Sepuloni Carmel: Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeSepuloni Carmel: Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 12 August 2015. Volume:707;Page:5779. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CARMEL SEPULONI (Labour—Kelston): I will just say from the outset that Labour has decided that we will support this bill to a select committee. Before I get started on the content of the bill I just want to acknowledge Sir Pita Sharples because actually his own wife just recently had a kidney transplant. So our thoughts—from the whole of Parliament I am sure—are going out to Pita Sharples and his wife. I also acknowledge his son Te Hira Paenga who recently blessed my Kelvin and Peeni’s office on West Coast Road in Glen Eden. So I am thinking of Pita Sharples and his family at this time.This is an issue that many New Zealanders will look at and think: “OK this needs to be done.” It is such a selfless act for anyone to consider the idea of donating an organ while they are still alive. It is a selfless act and so it is something that we support.I do want to reflect back on Labour’s time in Government when Annette King was the Minister of Health when the Labour Government did attempt to address this issue. Annette King introduced changes in 2005 that put in place minimum standards for the weekly amount of income assistance granted to live organ donors to offset some of the donors’ income loss. That was so that they could actually receive the sickness benefit in terms of being able to hold them over while they took that time off work. The ministerial direction also provided for childcare assistance and that could be claimed for up to 12 weeks after the operation. This childcare support will be continued under the new bill which is good to see. Before the Labour Government’s changes in 2005 live donors had to rely on employment support to take extended leave.We support referring this bill to a select committee but we believe that there are some anomalies that may need to be fixed at the select committee and we can have that conversation there.What we see is that this bill would revoke the 2005 ministerial direction and increase the level of financial support to live organ donors to be the same as what would be paid to a donor under the Accident Compensation Act 2001 if the time off work had been due to injury which is 80 percent of pre-operation earnings for a maximum period of 12 weeks. As I said the bill also provides for childcare assistance for up to 12 weeks if the donor is the principle caregiver for a dependent child who is less than 14 years old and the amount payable will be prescribed within the regulations.We know that not only is it a selfless act to even consider donating an organ but also there is a period of time in which that person needs to recover. Considering that we have an issue in this country with the availability of organs for donation then that is why we would consider this bill. We congratulate Chris Bishop on getting it pulled out of the ballot and on putting it into the ballot in the first place and—Chris Bishop: It was luck.CARMEL SEPULONI: Luck. Well take the win Chris. It might be one of the few that you have.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! The member is referring to me at the moment.CARMEL SEPULONI: OK apologies. Mr Assistant Speaker will have many wins but Chris Bishop may not. So—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): No. The member will resume her seat. I mean much as the member is trying to appeal to me she must not bring me into the debate while I am in the Chair.CARMEL SEPULONI: Apologies Mr Assistant Speaker.So there is that period of time when the person who donates the organ needs to recover and we want to remove that stress. We want to make sure that they do not have that stress and that when they are considering whether or not they will do this it is not one of the things that will put them off doing it and that it is not one of the considerations they have to spend too much time stressing over. Of course the issue around childcare is huge as well. “How will I earn money?” “How will I feed my family?” and “Who will look after my children?” are the considerations that those who are thinking of donating an organ whilst they are still alive will have.We did look into some of the issues that we have with donations in New Zealand at the moment. There have been no live adult donors for liver transplants in the last 3 calendar years for adults but there were five live adult donors for children in the last year. In 2014 there were 72 living donors for kidney transplantations up from 58 in 2013. Although that is an increase it is not a steep enough increase to meet the need that we are facing here as a country. So we will support the bill because if this is going to mean that we can meet the need of New Zealanders out there who are requiring organ transplants then why would we not support this bill’s referral to a select committee to at least have that conversation. When it goes to a select committee we can have that conversation about what the anomalies are about the changes that need to be made to the bill and about any concerns that any of the political parties have. We can look at the submissions that come through and consider the concerns that are raised by the general public as well and so we look forward to that select committee process.But again I just want to say that we commend the member for putting the bill in and I just want to say that we look forward to having the discussion considering the legislation listening to the submissions and hearing from the families whom this may benefit. I am sure that we will hear from families who were not in a position where they had donors who could provide organs for family members—who unfortunately may not be here right now. So thank you very much.