Roy Heather: General Debates 
Roy Heather: General Debates 
[Volume:614;Page:10598] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 The Minister of Health stood up before to gloat over the signing today of the Australia - New Zealand joint agency agreement. She was gloating in her anti-business way over the fact that she will be responsible for driving small businesses manufacturing dietary supplements out of business. She asked in the speech she made in this House what she has achieved. Well I can tell members what she has achieved by ignoring the Health Committee inquiry into dietary supplements and complementary medicines and including those products in the joint agency. 
I have in front of me some products that are safe and popular. They are available to New Zealanders now but they are not available in Australia. The products are: Joint Care with MSM which is not available in Australia; Immunofort with specific vitamins minerals amino acids and herbs which is not available in Australia; Desiccated Liver which is not available in Australia but which is very good for us; and Enzyme Complex. It is very interesting that the Minister of Health said yesterday that garlic was excluded. Of course there is a very good reason for that—Government members need garlic to drive the vampires away! I also have some multivitamins minerals and selenium products that are available here but not in Australia. 
Selenium is deficient in the soils of the South Island and if the Government has its way people will not be able to supplement their diet with selenium from tablets either. People from the South Island like Clayton Cosgrove will be left to join the sheep at the salt lick to get their selenium supplies. 
Annette King thinks that the products I have here are dangerous products. She thinks they are so dangerous that they must be subject to the toughest regulations in the world—those of the Australians. Well I am not afraid of these products and I am happy to prove it. I am from the South Island and I do not mind taking the selenium tablet that I have here. 
Lindsay Tisch 
: How was it? 
HEATHER ROY 
: It went down great. Sixty-six percent of New Zealanders are like me and are not afraid to take these products either. They think that we do not need the tough regulations that the Australians are going to impose on these very safe products. 
 So are these products really dangerous? I have here a chart that one of the submitters who has subsequently been ignored by the Minister of Health and this arrogant Labour Government presented to us at the select committee. It lists the fatalities in New Zealand. They are: deaths caused by cancers—7582; adverse drug reactions from prescription medications—1524 and it is right and proper they should be subject to very rigorous scrutiny; traffic accidents—531; food—an estimated 75 and that is ordinary food not food supplements; working for the Government—2.5 deaths. That is very interesting. No one told me when I came to Parliament that I was in danger of losing my life and quite where the remaining 0.5 of a life goes is anybody’s guess. Perhaps the Labour members might stand and tell us how they will cause that. But interestingly natural health-care and therapeutic products have been responsible for surprise surprise no deaths—none at all. 
This Government has committed this country to require that these safe and popular products be subjected to rigorous scrutiny. I have here another product Boost. It contains folic acid which has been shown to prevent spina bifida. I am not afraid of this one either; let us have some of that. The recorded decrease in the number of babies born with spinal defects is thought to be the result of an increased number of women taking folate in the early stages of pregnancy. In fact folate has been so beneficial it has been suggested that bread should be fortified but there is a bit of a hold up at the Ministry of Health. Under the proposed legislation this type of bread would have to be rigorously tested to ensure that it meets the highest standards of scrutiny. The cost of course would be high. But it is often the case that when a country embraces socialism in the way this Labour Government has that bread ends up being rationed. Indeed it is a logical extension of the current Government’s lurch towards a centrally planned everything that every citizen’s dietary requirements will have to be passed by this Labour Cabinet.