Dean Jacqui: Radiation Safety Bill — First ReadingText is subject to correctionDean Jacqui: Radiation Safety Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 10 March 2015. Volume:703;Page:2091. Text is subject to correction.]JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki):One of the enjoyable things about a bill’s first reading is that come the day that the bill is introduced into this Parliament and we are required to stand up and make a contribution on it it means that suddenly we have to turn our attention to something that we might know absolutely nothing about apart from going to the dentist in this case where I get irradiated once a year. I am very lucky to be irradiated once a year—well to be irradiated only in my teeth is what I think I am trying to say. But what is interesting with a first reading is that we have not yet had the benefit of the advice from officials and we have not yet had the benefit of contributions from industry experts or anybody who cares to come and speak to us about bills such as the Radiation Safety Bill. So I have been listening today with my notes and I have had a look at the bill and we will be looking at this bill in the select committee process in a great deal more depth.I have been listening this evening and there were a couple of contributions that have genuinely puzzled me. There is a point that a couple of speakers have made this evening—one was the Green member Kevin Hague and the other was Barbara Stewart the previous speaker from New Zealand First. They made quite a strong point around non-iodising radiation or non-ionising radiation—there you go 2 seconds later and she has her words right—which until just now I had not realised was different from the radiation that is used for industrial medical and agricultural purposes. So that is news and it was news to me. But the point that those two speakers made was that non-ionising radiation is used in devices such as cell towers power lines microwaves etc. etc. and as the Green member helpfully pointed out it really indicates that a level of radiation is being emitted yes. They both lamented the fact that these devices—microwaves power lines and their ilk—are not included in the bill and for the purposes of the point I am trying to make I will talk about microwaves. It seemed to be their strong contention to the House that well maybe these non-ionising devices such as microwaves should be included in the bill.So I listened carefully as one does in this House to one’s colleagues across the House—particularly when they are supporting the bill which I think is very helpful—and it made me wonder about several things. First of all does that mean that these devices are unregulated? The answer to that is no because they are variously regulated by other pieces of legislation like health and safety legislation environmental legislation and consumer legislation and if you are thinking about microwave ovens then I think consumer legislation comes very much to the fore.So I am thinking about the fact that those non-ionising devices are regulated under their own Acts of Parliament which brings me to the next point that they were making. They contended that devices such as our microwaves should be brought into this bill. I started thinking: “Well what would the impact of that be?”. So for the purposes of extending their argument and testing it I thought: “OK let us run through what would happen if the microwave were brought into this Radiation Safety Bill amendment.” and then I had a look at the main provisions of the bill. I have got a microwave at home as indeed most of us have. If the microwave and its ilk were brought into this bill clause 8 would ensure that “Every person who deals with a radiation source”—a microwave—“must ensure that people and the environment are protected now and in the future from the adverse effects of the radiation source …”. That is good so far. I do not have a problem with that. You have got to keep the kids away from the microwave make sure it is used properly and not put metal in it. Good I can live with that—that is OK.So then I moved on to the next provision which says that the bill establishes that “A person who deals with a radiation source”—a microwave for the purposes of my exposition—“must ensure that … the expected benefits to people and society” of dealing with the radiation source outweigh the risk of harm to people and society and to me that seems a little heavy-handed when one is talking about a microwave—just saying. Then I moved on to the next provision in this bill which says that the bill must “ensure that the magnitude of individual doses of ionising radiation” and I am thinking: “Do you put the thing on for 1 minute? Do you put the thing on for 30 seconds? How much time does it take to defrost a packet of mince?”. So if we bring that into this legislation are we then going to be requiring people to have—and I also read it in the bill—a licence?So is the Opposition in fact contending—Barbara Stewart: No.JACQUI DEAN: —well you know that is the argument. You are saying “No” now but that is the argument that the Opposition was promoting. It was that non-ionising radiation devices such as microwaves and power lines should be brought under the auspices of this bill. So are those members arguing that we need more regulation in New Zealand and should people—for instance me in my kitchen when I am defrosting my packet of mince—need to be licensed users of the devices?What I think I am trying to say to the House is that we are on the first reading of this bill and we have got a long way to go in the select committee process but I think we have to be just a little bit careful when we read our debate notes and we have a look at the bill there on the Table that we perhaps do not jump to conclusions that might indeed be disproved as we go through the select committee process. The last thing that I want to see—the last thing that I want to see—in this bill or in any bill is it adding more regulation that is unnecessary. I believe that it is unnecessary to bring non-ionising devices into this bill because to do so would first of all require the users—and so that is you me and all of us in this House—to then become registered users and to have a licence that would then need to be renewed every 12 months or whatever the regime would be. No we are not going to do that. It is nonsense.The other salient point—and I do not know why the members of the Opposition missed it because it was there in black and white in my notes and seemed to be obvious—is that the microwave in particular is regulated by its own piece of legislation such as the Consumer Guarantees Act. We have various Acts of Parliament that keep up safe from those devices. So that is the first point I want to make.The second point that I would like to make about this bill is the one that many of the other members of this House have also made. We talked about the Beatles. Somewhere in this debate we had a conversation about the Beatles and I think what that was speaking to was the fact that we have had radiating devices around since about the 1960s or even the 1950s and times have changed. The Radiation Protection Act 1965 has had its day.The use of radiating devices is now right through the world of medicine and thank goodness it is. We had a rather uncomfortable exposition by the chairman of the Health Committee who tried to tell us about the use of radiation in treating prostate cancer. We will leave that one right there thank you very much and the less said in the committee about it the better because some of us are quite delicate in that way. But radiation has got uses—seriously—for all of those of us whose family members have been touched by illness and cancer and we just thank God for it under those circumstances. It also has uses in agriculture. It has uses in science and space exploration where I was further doing my homework this evening.So what this bill does is bring up to date the regulation around irradiating devices. I do look forward to its passage through the select committee and I do await our submissions to tell me whether I am in fact wrong when I contend that there is no need for non-ionising devices to be brought into this bill because they are adequately covered in other legislation. Thank you for the opportunity to speak.