King Annette: Radiation Safety Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Radiation Safety Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7636. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): The Labour Party supports the second reading of this bill. The Radiation Safety Bill will repeal and replace the existing Radiation Protection Act 1965 and I think all would agree that an update of this Act is long overdue. In fact in 2004 the Ministry of Health held a review of the Radiation Protection Act and held public consultation. At that time a regulatory impact statement was prepared for a radiation safety bill and that regulatory impact statement identified that there would be net benefits in drafting new legislation. So the intention was to extend the scope of the legislation to include harmful non-ionising radiation but the Government decided in 2009 that the current regulatory regime was satisfactory. So that is a little bit of the history behind it.This bill was introduced this year and it has been to the Health Committee which has held submissions on it. I have to say that it is a very complex piece of legislation in effect and we were very very well served at the select committee by a team of experts from the Ministry of Health. I want to commend them today for the way they went about explaining to lay people like ourselves how this legislation would work and what ionising radiation and non-ionising radiation was as we investigated and tried to understand exactly what should be in and what should be out of this legislation.It shows the value of having highly skilled professionals working within the bureaucracy so I just want to put on record that we really did appreciate their support in this respect.I think if there was going to be any disagreement on this bill—and it is not disagreement from the Labour Opposition but I know that there was some discussion and some disagreement about whether we should include non-ionising radiation and that perhaps this should have been included in this legislation. For those who are wondering what the difference is—and it was something that we needed to understand—ionising radiation is high-energy radiation. It includes X-rays alpha particles beta particles and gamma rays that have ionising capability by removing atomic or molecular electrons and hence can cause chemical or molecular changes to the interacting bodies. You can see it is quite complex. Non-ionising radiation is electromagnetic energy which includes laser lights electromagnetic fields and radio waves. So non-ionising radiation produced by electromagnetic fields—and examples are cellphone towers Wi-Fi microwave ovens ultraviolet tanning machines and power lines—are not addressed in this bill and they will continue to be regulated under New Zealand standards.I think one of the reasons why we were convinced that we ought not to include them in this bill is that there is a variety of ongoing research about the possible health effects of non-ionising radiation. The reviews conclude that overall the results show that exposure that complies with the current limits does not cause health effects and also the World Health Organization has said there is no accepted biophysical mechanism that would suggest that low levels of exposure involve cancer development. It was going to be incredibly complex to include non-ionising radiation and so this bill does not and we agree with the decision that was made for that to continue to be regulated by Standards New Zealand.So what does this bill actually do? We have heard a very good presentation from the acting Minister Paul Goldsmith. One of the purposes of this bill is to enable us to meet our international obligations under a range of international treaties relating to radiation protection radiation safety and security and non-nuclear proliferation. We certainly acknowledge that we needed to update legislation so that we could keep up with those treaties but also with technological changes and there are many technological changes in an Act that is so old. 1965—if you think back to what life was like in 1965 there would be many people who did not have internet. There would be many people who did not have—Hon Member: It didn’t exist.Hon ANNETTE KING: Yes they did not have it. Many people did not even have colour TV in 1965. I could tell you there would have been very few people on the Chatham Islands who had colour television. But seriously if you think back to 1965 and go forward to 2015 and think of all the technological changes that have occurred you will see that legislation must constantly keep up with such changes. It will not actually be only in this bill where we need to be constantly looking at legislation because we will find very quickly that legislation on our books will become outdated because of the rapid technological changes that are being made.We also support this bill because we want a high level of compliance and we want international best standard and practice in this country. We pride ourselves on being a country that wants to meet international treaties and standards and we want a high level of best standard practice. Of course when you are talking about things like X-rays there is a certain amount of fear in the public about the impact on them anyway and about whether they have to have a lot of them and what does it do to them. You need to ensure that those who are providing X-rays and other services are reaching the highest standard so this bill is one thatdoes in fact lift our standards and it brings us in line with best international practice.One of the parts of this bill that I think is also important is it covers the use the transportation and the disposal of ionising radiation which includes man-made cobalt-60 and naturally occurring uranium in quantities above stated levels. It also is a fundamental requirement—it stipulates that radiation use occurs only where the expected benefits outweigh the risks that exposure must be kept as low as reasonably possible to achieve the results that are wanted and that the doses must not exceed the limits. So we asked quite a number of questions about how this would work and what impact this would have—if a person did receive too much what track would they go down to address these issues—and we got I think some very solid answers in the way that this bill would work.In terms of the implementation of international conventions it does mean that we will complete New Zealand’s domestic implementation of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the Amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. It also allows for the International Atomic Energy Agency international inspectors—as you heard from the Minister—to be appointed by the Director for Radiation Safety to undertake activities in New Zealand and these international inspectors must be accompanied by an enforcement officer appointed by the director under a clause in this bill.So the bill has a lot of complicated pieces to it but it is a big move forward in terms of our approach to radiation protection in New Zealand so the Labour Party supports this bill. We thank the chair of the select committee for the very good way that the inquiry and evidence on this bill was heard—the length of time that we were given to be able to understand it as much as lay people like ourselves can understand these issues—but why I feel very assured that we are making the right moves here is the calibre and quality of those who were providing advice to us at the select committee. We will be supporting this bill in the House.