Hodgson Pete: Human Tissue (Organ Donation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Hodgson Pete: Human Tissue (Organ Donation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:630;Page:2750] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 Labour will happily support Dr Jackie Blue’s Human Tissue (Organ Donation) Amendment Bill going to a select committee and I congratulate her and the co-author Mr Andy Tookey on the efforts they have made to get us as far as this. We have reservations and I shall come to them but before I do so it seems to me appropriate to say that from my knowledge of organ donation—which is modest but increasing—the member who has just resumed her seat has pretty much canvassed the issues. I think she has canvassed them fairly and I want to acknowledge her contribution and thank her for it. 
I shall certainly not be repeating international comparisons and other matters. Instead of that it seems to me that my contribution is best limited to mentioning a few things to do with where we are heading as a Government and how the Health Committee may wish to manage the bill when it comes before it. 
The Government has of course its own initiative in respect of a register. It was a pre-election position for us. Indeed before the last election a policy was developed for that purpose. I came upon the policy not as the Minister of Health but as the Minister of Transport because there was hope at some stage that we would be able to use existing registers to save a little bit of money. It turns out that the savings are not as we had hoped they would be. That was the point at which I came upon the issue and the good and bad aspects of it. Certainly the Government joins with the member—and I am sure any other member of this House—in saying that anything that can be reasonably done to improve the organ donation rate of this country across a variety of organs for the reasons that the member has laid out is to be supported and we certainly support it strongly. 
As to timing I do not actually know when this human tissues bill which the Government has in mind to replace the Human Tissue Act 1964 will be introduced into the House but I do know that it will not be long. I suspect that in about 4 or 5 weeks Cabinet will again look at the next part of the process of getting this bill prepared for introduction and it is my hope that it will be introduced and if possible passed in the 2006 calendar year. We shall see. That therefore influences perhaps—though it is for the select committee to decide—how the committee manages the legislation when it comes before it. 
There was a time when I was in Opposition that I was annoyed by the lack of progress on animal welfare legislation. I wrote animal welfare legislation—or more honestly had it written for me by the person who had written the Government’s version of the legislation which the Government had then not proceeded with—and like the member Dr Jackie Blue I won a ballot and introduced it. As is the case for the member the Government then said it had legislation coming along too. In that particular instance the Government changed its mind and decided that discretion was the better part of valour. In the end it was good legislation and it is on our statute book now. The Government bill of the day took precedence because it was broader and because—frankly—it was a little more modern. It may be—although I do not want in any way to be seen to influence the select committee—that the select committee decides on a similar approach. That is up to it but in any case my office would happily advise the select committee on the progress of the Government’s bill any time the select committee wishes it. 
I hope a range of opinions will be forthcoming; I actually have no doubt that that will be the case. I am sure the aforementioned Mr Tookey will be interested and I am sure the other person who was quoted with him in the  
New Zealand Herald 
 on Monday the vice-president of the Australia and New Zealand Intensive Care Society Dr Peter Hicks along with other intensivists will be in front of the Health Committee. They will want the committee to take part in a very serious and interesting debate that the member herself has referred to on the issue of the primacy of the individual to have a say over what happens to his or her body after death. It is an issue that is played out in cremation and autopsy and it is now about to be played out in organ donation. 
The Government has reservations about that aspect of the member’s bill and wants to put those on the table now. Government members are very happy for the select committee to examine the detail. We are particularly happy for the select committee to look at international evidence. As committee members look at all of the international evidence in Europe and so on—as the member has already alluded to—I ask them also to please contemplate looking across the Tasman where I understand Australia is now beginning to have experience of this kind of legislation. I ask them to try to divine what it is about a register that makes it work or not work. There is the possibility as the member suggested in her remarks that it is the surrounding education that matters. That is to say I ask members not to go for the thing that is easy to do—to get the register up and say that that is it and that they have done their bit—but to please work out what it is that makes some countries’ registers more successful than others. 
Certainly our organ transplant rate is amongst the lowest in the Western World. In many aspects of our health system we are usually in the top half of any group of countries. In this particular measure we are second to bottom according to my figures with Australia coming in last. So we do have an issue quite apart from the fact that we have the epidemic of kidney and perhaps liver complaints coming on for the reasons that the member has pointed out. 
Those are my remarks. We want to support the legislation. I personally offer to the member my acknowledgment of and congratulations on her work. It is a really good example of members’ legislation in action. We are delighted. We have serious reservations about aspects of the legislation. The Government has its own legislation coming forward and it may be that the two bills could or should be merged. I ask the select committee members when they are deliberating on the bill to please—for my sake as well as for the sake of the rest of the country—pay close attention to what they think are the key drivers behind organ donation rates in other countries; what cultural or educational programmes for example what other influences exist in those other countries that result in such a great disparity in the organ donation rates and that have ours running second to bottom.