Roy Heather: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — In Committee 
Roy Heather: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:625;Page:20594] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 I rise to speak to the Committee stage of the Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures) Amendment Bill. I reiterate some of the comments made by the National Party speaker Dr Paul Hutchison. He commented that the Health Committee chair had noted that the bill is uncontroversial. In fact it is not. ACT does not believe that the bill is uncontroversial. It is a very controversial matter. 
This bill which comes before Parliament in an election year is kick-for-touch legislation so that the Government does not have to confront the fears and the controversy surrounding xenotransplantation. The bill does not cover only xenotransplantation as was pointed out by several speakers in the debate on the second reading. It covers a raft of issues but the debate always seems to come back to xenotransplantation. The bill extends the moratorium so that the Government will not have to confront this very controversial issue in an election year. 
The Government has persistently declared its belief that biotechnology is a main aspect of what it likes to call the knowledge economy. How often have we heard about the knowledge economy? It has been many many times since I have been in Parliament. We hear all the buzzwords and terms such as “bright future” but what do they actually mean? When it comes back to the Government putting its money where its mouth is it backs down very quickly and tries just to kick for touch so that the moratorium is extended until 31 December 2006 which is a full 18 months away. 
So what are our scientists expected to do in the meantime? They are expected to go offshore again. 
The New Zealand First speaker said that further research needs to be carried out and she used the very good example of heart valves. What we have here is a display not just from that member but from many members. We in this Parliament are not experts on xenotransplantation and that should be noted. In fact I have had an email from somebody who has described exactly what Dr Elliott was doing before he was forced to move his experimentation offshore. This prominent medical researcher has developed a method of trickling insulin—cultured from the pancreatic cells of piglets—that is contained within retrievable tea bags. So the bags are a completely independent item so to speak and they float in the diabetic’s peritoneal liquid. The cells are coated to prevent an immune reaction and patients’ immune systems are not interfered with at all. 
I think that the New Zealand First member’s comment of “interesting” is very pertinent because she did not know that previously. She did not realise that a retrovirus could not get across that barrier. Firstly there is the barrier of that coating to prevent an immune reaction so that the patient’s immune system is not interfered with. That is a very valuable point but it has been deliberately ignored by many members in this debate and is something that many people did not know about. 
What we need and what I am calling for in this debate is some relevance. We should be listening to what experts are saying. We should be calling on expert advice. That did not really happen I am afraid to say within the select committee process where the bill barely touched the table. We should be having a proper debate. We should not be just extending a moratorium because it suits the Government in this election year; we should be debating the real issues—those of xenotransplantation and other research. 
For this reason ACT New Zealand opposes the extension of this moratorium calls for a proper debate and calls for it now. We should be discussing the real issues and it is an indictment on the members who refuse to do that. Only the members of the National Party and ACT are prepared to debate the real issues on this topic. It is a very sad day for this Parliament that we come here and want just to push things along as they are—to keep the status quo—in order to keep voters happy so that at election time votes are not lost because of a very important issue. It is something that impacts heavily on diabetics in this country of whom we have a great number. 
ACT opposes the legislation because of this ignorance the failure to call on expert opinion and the failure to acknowledge that we should have a knowledge economy in this country. We think that the debate should be held here and now not kicked for touch and then revisited in another 18 months’ time when hopefully we will have a completely new Government.