Kedgley Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
Kedgley Sue: Debate on Prime Minister’s Statement 
[Volume:606;Page:3413] 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
:  
When we debate health issues in this House and indeed around New Zealand the discussion invariably turns to waiting lists and district health board deficits. So it was interesting to note that those two burning issues did not rate so much as a mention in the Prime Minister’s speech. Of course they did not because they are a source of severe embarrassment to this Government. The Government promised that it would slash waiting lists but instead of slashing waiting lists by increasing the number of operations that are performed in New Zealand which is the only way of truly slashing waiting lists the Government has tried to slash waiting lists by a sort of smoke and mirrors policy of pushing people off the list and back to their general practitioners for a so-called reassessment and by arbitrarily increasing the number of points that are needed before a patient is eligible for an operation. It is no wonder therefore that genuine waiting lists are continuing to climb.  
I want to discuss tonight yet another health crisis in New Zealand and that is the 16000-odd New Zealanders who are diagnosed with cancer each year and why it is that despite all of the talk all of the hand wringing the publication of the new  
Towards a Cancer Control Strategy  
at the end of last year—a long-overdue document—and despite all of the money that we spend on cancer detection and treatment so little is being done in New Zealand in the area of cancer prevention to reduce and indeed eliminate the underlying causes of cancer in our midst. Seven thousand five hundred New Zealanders die from cancer each year and it is now of course the second leading cause of death. Breast cancer rates have doubled within a generation and are projected to double again. Despite all the money on the detection and treatment processes survival rates for most cancers have remained essentially the same for the past 20 years.  
What then do we do about it? Numerous studies show that environmental and occupational contaminants are the main contributors to the soaring rates of cancer. Even the very conservative World Health Organization estimates that at least 80 percent of all cancers are environmentally related. If 80 percent of cancers are environmentally related where then is the focus the strategy or the plan to reduce our environmental exposure to cancer-causing substances? Where is the strategy to phase out toxic pesticides particularly the known human carcinogens—pesticides that are known to cause cancer? Where indeed is even the acknowledgment that pesticides are a major cause of cancer? Where is the strategy to eliminate dioxins among the deadliest substances that humans have ever invented or the strategy to reduce and eliminate workplace chemicals and carcinogens?  
Overseas studies have identified at least 60 occupations that pose an increased risk of cancer to workers: electrical workers meat workers timber workers radiographers boat builders hairdressers and so on. Overseas much work is being done to look at those occupations. But what are we doing to protect workers in those and other high-risk occupations to remove what are known cancer-causing substances in our workplaces? What are we doing to compensate workers such as timber workers who have been exposed to substances and have become seriously ill as a result?  
The International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified 24 substances that have been proven to cause just one cancer and that is lung cancer in humans. Now one of those cancer-causing substances of course is tobacco. We congratulate Steve Chadwick and indeed the Government on initiatives to try to reduce our exposure to this particular cancer-causing substance. But what about the rest? What are we doing about the other 23 known causes of lung cancer and all the other cancers? Where are the similar initiatives the legislation and the strategies for the cancer-causing pesticides vinyl chloride benzene and all the others? If we are serious about cancer prevention and reducing cancer in our midst we should be developing a major strategy—a major focus—on cancer prevention in New Zealand.