Kedgley Sue: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
Kedgley Sue: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Recommittal In Committee Third Reading Procedure 
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SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 The Green Party will vote for this legislation tonight but with deep misgivings. We are voting for it because it does provide some safeguards and prohibition of the worst excesses of assisted human reproductive technology—namely the genetic engineering of humans and the sex selection of embryos other than for serious genetic disease; also because having some legislation is certainly better than having none and having the present situation continue which is a totally unregulated free-market situation and allows fertility clinics to do what they like. But it is only marginally better. Regrettably the Government has taken what was a really impressive bill—Dianne Yates’ member’s bill—that would have set up a good regulatory regime similar to one that exists in England Canada Australia and other jurisdictions and gutted it to such an extent that this legislation sets up one of the weakest most permissive regulatory regimes for assisted human reproductive technologies in the world—a regime that relies on guidelines rather than regulation and a regime that bypasses Parliament completely and delegates policy making in that highly contentious ethical minefield area to a committee of unelected and unaccountable experts meeting behind closed doors. 
 I think it is ironic that this Parliament is able to debate and decide on an issue raised in yet another of Dianne Yates’ member’s bills—namely whether a couple of thousand dogs in New Zealand should have their tails docked—but will not be able once this bill is passed to debate or make decisions on far-reaching controversial issues that will help shape the future of the human race. I refer to issues such as what genetic defects will be able to be eliminated from the New Zealand population by embryo selection and what will not; whether scientists will be able to split embryos; whether we should be able to use gametes from deceased persons; and so on. Those issues are not minor and technical in nature; they are fundamentally important issues and policies that give rise to an ethical and public policy minefield. 
It is astonishing that we are here tonight enacting legislation that will basically take away the right of this Parliament to make policy on those fundamentally important issues. We will not even be able to challenge debate or discuss those issues in the Health Select Committee because all those contentious issues have been delegated to the unelected unaccountable ministerial advisory committee which will make decisions without any parliamentary scrutiny. 
The Green Party put up amendments that would have instituted some degree of parliamentary scrutiny and a regulatory regime. These alas were defeated by the Government and the Opposition voting in unison. I believe that only United Future supported the Greens on our amendments. 
There are no accountability provisions for the unelected committee of experts. There is no ability even in the Health Committee for us to monitor them to question them or to challenge the decisions they have made. I predict as I have before that this legislation will return to haunt us at some time in the not too distant future and we will be obliged to set up further legislation that seeks to give Parliament back some sovereignty over making decisions on these fundamentally important issues. 
By setting up a framework for policy—and I am glad to see that the chairman of the Regulations Review Committee has just entered the Chamber—to be made in a committee that is not even accountable to Parliament the bill breaches the very well established parliamentary principle and parliamentary convention that matters of policy should be dealt with by this Parliament and that only technical issues of implementation should be able to be dealt with by delegation in committees such as the ministerial advisory committee. 
In the select committee we were told not to worry that this legislation breaches the well established parliamentary principle that Parliament should decide on matters of policy because it is just an advisory committee giving advice to the Minister of Health. But in fact the terms of reference of the advisory committee and interestingly the recently released National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction make it absolutely unequivocally clear that the role of this committee will be to set policy in this area. The committee says in the latest consultation document it has just released: “The new ministerial advisory committee will develop policy and advice on new procedures and guidelines for permitted activities.” It will develop policy—that is what it states. In other words the process this bill sets up is a breach of parliamentary convention which will deny Parliament the opportunity to debate and decide on these hugely important ethical issues that will confront us and continue to confront us in the near future. 
There is a very real danger that without parliamentary scrutiny or a proper regulatory regime this legislation will permit medical technology to continue to race way ahead of the rest of us into uncharted and ethically troubling territory. Proponents of assisted human reproductive technologies paint a rosy picture of a future where these technologies can be used to overcome the limitations of the human body. But these selfsame technologies that can be used to cure a child of cystic fibrosis can equally be used to threaten human dignity and human rights eliminate human imperfections and create a perfect person or indeed a perfect human race. In other words they can be used for eugenic purposes. 
The Green Party believes a line must be drawn to protect future generations from growing up as laboratory experiments. There are huge controversial issues in assisted human reproductive technology. Where do we draw the line between what is acceptable and what is unacceptable use of pre-birth selection? Who decides what genetic defects are allowed to be eliminated from the human population? This bill leaves those decisions to an unelected and unaccountable committee that meets behind closed doors. When we read the guidelines we discover that what is proposed is that the committee leaves the decision on how we draw the line between cystic fibrosis spina bifida etc. to the providers the fertility clinics of New Zealand. Instead of drawing a clear line in the sand they are to consider everything on a case by case basis. That is extraordinary. 
The Green Party is pleased that we at least managed to get one amendment that means there must be extensive consultation. This unelected and unaccountable body must go through a process of consultation. Although that is some comfort it is based on our recent experience only a little comfort because all of us have written thousands of submissions to various bodies and they have completely ignored those submissions. We hope that the ministerial advisory committee will not behave like so many expert committees and ignore public submissions but we cannot be certain of that. But at least we got some improvement in the bill. 
We also are pleased that Paul Hutchison’s amendment has been passed. That basically sets up a voluntary register to help people already born to try to work out their genetic origins. We are frustrated by the fact that assisted human reproductive technology has been touted as the solution to growing fertility problems in our society when virtually no resources are allocated and virtually no research is undertaken into the underlying environmental and other factors that have caused the dramatic drop in fertility over the past 5 years.