English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
English Bill: Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
[Volume:620;Page:15940] 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 People might think that Part 4 does not matter much but of course it does because it is about enforcement. Enforcement will matter a lot in this bill because the structure is so loose. There are a few hurdles that a new procedure has to get over and Part 4 puts the whole of the burden of enforcement and practical monitoring on the so-called “authorised person”. That authorised person referred to in clause 64 is defined in the interpretation clause as including the Director-General of Health or someone authorised in writing by the Director-General of Health. The first issue I want to raise is a technical one. For the first 9 months of this legislation the Director-General of Health is both the rule maker and the enforcer. I do not think that will work and I hope officials and the Government are aware of that. 
Clause 75 designates the Director-General of Health as the advisory committee for the first 9 months. The Director-General of Health is also the authorised person who has the powers to enter premises to label things to take jars away and that seems to me to be a pretty fundamental conflict of interest for the initial period of the legislation; I would be interested in the Government giving some explanation of why it thinks that that would work. 
 The second thing is that we are in the odd situation where the transitional provision in clause 75 looks to me to be much more desirable than the permanent one settled in Part 3 because at least a transitional provision makes the advisory committee accountable. The Director-General of Health is someone we can have in front of a select committee he or she is subject to a purchase agreement with the Minister and can have his or her own advisory capacity within the Ministry of Health while carrying on as the advisory committee. That matters because in that 9 months it will not be a committee of the great and good that is potentially making very important decisions that I believe this Parliament should make; it will be the Director-General of Health. 
Let us look at the kinds of decisions that the Director-General of Health will be able to make. He or she will be able to decide whether people will be able to use gametes derived from deceased persons and to decide what the requirements are for informed consent. It is my contention that those decisions ought to be made by the Parliament but because Parliament has voted to support Part 3 those decisions will be made by some vague formless and maybe well-intentioned committee—decisions over embryo splitting and the selection of embryos using pre-implantation genetic analysis; every one of them an ethical and public policy minefield and on which one does not need to be an expert to have an opinion. 
The transitional provisions depending on one’s point of view either make it worse because they put in charge a civil servant subject to political direction—a civil servant subject to political direction will make those decisions; or one can decide that it is a good thing as I think perhaps it is because the Director-General of Health is personally accountable for the decisions in a way that the advisory committee never will be because the Director-General of Health is subject to the accountability procedures of this Parliament. 
I would like to see the term of 9 months extended to 5 years because we would then have a start-up period where the Parliament can get at the people who make the decisions—in this case the Director-General of Health. Nine months is not a long enough transitional period as far as I am concerned. I would make some recommendations to the Director-General of Health in the time that he or she will be the advisory committee—that is not to rush off making decisions about these things except to be conservative and cautious. The Director-General of Health in her capacity as the advisory committee should not allow any of these new procedures to occur.