Catchpole Brent: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Catchpole Brent: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
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BRENT CATCHPOLE (NZ First) 
: 
 I welcome the opportunity to take a call on clauses 1 and 2 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill and on behalf of New Zealand First I acknowledge the great amount of work done by Dianne Yates to get the bill to this stage. It is obvious that she has spent a lot of time and done a lot of work on the bill since 1996 and that she has led a very good select committee on it as well. I congratulate her. I also acknowledge the work of my colleague in New Zealand First Barbara Stewart who has spent a lot of time on this bill as well. 
I would like to touch on a couple of points that I consider to be very important. They relate to the title and to timings. One of the main issues I have with the bill that I would like to raise at this point is the information about donors embryos etc. The information recorded by the provider does not have to be turned over to anybody for 50 years. The information has to be retained by that provider for 50 years or if that provider ceases to be a provider and there are no alternatives it has to be handed over to the registrar. 
That information contains some very important facts and aspects about the donor. It includes the donor’s name gender address and place and country of birth. It also records the donor’s height colour of hair and eyes ethnicity whanau and hapu. 
It also records medical history which is where if information is withheld for 50 years it can have devastating effects. There may be a situation where genetic flaws in the embryos or cells provided have not been picked up because not all defects carry over from one generation to the next. They often skip one two or three generations then reappear. That is where the problem arises. 
If there is a donor who in turn becomes a donor that information is hidden; it will not become available until 50 years is up. If the child of the donor dies at an early age say after donating cells for another process then I am not sure whether the genetic information can become available to the next generation formed from the donated cell of the donor. That is something I would like the member to take a call on because I would like to hear that that information is provided. 
For example it is very serious when something like cystic fibrosis appears within a family. It may not appear for several generations but then it can reoccur. Depending on the circumstances of donor parents the supposed information supplied has to provide information about grandparents but if the circumstances concern the donated cells of a donor the grandparents are not known at that point because the information is kept hidden for 50 years. 
There is no obligation to provide that information for 50 years therefore it can fall through the cracks and never be known. I would hate that to be the case. I am an avid family historian and that information is of interest to historians and family historians. But more important it is vital information when genetic defects start appearing that cannot be traced back to a family line or the original donors.