Severin ToniTONI SEVERIN (ACT): Thank you Mr Speaker. I'd like to speak on behalf of the ACT Party on the Therapeutic Products Bill. It is a very sad day—especially today when I still just left a meeting early this morning and a young lady came up to me with her concerns especially around rare disorders. This bill still leaves a whole lot of unanswered questions especially for those people with cancers and rare disorders. Even though things have been improved they have not improved enough to give them certainty to be able to get the treatment that they require especially with medicines that are overseas. Now the bill came back to us—because I sit on the Health Committee—with 226 pages. Then during the debate in the committee of the whole House the Government supplied us with a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) with another 257 pages. Now this is why we are concerned because it still has not answered many questions that many people have written to us. Over 6000 people put their submissions in and we listened to as many as we could. We understood yes that there was misinformation around herbs and spices. However if they are in a natural health medicine they may be regulated because of what they've put into but you can still go and get your normal herbs and spices to cook with. Now the other thing is we're in a cost of living crisis and these companies that have come to us that make these products—toothpaste cosmetics medicines natural medicines—all we're going to be doing is adding more costs for them. Yes they say it's going to be risk proportional but we still don't know what those costs are. And where do these companies put these costs on? To the consumer. So the consumer ends up paying more money for their products. It's very sad especially when we know we do need to update our Medicines Act 1981. I look around the House and I wonder how many were actually—well at the moment most of us were around in that time. Also the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985—we know these things need to be updated because we know technology medicines everything advances quickly but we need to do it sensibly and this does not. It does not answer many questions for many people. Also people are still concerned about their intellectual property (IP) providing it to regulatory people. We don't know how many regulators we're going to get. We don't know how many of them there are and what their expertise behind all this is. It just keeps getting more and more—and yes there is going to be secondary legislation but again there are too many questions. Too many people are scared about what it's going to do to their businesses and for those patients that are going to be seeking medicines that aren't readily available here in New Zealand. Now the other thing is everybody thinks this therapeutic bill is all about natural medicines; it's not. It is everything you can think of. It includes your hip replacements your knee joints; you name it we can give it—software. There's so many things. It also includes our veterinaries as well. So even getting medicines for Fluffy our cat—that they might not be available here is also regulated in this bill. The thing is people forget: not only do we want to look after ourselves but for most people their animals are part of their family. So there's concern around that. Well the thing is as we're saying we listened to many people that had given us submissions. We helped to write SOPs. I assume also the National Party was also listening to those people that had submitted and advised us around things that needed to be changed in this bill. I'd like to say to them: we listened we have done our best for this but we know that this is not good enough. For me for 33 years nearly—when you hear that there was a bill back in 2017 that many of these submitters said was good but it still needed a lot of changes we could have reformed it. How about we do that instead of reinventing the wheel—which we seem to be doing constantly—which takes up more time more money and more resources? I would also like to thank the officials that have helped us. You guys did a great job. You explained things immensely to all of us. I know it's hard when we sit and listen and hear that your hard work is being debated. But it's not your fault; it is what we have heard from many different parts of New Zealand within this sector. It's quite sad that this Government I feel hasn't listened and it's quite sad that we're here still debating it and that we could have probably made it even much better if things were taken into account. Again as we are saying another lot of bureaucratic red tape is being put on the simplest things of cosmetics and toothpaste and sunscreen. It's just going to be added on and on. As my learned colleague in the National Party said it will not come into force until 2026 so when we get into Government we will be looking forward to looking at this bill replacing it fixing it making it better and also looking at what good practices are done overseas. Look at what Australia is doing; look at what the US is doing because we can learn and make things speed up.Yes we know there are checks and balances around medicines for Pharmac and Medsafe but we need to speed up that process. Yes we know we need to find more money for funding so let's make sure we have less red tape so we can afford that funding to make sure it's going in the right area—and that is to make sure that our people that need the medicines or need their hip replacement joints or the software updated are getting it and that it's not going to people in the seats that are just ticking boxes. Let's must make sure that our people that need this help are getting it.Shanan Halbert: You've got no investment with your tax rates. They'll be on health cuts.TONI SEVERIN: Health cuts. No no no. We're talking about the people that are in the head office.Hon Member: Stupid spending.TONI SEVERIN: You're the ones that are spending. When you say Let's make sure that our people the boots on the ground are looked after." and this is what's not happening. It is showing all the way through in all these reforms that have happened in a cost of living crisis without that much thought and without really listening to those with their feet on the ground working hard to make sure they're keeping us all safe. We know that it is risk proportional. We do know that pharmaceutical medicines can have a higher risk than natural medicines. We also know that some natural medicines can be a risk. We understand that. But we do realise that we do not want more red tape that is adding more costs to our people because this is the sad reality that this bill does. It just still leaves us as I said with far too many questions. When we have listened to I said a lovely young lady around rare disorders this day she is still concerned around the medicines and especially people who have put the hard work and savings into building companies or making medicines and have created an IP as well as digital stuff—they are still concerned to make sure that these things don't fall into other people's hands when they've worked hard to create them. We are happy about a few changes in this bill but generally there are not too many I can be proud of. It just leaves us with a huge mess to tidy up come 15 October when we will be elected into Parliament. So on that we cannot commend this bill to the House. We oppose this bill in its current form that it is in and we look forward to making it even better—or even a better bill—come this next parliamentary term. Thank you Mr Speaker."