Kedgley Sue: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Kedgley Sue: Health (National Cervical Screening Programme) Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:615;Page:11265] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Some of the previous speakers have talked about the commencement date of this bill and we are frankly very relieved to know that the majority of the provisions in the bill will not come into effect for another 12 months. I think that there needs to be time for a woman in New Zealand to understand the true implications of this bill. Would that it were true what the New Zealand First representative said—that the women of New Zealand will be fully informed of the whole screening programme and the implications of this bill. But in our view this bill regrettably will erode the confidentiality and the privacy of personal health information and the approach to privacy issues that New Zealand has taken over many years. It will also undermine the confidentiality of the patient-doctor relationship and I am sure I do not need to remind members that confidentiality is at the heart of the patient-doctor relationship. Most of us would not divulge details about our health and well-being to a doctor if we felt that what we were going to put on a doctor’s records could be accessed by an unspecified number of people—and that I regret to say is exactly the implication of this bill. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: This debate is about the commencement date. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I listened with great interest to the speaker from the National Party and others and they spoke in an extremely wide-ranging manner. I took my cue from them. No one objected to them and that is why I am speaking in this way. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: That is not correct because I did bring them in a couple of times as well to talk about the commencement date. The member can try. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I think that it is a good thing that there are 12 months before the provisions fully come into effect so that the women of New Zealand can become aware of the implications of this bill. Basically under the provisions of this bill all doctors in New Zealand will be required to hand over the medical records of any woman out of a million women who are enrolled in the National Cervical-screening Programme and of course of any other woman who chooses to join the programme. I think that at the moment many women are not aware of the amendments made to this bill that will undermine the privacy of health information. That is why it is fortunate indeed that there are 12 months in which to contemplate the implications of this bill. 
Frankly I am absolutely amazed that most of the parties in this Parliament including the National Party New Zealand First and ACT who expressed serious concerns during the debate last time accept the bill on this occasion and will support it. I wonder whether they too have thought through the implications of the amendments that are contained in the Minister’s Supplementary Order Paper. Basically once the commencement date of this bill has come into effect New Zealand women will be faced with Hobson’s choice: either they stay on the National Cervical-screening Programme and surrender their right to informed consent or they opt off the programme and risk both their health and the efficacy of a nationwide screening programme. 
I believe that far from strengthening the National Cervical-screening Programme the last-minute eleventh hour amendments to this bill will cause many many women to choose to opt off the national cervical-screening register because quite frankly they will not be happy with the thought that their personal health records can suddenly be automatically accessed without their consent by an unspecified number of evaluators. 
So over the next 12 months as women become aware of the amendments and the implications of this bill I believe that there will need to be some rethinking of these last-minute amendments which have been parachuted into this bill. They were not in the bill when it went to the select committee but were put in at the last minute. I think that when we think this through we will have time hopefully to rethink this bill.