Bishop Chris: Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBishop Chris: Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 26 August 2015. Volume:708;Page:6237. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]CHRIS BISHOP (National): Can I start my speech in reply by thanking members around the House for their kind remarks both tonight and also 2 weeks ago when we started the first reading of this bill. It is good to see that the bill will have unanimous support certainly at its first reading to go to the Health Committee for further consideration. A particular thankyou goes to Barbara Kuriger for her kind remarks. I also at the start of my speech want to acknowledge my friend and colleague Michael Woodhouse. It is good to see you in the House Minister and I thank you for your comments and for explaining the genesis of this bill.The Minister’s comments about why he was motivated to introduce the bill—or tried to introduce the bill back in 2010—are very similar to my reasons for taking the bill on from Mr Woodhouse. I do not have perhaps quite the personal connection that Michael has but certainly I have been moved by the appeals and the calls that have been made to me from people in the Hutt Valley about the hardship that they have undergone after donating organs. I am thinking right now of a kidney case in particular. Those experiences have motivated me to pick up the bill from Cam Calder who had it temporarily after he took it over from Michael. I have taken over your bill. I seem to be taking your staff at the moment as well—Hon Michael Woodhouse: You can take my portfolios.CHRIS BISHOP: Health and safety—you can have health and safety.I want to in reply just deal with a couple of the issues that were raised by members. Firstly there is the issue of where the bill should go and whether or not it is appropriately placed in the Health Committee or in the Social Services Committee. Let me just say quickly that I think it is a sort of finely balanced debate. The argument about sending it to the Social Services Committee is that ultimately the money is paid out through the Ministry of Social Development and so it should go there but I take the view that ultimately we are actually dealing with a health issue here fundamentally. The other point that I would make is that a lot of people and some members—and members may have seen this in the media—do have issues with the way in which the Ministry of Social Development deals with this. I think it is worthy of a wider discussion about where the money comes from and how it is distributed and I think the Health Committee is the right place to do that.Secondly—just dealing with the issue about the Attorney-General’s report under section 7 of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act—members will be aware that the Attorney-General is required by the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act to provide a report to the House for the first reading of a bill if it is unjustifiably inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 in his opinion. In the case of this bill the Attorney-General has provided such a report. The reasoning for that having read the report is really a technical issue—I would say a drafting issue—about the treatment of beneficiaries who also work and their treatment vis-à-vis other beneficiaries who do not work and vis-à-vis the treatment of ordinary working people. The argument made by the Attorney-General is that there is discrimination against beneficiaries who receive welfare support but who also work and that there is differential treatment on the grounds of their work status which is a prohibited ground of discrimination under the Human Rights Act which has been imported into section 19 I think it is of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990.That is a fair enough point of view and it is actually one of the strengths of our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act system that an issue like that can be advertised to the House’s attention so that it can be considered during the select committee process so that we can have a conversation and ventilate those issues both in the first reading but also in the select committee and try to—if we can as much as possible—iron out some of those issues and make the bill as rights-consistent as possible. As Kevin Hague rightly said I am looking forward to the Health Committee considering and deliberating that issue and I am hopeful that we can work out a way through so that it is not inconsistent with the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act when the bill comes back to Parliament.Thirdly on the issue of organ donation rates that was raised by Kevin Hague he said that as far as he is concerned we have essentially increased our organ donation rates from deceased donors about as much as we can. Again that is something that I think that the Health Committee will have a look at. I am not sure that that is necessarily the case but what he is right about is saying that we do need to increase the donation rates from living donors. Our organ donation rates are about half that of Australia’s and about a quarter that of Spain’s. As I said in the bill’s first reading this bill is not a panacea for some of those issues. It is not a silver bullet—