King Annette: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeKing Annette: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — In Committee[Sitting date: 11 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11031. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour): Yes Mr Chairman. This is the part of the bill where I do not agree with the Minister of Health’s decision. In fact we have a minority report from Labour New Zealand First and the Greens in relation to this part of the bill. In Part 2 of the bill as it was introduced the Minister wished to ban sunbeds for young people under 18 years of age. We had many submissions on this part of the bill and practically every one of them thought that we could do much better. They thought we could do much better because of the very strong evidence that sunbeds are very bad for the health of New Zealanders. In fact we believe—well we do not believe; we were told—that sunbeds increase the risk of people getting melanoma by 75 percent. They increase the risk of getting melanoma by 75 percent so you have to ask yourself why we would continue to allow the commercial use of sunbeds in New Zealand. Do we not in a public health approach try to minimise the risk to New Zealanders? Is that not the very approach we have taken with tobacco and with requiring people to wear helmets when they are on their bikes? Think of the range of measures that we have put in place to protect the health of New Zealanders.What we did at the Health Committee was to put in a minority view that said we believed that sunbeds should be banned in New Zealand except for medical purposes. That is what my Supplementary Order Paper 80 which has been available for quite some time now—in fact since 20 May last year—does. What it does is to ban the use of commercial sunbeds except for medical purposes. The reason we did that was that it was based on the evidence that was provided to the select committee. I can see no good use in having sunbeds for commercial purposes for New Zealand at all. In fact I brought down one of the submissions that I think was important because of the submitter’s dealings with patients and that is the submission from the New Zealand Medical Association. It said: “the NZMA is supportive of a complete ban on the use of commercial UV tanning services for cosmetic purposes and we ask that the Committee gives this recommendation serious consideration during its deliberations.” Well in fact the committee members did give it serious consideration and three parties said: “We want to ban them.” Unfortunately that was not the view of the Government members or the Minister.I have to say I have great respect for our Ministry of Health officials—they do a great job—but their regulatory impact statement is a great disappointment to me. When you read their regulatory impact statement you would have to think that it is more important to the Ministry of Health to ensure people’s rights to a tanning machine than to ensure the health of New Zealanders because it sets out its objectives against which the policy options could be assessed.This is what the Ministry of Health says its objectives are. It developed these objectives against which policy options could be assessed and they included first preventing and reducing the risk of public harm from commercial sunbeds. Tick—you could not disagree. Next is that any new controls or interventions for this purpose need to be “risk- and evidence-based”—risk- and evidence-based—and “good international practice;”. Risk- and evidence-based was a reason provided to the select committee as to why these are not good for the health of New Zealanders. Of course as we know the World Health Organization itself has made its own comments on this. It believes sunbeds are carcinogenic. The third objective is that it be “appropriate to protect health and safety while still enabling the use of medical UV devices for the treatment of certain skin conditions …” Tick—agree. Then the next one states that options should not impose “unnecessary or unjustified compliance costs”—well if they are banned I doubt whether there is a hell of a lot of cost or a need to have inspections or to have codes of conduct. They are just banned.The last objective—and this is the one that I really found offensive—says to not “unnecessarily restrict access to services desired by well-informed adults unless there is good reason.” Why do we have legislation regulation and taxation on tobacco because surely these are well-informed adults? Surely they want to keep smoking? That is their choice if you were to read this—why restrict access? You see it does not add up.I am going to say this—and people might disagree—I do not believe that this is what the Ministry of Health thinks. I also know officials in the Ministry of Health. They are good public health people. I do not believe this is what they wanted. This is what is provided but it is certainly not good public health practice. It is certainly not what a forward-looking Government would put in place.It is interesting that in Australia a country that I do not believe usually outstrips us when it comes to health policy—in fact it is a slow follower of New Zealand in the main—they have banned the commercial use of sunbeds. The ban took effect from 1 January this year. One of the things that we were told at the select committee was that used sunbeds from Australia were heading to New Zealand so that we can give melanoma to our people because they do not want it over there.It is also an irony to me that the Government has announced $39 million of new expenditure for Pharmac much of which the Minister said is going towards a new melanoma drug called Opdivo when at the same time it is not prepared to ban sunbeds which as I said to you increase the risk of getting melanoma by 75 percent. It does not add up. Why have we not got the courage of our convictions to say we will ban them? My Supplementary Order Paper allows 3 years to phase them out. It gives the commercial operators the opportunity to change what they are doing. It is not unreasonable but it is a good public health measure.I feel strongly about this and so do so many people who have contacted us particularly those who work in public health including doctors nurses and specialists. It is a mystery to me as to why we have not gone the whole hog. Instead what we are doing is that we are banning it for those under 18 years of age. Melanoma does not just stop for those under the age of 18 years. Unfortunately melanoma is actually a problem for young people—yes—but those who are older than 18 also get melanoma.I am very sorry that we have not been able to achieve an ultimate outcome in this bill. We certainly did an excellent job in Part 1. This is a disappointment—from Part 2. I do not care whether there are those who say a Supplementary Order Paper such as mine is the nanny State. I am over this nanny State stuff. I am over putting that up as an argument when we should be protecting the public health of New Zealanders rather than allowing the continuation of a practice that when used leads to 75 percent of New Zealanders being likely to get melanoma.We will vote for this bill. Now I see the Minister of Health arriving in the chair. He probably missed the slight praise I gave him a wee while ago so I am happy to repeat it. He did act quickly on Part 1 when we made an amendment to it. But he has not been moved to change the position on sunbeds—to ban them. I urge the Minster to rethink it so that it is not his legacy that he finishes as the Minister of Health—