Whaitiri Meka: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeWhaitiri Meka: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 06 November 2014. Volume:701;Page:735. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]MEKA WHAITIRI (Labour—Ikaroa-Rāwhiti):Tēnā koe Mr Assistant Speaker. It gives me great pleasure to take a call on this bill. Can I start too by acknowledging the newly appointed Minister of Health the Hon Dr Jonathan Coleman. I wish him well in his tenure as the Minister of Health. Health for many of the people whom I represent from Ikaroa-Rāwhiti is very very important along with education jobs and housing so I am happy to stand in support of this bill in its first reading.I want to acknowledge the origins of this amendment bill which came from the Public Health Bill introduced by the Hon Annette King some 7 years ago. I want to acknowledge the fine role the Hon Annette King has played as a Minister of Health. There is not a place that I travel to up and down Ikaroa-Rāwhiti—be it hospitals community health providers or Māori and Pacific communities—where the people do not know and acknowledge the work that Annette King did in her time as the Minister of Health so I do want to acknowledge and mihi to Annette.I am glad even though it is 7 years on that we have this bill before the House. Of course the problems that this bill is attempting to address have been canvassed by previous speakers: infectious diseases and UV tanning devices. I want to talk about the problem around infectious diseases and what this bill is attempting to do in mitigating how we deal with that. There is a risk that members of the public are affected by serious infectious diseases and that the spread of these diseases remains unknown and is not able to be managed. So that is clearly the intent of this bill.We are also trying through this bill to create comprehensive and timely information on rates and trends of sexually transmitted illnesses which is lacking and which hampers appropriate policy development for reducing and managing these sexually transmitted illnesses. We also through this bill are trying to address the lack of immediate options for effective case management—that is either voluntary compliance or detention—which means that in practice usually only limited action is able to be taken to manage and assist people whose behaviour puts other people at risk. Fourthly we are also trying to trace and contact people who may be sources of infection and who require treatment. If treatment is not undertaken in many situations it will result in the infection further spreading. Again we do not want this in our communities. As such the Government needs to do more to help stem the spread of infectious diseases and I acknowledge that the introduction of this bill is clearly attempting to do that.There have been comments on the UV tanning. As some of us start approaching the warmer months of summer some of us do not need to be tanning perhaps as others feel the need to but it is a serious matter. Tanning does cause harm particularly to young people and to perhaps many people in this House bar some of us. I guess it is both a privilege and an advantage of being of a certain ethnic background—we celebrate that some of us do not need to use tanning. But to get back to the serious nature of it there are people who suffer severely through UV tanning and this bill is attempting to make sure that we are managing that in order to prevent further harm particularly as previous speakers have mentioned to under-18s.So what is the bill about? It is trying to give effect to the Government’s decision from October 2013 to improve the range of measures available to protect the public from harm associated with both infectious diseases and with artificial UV tanning. Improving like I mentioned the tracing of people who have infectious diseases seems pretty reasonable. It sounds pretty straightforward. But the end point for me is the fact that we need to protect our communities from the further spreading of infectious diseases and therefore we need to make sure that we have a facility that registers people with those types of diseases.It is important that we create the opportunity to ensure that people are registering. I see in the bill that there is an expectation that all information will be confidentially held. That is perhaps one of the scary points that some of the previous speakers have made but I also know that it is vital for many many people. We have read stories in papers about people having maliciously gone on to spread infectious diseases and the harm that has been caused to many innocent people throughout the country. I just want to ensure that when we are putting this through the select committee process people who may have a concern—and I do want to acknowledge the Green member talking about getting the balance right between liberty and public good—can raise their concerns and I think the select committee process is where that can happen.As a member from one of the largest electorates I do need to pass on some comments to members of the select committee. In relation to a lot of the health policies and health legislation that we pass in this House I do want to put in a plug for rural communities and I do want to put in a plug for isolated communities simply because they do not have access to a lot of the services that those who live in more metropolitan and larger provincial towns enjoy. There are communities up and down my electorate—just the logistics of implementing a registration like this and managing the unintended consequences of UV tanning devices. Can I leave it to the great members of the Health Committee to ensure in their deliberations that in passing this bill we are able to ensure that all New Zealanders no matter where they live no matter how far they live from centres are able to access the benefit of this legislation and the intent behind it.I do join with others in this House in standing in support of this bill. I look forward to the report back that will come from the Health Committee. Kia ora.