Woodhouse MichaelORGAN DONORS AND RELATED MATTERS BILLThird ReadingDebate resumed.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): Thank you Mr Speaker. Can I begin firstly by joining in with the Minister in thanking the hard-working staff of the New Zealand Blood Service for the excellent work they do and also to all of the health professionals who were involved in the process of organ donation and transplantation and the management of the conditions faced by those with particularly chronic renal conditions but also a number of other conditions that benefit from both deceased and live organ donation.One of the things that I think the Health Committee in particular was affected by and interested in and in fact connected to was the many thousands of stories of New Zealanders up and down the country who are either going through the process of waiting for a transplantation or having benefited from it.In my case I do have direct experience of that with a very close friend of mine who has chronic kidney disease and who has had actually two kidney transplants in his adult life: one from a deceased donor to whom of course he was very grateful and one a live organ donation. The journey that I've watched him go through has been an extraordinary one because it was actually in the late 1990s that he started experiencing the symptoms that led to him being on home haemodialysis—at the same time as that great All Black the late Jonah Lomu. In fact at that time unbeknownst to most members of the public he was struggling with his own kidney condition and I found it extraordinary that someone whom I knew and who was otherwise pretty fit looked like he was wading through quicksand at the same time as that great All Black was still managing to do amazing things on the rugby field. I think that speaks volumes to that person's character.We heard so many stories like this. As the Minister says we are not in a position to say our organ donation rates are as high as they could be. We rank about 30th amongst developed nations. Many of the countries above us have systems that have for example opt-out processes as there are in Spain and many other countries or other incentives or requirements that encourage both deceased and live organ donation. So in the national strategy that the Minister mentioned I think there are significant opportunities to continue to increase our organ donation rates some of which the committee heard during the select committee process but which was actually beyond the scope of what we were doing here—for example the question of whether the Human Tissue Act already provided for a deemed consent that could not be overruled by family members. I have a particular interest in that one and I would encourage the New Zealand Blood and Organ Service when it has this mandate to actually look very closely at that. But there are a number of other incentives of course.The member's bill passed by my colleague Chris Bishop has actually catalysed live organ donation by removing a financial barrier. Part 1 of this bill is actually going to make some very good amendments to improve that further including encouraging what is effectively a trans-Tasman exchange scheme where—as the chair of the select committee said in the committee of the whole House yesterday—many of the people who would want to donate but for whom blood and tissue - type mismatches don't allow that could nevertheless through a third party be able to contribute anyway. That will certainly mean that those people are going to have financial support for that.This is a really good bill. It's been a very good process. I do hope that with the establishment of the New Zealand Blood and Organ Service our donation rates do continue to increase. I commend the bill.