Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Franks Stephen: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15926] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Again I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. This is the bill that will regulate assisted conception and forbid cloning and hybrid embryo transfers etc. It is not common in Parliament that we debate issues in genuine debates. I have appreciated the opportunity to hear Ms Judy Turner’s contributions and to see the amendments she has put forward. She tells us that United Future will oppose this bill and I am glad about that. But she has attempted nevertheless to mitigate its consequences. I am however really puzzled about the position of the Green Party. The member sitting beside me Sue Kedgley who spoke for the Green Party on this bill has talked constantly about it being effectively not regulation at all. She has called it “wiffly waffly” and not achieving any objectives. She has used a whole lot of terms to say that the bill does not do anything. 
What I am baffled about is that Sue Kedgley was the deputy chairperson of the Health Committee and the committee’s report states: “The Green Party is pleased at the way many aspects of this bill have been strengthened by the select committee. We are particularly pleased with the new provisions that prohibit the genetic engineering of humans and that prohibit the sex selection of embryos for any reason other than treating and preventing genetic disease. We also welcome the strengthened requirements for public consultation …”. That does not sound very “wiffly waffly”. The report goes on to state: “The bill gives the Ministerial Advisory Committee wide-ranging and virtually unlimited powers to issue guidelines and advice on any matter relating to any kind of assisted reproductive procedure …”. Now it is true that at this stage guidelines could be seen as “wiffly waffly” but Ms Kedgley goes on to state in the report: “These ‘guidelines’ will not only set out policy on a wide range of assisted reproductive procedures; they will also be in reality binding legal instruments or a form of delegated legislation …”. 
 How is it that we can hear so many strident speeches in the Chamber about “wiffly waffly” non-prohibitions that at the same time are binding legal instruments or a form of delegated legislation? They have to be one thing or the other. I would really appreciate it if the member in the chair Dianne Yates who is in charge of the bill could seek advice from the officials and give us at least their view on whether this stuff is as “wiffly waffly” inconsequential and irrelevant as the Green member has been portraying it or whether it is as I fear a straightjacket on medical research and on medical technology in this country. This is yet another incentive for our best young graduates to disappear overseas to far more interesting and vibrant scientific environments. Worse still it is a reason because it is binding for ordinary New Zealanders who desperately want children to go elsewhere and spend their hard-earned money from New Zealand on doctors and other technologies in countries where people have not panicked at the first sign of a change in the status quo. That is what this issue is about. 
This bill is equivalent to a bunch of politicians deciding when the Wright brothers first took off from an airfield that they had better appoint a bunch of experts to decide whether anyone should be allowed to fly in case they hurt themselves. There is no difference in substance. There is no evidence of any significant risk that has materialised to anyone in this area. There are legal uncertainties just as the Wright brothers faced legal uncertainties. I have confidence that the cases that Judy Turner has mentioned will be worked out by the courts and that we will learn from those in a way that a bunch of sanctimonious parliamentarians can never learn by consulting their fear of the dark. What we have here as has been admitted is ignorance and a lack of knowledge of what could or may happen. We have a decision that instead of the New Zealand tradition that what is not specifically prohibited is lawful which is the proud boast of English law what is not specifically permitted is prohibited. That is a very bad legal principle. It follows the Continental principle. That is what despots do—they do not do anything unless they have been told that they can do it. That is what this law does. That is why most of the ACT party will vote against this bill. We think it is a very proud principle of freedom that one can do anything that is not specifically prohibited.