Cunliffe David: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
Cunliffe David: Medicines (Specified Biotechnical Procedures)  Amendment Bill — Third Reading 
[Volume:625;Page:20703] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Minister of Communications) 
: 
 I am not a scientist and I do not pretend to understand the details of xenotransplantation. But I do understand that the Government has taken the best expert advice on the costs and risks of allowing xenotransplantation in advance of other similar countries. The reality is that our friends in Australia have not allowed the types of practices that this bill disallows; nor has the United Kingdom. 
I would like to recall the structure of the argument that has been made by the colleague who has just resumed his seat. He is a former doctor who started off arguing on the basis of human health—that New Zealanders’ health demanded access to xenotransplantation. Yet as a scientist he will be aware of the difference between type A and type B error. Type A is where we do not fix something we should fix—we do not do something—and type B is where we try to fix it but end up with an even worse result. 
The trick with this issue is that the consequences of trying it and getting it wrong would be absolutely horrific. Diseases like porcine endogenous retrovirus have the potential to jump the species barrier from animals to humans and we could have a genetic mutation with the most serious consequences. So I argue that on the first ground—the ground of health—the Opposition’s case has not been made. 
But the previous speaker moved on from that. He was not satisfied that he had convinced people on health grounds so he talked about the need to locate research in New Zealand. I say to the Opposition folks that they should come clean. If you want more subsidies for Crown research institutes or medical laboratories why do you not just come clean and tell us that that is what you are really about? 
The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Clem Simich) 
: Order! 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE 
: Not you Mr Speaker. You of course are like the driven snow. 
More important if the case were about biosecurity which was the Opposition’s third argument then why would the Opposition place New Zealand’s international reputation at risk by taking steps that our closest friends and trading partners have refused to take? 
I believe that the reality here is that the National Party and ACT—not surprisingly in the latter case—have been captured by the narrow interests of one company: Diatranz. They have been hoodwinked that Diatranz has a fully proven medical technology but it is still very much at the experimental stage internationally and has not been proven for New Zealand conditions. If the argument is that Diatranz must be relied upon for a cure for diabetes then I ask National and ACT whether they have heard of Protemix and the excellent work of Professor Garth Cooper and his colleagues. They have not felt the need to leave New Zealand and there is no suggestion that they are the least bit threatened by this bill. 
New Zealand has world-class research. This Government is proud of New Zealand’s science establishment and medical researchers and we think the Opposition should stop running down Kiwi science understand the difference between type A and type B error and adopt a cautious prudent and rigorous approach which is exactly what this bill proposes.