may have been. There may be areas that can be added during the select committee process. I hope that the deliberations are rigorous. I hope that despite the perhaps slightly dull nature of the name of the bill—and I am not referring to any contributions; I am not going to rise to that opportunity—there are a lot of submissions and that this receives rigorous debate. It is a very important issue and I am interested in its progress.