Turner Judy: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
Turner Judy: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — In Committee Procedure 
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JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of United Future to speak to Part 4 including schedule 2 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. I want just very briefly to carry on from my Green colleague and say that although United Future applauds the fact that schedule 2 has a very sensible search warrant process by which any activity that has not been approved can be investigated I think we have to understand that it is the implementation of guidelines that will be policed. 
 I have here the draft consultation document on the guidelines for the preimplantation genetic diagnosis procedure which has already been circulated for consultation. These are the kinds of guidelines that the search warrant will be used to enforce. When we flick through the document—and I will not bore the Committee with some of the contents—we can see that at this stage it is certainly a document for discussion. This is what has been recommended. I can find nothing in here that provides for something to be enforced. It is really a list of information facts concerns and comments on societal trends and attitudes towards certain procedures. Nowhere does it state in black and white what somebody can or cannot do. In fact some of the recommendations put the responsibility to develop appropriate procedures on to the fertility clinics themselves. We could hardly go in and arrest people in a fertility clinic for procedures that they themselves are responsible for developing. 
This strikes at the heart of my concerns. When one thinks about what guidelines mean one assumes that a sense of direction is suggested or implied. When we read this very first set which has a direct implication on the legislation the warning bells go off because there is no clear direction. It contains a series of facts and pieces of information that I recommend the member from New Zealand First has a good look at because that is what the search warrant will be used for to try to enforce. There is nothing to enforce because the content is so general. Our concern has always been that we should be able to understand very clearly what is and what is not allowed. The original schedule 2 in the bill—which has now been superseded—was very much more prescriptive and clear about what needed to be enforced and what was acceptable and unacceptable. 
I also have here—almost in response to the original schedule 2—some of the issues that do not even get a mention in this bill. These I guess will now be subject to the ministerial advisory committee which will make a series of recommendations and develop a set of guidelines to give—once the Minister has given them the tick—to the ethics committees. A huge number of procedures and possibilities are not even mentioned or outlined in this bill and the decisions on them will be handed over to a whole raft of people. Somehow under this new schedule 2 we will be able to enforce them through search warrants. I am hugely concerned. I am kind of glad in some ways although I question why we already have guidelines when this bill has not even been passed into law yet. How are we already so far down the track on this procedure? It is full steam ahead and there are media releases stating that the Minister has pretty well made up her mind about which way she will vote on this matter despite the fact that the consultation date has not even closed yet. 
So already some huge concerns are developing before the royal assent has even been given. United Future is concerned—certainly I am very very concerned—about the search warrant and enforcement provisions in the bill. Although they look good my big question is: what are they enforcing? They are enforcing some very vague guidelines that are left hugely open to interpretation. I do not know how anybody will be held accountable under this legislation.