Collins Judith: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
Collins Judith: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8164] 
JUDITH COLLINS (NZ National—Clevedon) 
: 
 That particular contribution from United Future is a bit of a disgrace. I am shocked by that sort of contribution. Is that member going to go out and tell the few people who voted for United Future why its members after marching down the streets of Nelson on the foreshore and seabed issue are voting for cultural competence? How about that? That will be an interesting one for her to come back to us on. 
Let us have a look at clause 154 which deals with trans-Tasman mutual recognition. It states: “Except as otherwise provided in Schedule 4 of the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act 1997 that Act prevails over this Act.” I have a serious question—as are all my questions of course—for the Minister of Health. How are we ever going to get the Australians to accept this sort of cultural competence nonsense under the Trans-Tasman Mutual Recognition Act? Which will prevail? Will the Australians have to become culturally competent in whatever culture we decide they have to be competent in or will they be let off? 
The reason that is such an important issue is that the Health Committee sat through endless hearings on this bill. One of the submitters we heard from was the midwives union. I like midwives. As a mother I can say that they are generally very nice sensible people. They are really very helpful when one is having a baby and an awful lot more use than most people’s husbands although of course not my own who is a wonderful person. The unionist who said she represented the midwives said she thought this bill was great because of the cultural competence aspect which would stop foreign midwives from coming into New Zealand and practising here without being culturally competent. I piped up and asked which particular foreign midwives she was talking about and that trade unionist who supposedly represented the midwives said—not some sort of strange culture—Australian midwives. I think someone will have to tell her that Australians will probably be able to sneak in too. 
There is a situation whereby some Australian regulatory authorities are putting difficulties in place for some of our New Zealand practitioners. Will they now be saying to our New Zealand practitioners who go there to work because the pay and the opportunities are so much better and because Australia has a good Liberal Government not a Labour one like we have here that they want Kiwis to be culturally competent in Australian culture? That will be fun will it not? That is the sort of nonsense this Government is putting on to us. This Government is giving us the sort of rubbish that is turning us into the laughing stock of the world. Not only does it have nonsense like the flatulence tax which has resulted in our people being laughed at by the Australians but it is giving us this sort of cultural competence nonsense. 
I ask the Minister in relation to clause 154 what will be more applicable. Will it be the cultural competence of the Australians? Will they be considered to comply or will they all have to be indoctrinated like everyone else in this country and to go around being politically correct and utterly hopeless? Is that what they will have to do? Or will we look at these people and ask whether they can do the job whether they are competent professionally and whether they are ethical—in which case boy do we want them because we have a system that is desperately short of qualified health professionals. Under this bill the Government will make it harder for us to get those people. Once we stop the Australians coming in because they cannot be called culturally competent—in whatever culture we are supposed to have—it will be even harder for our health practitioners to go overseas and get training in places like Australia because the Australians will get us back big time and fair enough. 
This part is yet another example that shows that this bill has been correctly described by the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists as nothing more than a dog’s breakfast and it is not a very good dog’s breakfast either. It is a nonsense and it is a disgrace that the United Future party is supporting this rubbish. The one great thing about the Greens is that they mean what they say which makes them better than United Future.