Yates Dianne: Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill — First Reading 
Yates Dianne: Te Runanga o Ngati Awa Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:619;Page:15055] 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of the report of the Health Committee on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. 
 I welcome the return of my bill back to the House after 8 years. I certainly hope that no one says that this bill is being rushed through the House. It has had a very long gestation period. I think it probably nearly died of oxygen deprivation on the way. I know that there have been attempts to clone it as well with the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill which was produced by the previous Government. 
I promised in my maiden speech in 1993 that I would introduce this bill. I did so in 1996 and in 1997 the year that Dolly the sheep was created it was unanimously referred to the Health Committee. I remember that the Speaker at the time the Hon. Doug Kidd was rather amazed when I said that really this was the bill to save men because it would take only eight men with strong sperm counts to maintain the population of New Zealand with reasonable diversity. 
Hon Member 
: What? 
DIANNE YATES 
: Only eight men! Some of the members of the House at that time were unaware of the existence of human reproductive technologies and that not only were in vitro fertilisation—which means “created in a glass dish”—techniques in use but that genetic engineering was possible in humans as it is in corn cabbages cows or sheep. The questions that had been asked in the United Kingdom in 1990 when that country passed the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act were that if such technologies were available how should they be used by whom and at what costs; and what controls if any needed to be put in place to prevent a modern eugenics movement to protect women from becoming baby factories and children and men—even dead men—from exploitation to be cautious about genetic changes to humans and to put in place checks and balances about who should make decisions and in whose interests? I think that the ministerial advisory committee and ethics committee may be now in this bill as we have revised it a little weak on catering for the interests of children. 
The questions around reproductive technology are huge ethical questions including what it means to be human and they have ongoing and intergenerational consequences. Many of the changes made by the Health Committee to my original bill and there have been many—it has basically been revamped and the bill was based on the British bill—ensure that the legislation fits within New Zealand’s medical and health systems. I personally would have preferred some of the controversial matters in clauses 36 and 37 to be under a tighter regulatory framework rather than the flexibility of an advisory committee to the ministry. Examples of these are the donation of embryos embryo splitting which mainstream churches objected to in submissions gametes derived from deceased persons—and the controversial United Kingdom case of Mrs Blood who used sperm from her deceased husband is a case in point—requirements surrounding informed consent selection of embryos using pre-implantation and genetic analysis and the import and export to and from New Zealand of in vitro - donated cells of embryos which could leave us open to abuse of abortions of women from Third World countries. But the latter may receive more attention at the Committee stage of the bill. 
The bill does require public consultation on these matters but not regulation and regulation would mean a stronger penalty regime. Guidelines I believe can be ignored or overridden even though those who are professionally involved could face deregistration. 
Other aspects and changes to the bill on the keeping of records and the recognition of genetic inheritance or whakapapa are an improvement. The bill is clear that children should know their genetic inheritance and the New Zealand select committee was clear on this although there is some controversy about it internationally. 
While the bill covers consent for the use of human gametes and embryos for research the use of embryonic stem cells is still in a greyish area and will be included in overlapping legislation. Some research is also under the guideline area rather than a regulatory framework and I have some concerns about that. 
Other matters in which the bill has been changed include the use of embryos and gametes for 10 years to enable the users of reproductive technologies to plan families over time using frozen gametes from one operation and I believe that that is an improvement. It also makes clear that sex selection for other than medical reasons is not appropriate and that the possibility is there for regulating around consent. I admit to liking the United Kingdom consent processes as I believe that consent processes for reproductive technologies are important to ensure protection of all parties to ensure independent counselling and to avoid complex court cases later which may be detrimental to the children born from these processes. 
The committee was informed of United Kingdom Canadian and Australian laws. The Canadian legislation I believe spells out the intention of the law more clearly and the Australian Commonwealth legislation is much more specific on what processes are clearly banned. No doubt there will be test cases that may require future changes to this law. I am just wary that we are dealing with human babies and irreversible technologies and I personally while not wanting to prevent the use of the science and the technologies believe that we cannot be too careful. We need to use a precautionary approach especially when we are talking about New Zealand children in vitro fertilised babies and as we have seen 20 years on those who are seeking to find their genetic parents. 
We have had submissions—and I know that other members of the committee will be putting forward Supplementary Order Papers—from at least one of those children calling for a voluntary registration of donors to cover this matter and with some retrospectivity. It will be important to constantly review the legislation to ensure it meets our present needs and the future needs of human assisted reproductive technology children. 
I believe this bill should proceed and proceed with some haste at this stage now but consider that some areas could be more specific and that we could have tighter regulatory frameworks. 
I wish to thank all those who have been involved in the preparation of the bill and its revisions and all those who made submissions—the people and the organisations. I particularly want to thank Debbie Angus who assisted with the original draft when I came with barely an idea of what should be done and with the British legislation. I also want to thank Ian Wilmut—I did go to the trouble of going all the way to Edinburgh to meet him and sadly Dolly the cloned sheep who was a grandmother has died—and all those who have been involved. 
I want to thank the clerks of the Health Committee who have been extremely patient through the elections and then with a new select committee; the select committee staff; and the ministry staff and advisers. I want to thank people in my own electorate who have been very helpful particularly the scientists the medical professionals the ethicists and those who have kept me up to date with information and who have done a good deal of the background reading. 
I particularly want to thank the scientists at AgResearch in the Waikato for the tremendous amount of help and advice they gave initially and for a lawyer friend who shall not be named who went through the original bill saying “Well this is all very fine scientific language but would it stand up in court?” and gave very practical legal advice on the original bill. 
So once again I do thank everybody who through this long 8-year period has come through a bill that started off in an embryonic form and has been through many stages. It has not only been born but it has crawled walked and now I think is just about to start intermediate school. But for those who have all been involved in this bill I look forward to the Committee stage and the third reading and hopefully we will have it passed by the end of this year. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This bill has clearly been a long time coming and Dianne Yates has shown a great degree of perseverance and indomitableness over the time from 1996 when she first introduced the bill. Subsequent to it 2 years later came the Assisted Human Reproduction Bill introduced by the Hon. Douglas Graham. I well remember as a practising gynaecologist with a particular interest in infertility reading an article by Professor Robert Janson an in vitro fertilisation specialist. He commented on Aldous Huxley’s  
Brave New World 
 and pointed out that Huxley in his book particularly warned of the dangers of too much central control. One thing we must remember in this rapidly changing world of technology and scientific discovery is that that message is salutary. Clearly this legislation has been subject to large changes through a Supplementary Order Paper. Unlike reproductive technology legislation in many other countries and I think particularly of Britain and Canada the mechanisms in this legislation do provide clear primary legislation to prohibit procedures that are clearly unacceptable but contain opportunities for certain secondary and tertiary legislation through Order in Council so that the legislation does indeed have a degree of flexibility and can be relevant to the future. 
Just recently we heard from Lord Robert Winston who pointed out that in his view the British legislation needed changing already and that in some ways it had become obsolete. One of the great strengths of this legislation is that in many respects it looks to the future. Indeed the legislation does cover issues that are technically complex and highly ethically complex and for that reason it has taken so long to come to fruition. 
However I must say that the select committee worked incredibly well together. I pay tribute to the many extremely thoughtful submissions from researchers Fertility NZ and organisations such as the Law Society. I note that the society concluded that the bifurcated model proposed in the Supplementary Order Paper whereby the supervisory authority is divided between ethics committees and the advisory committee is misconceived and in the society’s view will not adequately serve the needs of regulation compliance. It believes that because of the complexity and importance of the ethical legal and policy issues endemic to that area of medical technology regulation at the highest achievable level of official supervisory oversight is necessary in order to provide appropriate leadership and to control the potential for abuse. 
I am very glad that the committee chose not to follow the views of the Law Society because it has taken a much more appropriate approach to the realities of biology and technological change. However some have asked why have any legislation at all and the ACT party in its minority report suggested that sentiment. We do know that over the last 15 years or so in New Zealand where we have really had no specific legislation in that area things have run reasonably well. But clearly there are areas and issues that in my mind do require clear legislation. 
Already in the schedules we can see contentious issues like prohibiting actions that include to “Artificially form for reproductive purposes a cloned embryo. … Artificially form … a hybrid embryo. … Implant into a human being an animal gamete or embryo.” and the list goes on. There is no doubt in my mind that those issues should clearly be scheduled and indeed they are. As was mentioned by Dianne Yates stem cell research and issues relating to it will be introduced at another time through the Human Tissue Act. That will be of huge importance because of its overlapping interest with this legislation. 
Indeed the Supplementary Order Paper does provide for a ministerial advisory committee to provide advice on human assisted reproductive technology and associated research develop guidelines and monitor established procedures. It also provides an information-keeping scheme for the collection retention and access to information about donors and donor offspring based on the model in the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. Huge thought has been put into that area and a publication  
Navigating our Future 
 
of some years ago was extremely helpful in bringing out the purposes and principles that underpin this bill. 
I do believe that a little bit of political correctness has been added where not only does the committee recommend that the bill is intended to protect and promote the health safety dignity and rights of all individuals but particularly women and children in the use of those procedures. Men have been intimately involved in those procedures and if one has had a testicular biopsy one would certainly know that. But more so is the deep emotional involvement that all people involved in those areas have and undoubtedly it is hugely important that that is recognised. 
But there is the issue of openness that is promoted in order to allow donor offspring the opportunity to meet their biological parents. Clause 4(e) states “donor offspring should be made aware of their genetic origins and be able to access information about those origins:”. Clearly the legislation is prospective and in future that will be quite possible. However for those in the past again quite properly because of the rules of anonymity it would be inappropriate to put in retrospective legislation to override that. 
However in Australia there is a very successful model of a voluntary register. Consequently I have tabled a Supplementary Order Paper today that would introduce the possibility of a voluntary register. It has been well supported by groups throughout New Zealand including donors and donor offspring. I certainly hope that it will have support from the various parties around the House. 
The bill has explicitly outlawed commercial surrogacy and that is a good thing along with commercial dealing in embryos or gametes. The tradition of keeping a donation altruistic is hugely important. Sadly the realities in countries like the United States is that commercial surrogacy in dealing in embryos can lead to horrific legal entanglements and human misery. However one of the problems of openness is that it is now much harder to find sperm donors. That is the sort of balancing trick that has to be arrived at through the legislation. 
The ministerial advisory committee and the ethics committee are of huge importance. I think that they are too big. Perhaps the composition is that they are too full of lay people. These are highly technical areas that do require a very well-based knowledge in terms of getting wise results. But one thing about the ethics committee that I am very pleased about is that the select committee has recommended the requirement that the ethics committee act expeditiously. There is no doubt that the biological time clock ticks on and as a practising clinician I can say that time and time again we saw patients waiting for procedures that were held up purely because of the time delays by the ethics committee. 
I am not in the least concerned with the final words of members of the Green Party who say that they are concerned that the ministerial advisory committee may be able to issue guidelines allowing embryo selection for blue eyes etc. and they say that that kind of eugenics is anathema to New Zealand values. I say that that sort of scaremongering is anathema to New Zealand common sense. 
Finally I strongly support this bill. It has demonstrated a great amount of evidence of how parliamentary select committees can work together.