Stewart Barbara: Public Health Bill — First Reading 
Stewart Barbara: Public Health Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:644;Page:13847] 
BARBARA STEWART (NZ First) 
: 
 On behalf of New Zealand First I rise to support the Public Health Bill going to a select committee. I must admit that when I heard one of the previous speeches I actually wondered whether I had a copy of the same bill as that particular speaker. I have checked and I definitely have the same bill but my interpretation is quite different in many ways from that of the member. So I can see we will have a very interesting debate at the select committee. 
This bill is not part of a conspiracy; it more than likely should have been completed a long time ago. It was not just deliberately put through under urgency in any conspiracy mode. I believe that the first reading is being completed at this particular time so that the select committee can get to work on the bill as soon as possible after the adjournment. It is timely to update this legislation; it has not been done for some time. It is long overdue. 
As other speakers have said this legislation will replace the Health Act of 1956 and the Tuberculosis Act of 1948. By my calculations the Health Act is over 50 years old and many aspects of life have actually changed quite markedly since its introduction. The Act now does not reflect contemporary public health issues or contemporary human rights and values. 
This is important legislation and the public of New Zealand and those people involved in the health area will be very keen to have some input into this bill. It is a pretty hefty piece of legislation—there are many many pages there—and it covers aspects of health from the roles and responsibilities of various officials in the health system through to health information. It also covers reporting in cervical screening—and I must say that was an area I thought was rather settled now—management of conditions posing health risks through to emergencies and border health. There is a high level of accountability within this particular bill. I was very interested to read that territorial authorities have an extensive role—principally in relation to environmental health under which of course comes food and drinking water. The bill is an extensive update and hopefully it will have a similar life to that of the previous legislation. So it needs to be right. We need to make sure during the select committee process that we have everything absolutely right. 
This legislation is important because it will become New Zealand’s primary public health statute. Fifty years ago immunisation for many diseases did not exist. Some diseases that are relatively common today were previously unknown—and here we can talk about cancer and heart disease. The 1956 Act was relatively silent on non-communicable diseases. We all know that one of those diseases is obesity and closely related to that is diabetes. Communicable disease control includes the controls necessary for HIV and AIDS which were diseases that were not even identified in the original legislation. Today we have to take account of changes in international travel and of threats such as severe acute respiratory syndrome and bird flu which are best identified at the border rather than having some sort of reactive response in New Zealand. 
We also have to be concerned about some of the diseases that some immigrants are bringing into this country and here we are particularly referring to tuberculosis. We have to be aware that the strain of TB that is now prevalent in New Zealand today is resistant to today’s drugs and can be only managed rather than cured and that in itself is quite a concern to us. I think it would be fair to say that most New Zealanders believed that New Zealand was on top of all Third World diseases but unfortunately the reality is that we are not. It is a fact that all of the guilty parties that are right here in this Parliament and that have directed comments about xenophobia in New Zealand First have at the same time opened the public purse to cure the Third World diseases that have been brought in—and I can see some heads nodding in agreement. We are told that there is a large number of TB cases in Auckland hospitals; in fact some wards are dedicated entirely to TB a disease that most New Zealanders believed had been totally eliminated here in New Zealand. So risks to public health do need to be managed and managed very carefully. In New Zealand First we believe in the precautionary principle and we think it is of paramount importance. 
I was very interested to read in the explanatory note of the bill that the risk management approach will be paramount in this bill and of course we could see that in the epidemic preparedness legislation that we passed earlier in the year. The bill notes that this approach is going to operate locally through the district health boards and nationally through the Minister and other high-level ministerial roles. However the last thing that most New Zealanders would want to see—and I know National members would agree with me in this particular instance—is the construction of 21 different plans in 21 different locations. We accept that there can be some regional variations but not to any great extent. 
In New Zealand First we were quite interested too in the contact-tracing requirements. It is absolutely essential to have these provisions in place in order to identify and seek people who have been in contact with a person with a notifiable condition to prevent the further spread of that condition and of course to offer treatment. We had that situation earlier in the year in respect of the Zimbabwean refugees and AIDS. We actually believed that this would have been the current practice but if it has not been legislated for then it has to be. 
We were very interested to read in the bill that the following activities are regulated by the Health Act and that they will continue to be regulated under their current regulations in the bill. It is a pretty diverse list from camp grounds to hairdressing to burials and funeral directors to needle and syringe exchange programmes to the manufacture import and assembly of microwave ovens and to the business use of plastic wrapping. We understand that after this bill is enacted these regulations will be reviewed under the new framework that is being provided in the bill. We also understand that no additional activities are included in the bill but any that might be in the future—for example tattooing—will be included only after a consultation practice. We would also have liked to see sun beds and sunscreen included in the consultation process. 
In conclusion I say this is a very interesting bill with many different parts that will no doubt be very carefully examined by all of the members on the select committee. I must say we all expect the Government to be adequately prepared for any public health crisis and this is an attempt to update this particular legislation and to be prepared. New Zealand First supports this legislation and we look forward to receiving submissions from all of those parties that are going to be affected by this bill.