O'Connor Simon: Radiation Safety Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionO'Connor Simon: Radiation Safety Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2081. Text is subject to correction.]SIMON O’CONNOR (National—Tāmaki):Thank you to the member who has just resumed her seat Annette King for what I think is a really helpful contribution and continuing what is the good work in the Health Committee which will be considering after this first reading the Radiation Safety Bill. It will be the second bill before our committee. The Hon Annette King has just referred to the first one that we have been looking at. It is the one around the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill. It is dealing with contact tracing first and foremost but also has provisions around the use of solaria or sunbeds. As was raised by the previous member and the Minister earlier this bill is to do with ionising radiation. I do not presume to be a chemist a physicist a scientist or anything of that nature—Hon Ruth Dyson: Where is Aaron Gilmore when you need him?SIMON O’CONNOR: Yes I will not claim false accolades or knowledge. What we are talking about here is the radiation that liberates or releases electrons in order to create energy. This is electrons basically being taken off atoms and molecules which enables us to undergo an array of radiation-based therapies. Within the medical sphere most of us will know X-rays of course; CT scans have become quite popular as well; and a range of radiation-based therapies. One of the ones that the Minister referred to which this bill will deal with is the use of something like irradiated iodine which has been highly successful around thyroid cancers and the like. For the men on this side of the House brachytherapy—Hon Todd McClay: Oh what’s that?SIMON O’CONNOR: Well I am not really sure I want to indulge the House. It is to do with prostate cancer and the use of irradiated items that are put somewhere—but it is very effective. Again it is a radiation-based system for particularly the other side the other gender. But it can also be used for breast cancer in both males and females. What are effectively like irradiated plastic rods can be inserted into the breast and will be able to isolate the particular cancer. Again with something like brachytherapy an irradiated device or item it is very targeted and as modern medicine neurologists and others will tell you it is a fascinating technology that has been in use for a long time now. I share that briefly I say to my colleagues—briefly—to get a bit of context about what this bill the Radiation Safety Bill is about.We have heard from others who are wondering why the non-ionising forms of treatment are not being covered by this bill. It is a pretty logical distinction for things such as magnetic resonance imaging. People think of magnetic resonance imaging scans in the same way they would think of X-rays and CT scans but a magnetic resonance imaging scan is not using ionising radiation. It is using magnetism; it is non-ionising in the same way that sunbeds or solaria are and in the same way as a whole range of equipment. We have some noted in the bill—everything from cellphone sites power lines and Wi-Fi. Those are quite distinct. I know that some constituents often get concerned about these non-ionising elements. They would be wondering why we are not regulating for say the likes of smart meters Wi-Fi and cellphones in this bill. In terms of the non-ionising it is pretty clear when you read the research in good peer-reviewed scientific journals—in fact we can refer to the New Zealand national radiation authority—that these provide very little harm to New Zealanders. What we are talking about in this bill are these ionising highly radioactive substances that need to be rightly regulated.This bill is about to replace the Radiation Protection Act of 1965. It has served us well. I know there have been some concerns from other side of the House that we have taken a while to get here. Well to use the axiomatic phrase good things take time. The previous Act has been working well but it is time for reform and you are seeing that quite clearly from the National Government in the health sector—a slow and steady approach that is making real differences. I think that when we consider this bill you can see that it is sitting on the back of great work that has been done particularly by this Government in the area of oncology—that is cancer treatment. There are really stunning results that the Government is turning around there. I think it is important to acknowledge particularly those working in the radiotherapy fields—the nurses doctors technicians and so forth who are leading the charge. But it is important that we make sure the legislation is correctly and properly up to date to enable them to do their job for Kiwis and in fact maybe for some in this House in the past or in the future.As has been noted the bill is about modernising the law. That is one of the key elements of this Parliament. It is replacing the existing Act and allowing for the safety and security developments since the 1960s to be incorporated. You will forgive me if I turn to the Bills Digest because there is one thing that I think is quite important here. Whenever we start talking about radiation people often jump to things nuclear for a variety of reasons and they are concerned that this might affect New Zealand’s status. To quote: “Nothing in the Bill affects or derogates from the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Disarmament and Arms Control Act 1987 and the Nuclear-Test-Ban Act 1999.” In fact: “The provisions of the Bill will apply in conjunction with the provisions of the Atomic Energy Act 1945.”—Paul Foster-Bell: Oh.SIMON O’CONNOR: Mr Foster-Bell I did not actually realise we had one of those. So this bill does not affect the nuclear side but it does actually help New Zealand complete its international obligations around the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism and the amendment to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material. So as people understand New Zealand signs up to an array of agreements from time to time. I think in the House prior we have talked about the bunker oil convention human rights conventions and so on. This bill is also helping to implement a variety of conventions around the radiological space.I talked a bit earlier around some of the human elements to this. I think it needs to be said that particularly in the veterinarian space this bill will also apply. They use similar techniques X-rays and the like for our beloved pets and it goes without saying that obviously there is the industrial and the research side. If you go to any of our universities you will often see the radiation sign up when they are conducting their own research. Again you just need to go to the medical labs and so forth and even our own private medical providers. The bill is ultimately going to establish that a person who deals with radiation must ensure—and I think this is very important because it affects medicine in general—that the expected benefits to people and society outweigh the risks. I am no doctor but I am assuming that when a doctor is making those choices around an oncological treatment like brachytherapy or radiated iodine—I knew I was going to get tongue-twisted on that tonight—will be trying to decide whether the use of this radiation is going to do more harm than good. By its very nature it is doing some form of harm in order to achieve a good in the end but this bill really wants to make that quite key.The bill is making sure that the magnitude of individual doses of ionising radiation that people are going to be exposed to is limited. You begin to see this if you actually go through the bill particularly from schedule 2 onwards. The House should surely look at schedule 2 but for those at home I point out that there are about 20 or 30 pages that list all the different types of radioactive material. I am sure that will be an ongoing list as to what are the acceptable levels but quite important and for those at home who are interested—and of course you can access the website easily enough—schedule 3 begins to outline the dose limits around radiation. What can look like big numbers at times—20 millisieverts or 50 in terms of radiation—are quite low doses. So we are working on that.Schedule 4 is in relation to the Radiation Safety Advisory Council. It is an important element of this bill. Along with dealing with what radiation can be used dosage and so forth we are going to establish a Radiation Safety Advisory Council. It is replacing what was known as the Radiation Protection Advisory Council. We are putting a whole lot of functions in play there again. This is a bill here that is modernising and a bill that I think is showing National’s commitment not only to good legislation clear legislation and timely legislation but legislation that has the health and safety of Kiwis in mind. Speaking as the chair of the committee there are two bills before us already that are immensely symbolic of that as we look at as I said earlier contact tracing how we can better work the epidemiological I suppose whakapapa—for want of a better word—lineage and genealogy of disease. What we are doing around sunbeds that non-ionising side—this bill is not dealing with that because it is being adequately approached there. Then there is this bill in particular around the whole use of radiation. I think that is somewhat of a summation of this bill and I look forward to it coming before my committee.