Genter Julie AnneJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. Tēnā koutou e Te Whare. The Green Party will be supporting this bill as it does take a good step in the direction of making Aotearoa the sort of country that we are working for it to be which is a place where we look after our precious natural environment but most importantly where we empower and protect our people to live good lives. I think this bill interestingly as it has the support of so many different parties across the House really is a perfect example of the principle that Government is there to support people when they are doing something to help others in our society because we are all in this together we often rely on help from others and in the case of needing an organ that is incredibly true. It is fantastic that the Government can be there to help support people who are willing to make that sacrifice of giving a kidney—most likely although who knows with advances in medical technology—to someone else to enable them to live a healthier and longer life.The Compensation for Live Organ Donors Bill as it is now called went through the select committee process some time ago. I was not there to hear the submissions but there were 125 submissions to the Health Committee all generally in favour of the principle of providing financial assistance or compensation to live organ donors. There were a variety of improvements that were mentioned at the select committee some of which were incorporated in the final bill. The most common suggestion was to change it from 80 percent of one's income to 100 percent so that it was full compensation for the time during which someone might be undergoing the surgical procedure and recovering from that procedure.There are of course other issues related to organ donation that are not addressed by this bill. The Green Party would like to see it possible for there to be greater encouragement for people to sign up to be organ donors when they have encountered an accident—a very unfortunate crash say or something like that which would mean they would not be live organ donors. I myself renewed my driver's licence this week for the first time in 10 years and ticked the box again to be an organ donor should I be in that unfortunate circumstance. That is something that has always been championed in my family personally coming from a medical family. My parents impressed upon me the importance of being an organ donor if you are in that unfortunate circumstance because we want above all to use resources as well as we can while we are on this planet and to enable others to do the same.We congratulate the member who was lucky enough to have his bill drawn from the ballot Chris Bishop—an excellent initiative. It is great to see such a constructive piece of legislation from the members' ballot coming from Government members which is not always the case. It is fantastic that this bill has achieved such great support across all parties in this House. It is something that we are unfortunately probably going to need even more in the future because we have the rising problem of type 2 diabetes which is going to put pressure on and increase the demand particularly for kidneys. There are other ways that the Government could be addressing the risk presented by the rise in chronic disease—in particular type 2 diabetes. I think I read the astonishing figure that one out of three New Zealanders is either diabetic or pre-diabetic which is a ticking time bomb and is something that we are going to have to take urgent action on if we want to avoid the long-term costs to the health system and want to avoid a degraded quality of life for so many New Zealanders.As I was saying before about this particular bill which offers financial assistance and compensation to people who are willing to make that sacrifice of donating an organ it recognises the principle and role of Government to support people who are spending their time doing something for others. I think there is also the recognition that we are all in this together and there is an important role for Government to play in empowering and protecting citizens particularly young people in the face of increasing pressure and advertising around things like sugary drinks.It is a perfect example of where the whole community is worse off because of the prevalence of sugary drinks and there is an important role for the Government to play by for example taxing sugary drinks and using that revenue to fund health promotion. There is an important role for Government to play as it designs our transport systems and our towns and cities to make it safer and easier for kids to walk and cycle to school. All of that will go a long way in reducing the burden and the cost of diabetes in New Zealand.I think this Government wants to do the right thing. It wants to reduce obesity and chronic diseases related to childhood obesity like type 2 diabetes but if we look at its actual Childhood Obesity Plan there is nothing in it that is going to substantially change the trajectory. It is relying on identifying kids who are at risk and giving them some nutritional advice but how is that going to help if they have got sugary drinks and junk food in the tuck shop at school? How is that going to help if their parents have to drive them 2 kilometres to school because it is not safe to walk and cycle?So there are all these ways in which the Government could be taking proactive action to protect and empower citizens to ensure that we all look after each other and we all do well. That is what the Green Party would like to see in Aotearoa.