te Heuheu Georgina: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
te Heuheu Georgina: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8172] 
Hon GEORGINA TE HEUHEU (NZ National) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to take a call on Part 8 because this is such an important part of the legislation. Previous speakers have referred to the Cull report the work of Helen Cull which has informed these amendments. I congratulate Helen Cull QC on the work she did in this area. It took a lot of courage commitment and perseverance because what we are dealing with here are professionals and of course no professional group of people likes to get found out in any way. That is the fact of the matter. It is important that we can address what was clearly an inadequate process that had such tragic results but more than that led to even further tragedy for the women involved and for the families because there was no provision for an adequate process. It is important that we have had good information and that we were able to address the issue in a comprehensive way and with some confidence. 
We will never forget so hopefully we will never again see that situation. It is amazing to me that we had a situation where there was nothing that gave any health professional any responsibility to report on colleagues who were practising below acceptable standards. There was no power to suspend prior to charges being laid so one wonders about the agony some of the women were going through. 
This issue of no mandatory reporting is an indictment on our health system. It is an appalling situation and as I said earlier it resulted in utter tragedy for a number of families in this country. Helen Cull’s report recommended three immediate solutions. I have already touched on one which is the mandatory reporting by professional peers if there is reason to believe that the peer was practising below an acceptable standard. The other two recommended solutions are a requirement that various agencies be required to report practitioners whose practice is below acceptable standards to the Health and Disability Commissioner and that a professional authority have the power to suspend practitioners temporarily or to impose conditions on their practice prior to the laying of charges before a disciplinary tribunal. 
 It is proper that we make a serious contribution to this part of the legislation. These are serious matters when the sector has failed the public of New Zealand and this Parliament has too. That these things could happen indicates a massive failure of public policy. It is something that none of us in this Parliament can be proud of and we should all be pleased that we are in a position to correct and address the situation in a comprehensive way. This is a time when a person is probably proud to be a member of Parliament and able to think that we are doing something worthwhile. I know we all think that we always do that but there are times when we do something that is of far more importance than other things and this is one of them. 
It absolutely underpins the purpose of this bill which is the protection of the health and safety of New Zealanders. It is a tribute to the women who persevered and who were not put off under the most awful circumstances in bringing their complaints forward and progressing them under what I would imagine would have been severe hardship and also a tribute to Helen Cull because it takes a professional of significant competence and integrity to be able to find his or her way through circumstances such as these and come up with this sort of report.