Turner Judy: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
Turner Judy: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
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JUDY TURNER (Deputy Leader—United Future) 
: 
 I stand on behalf of United Future to speak on the first reading of this bill. The World Health Organization tells us that historically we can expect about three pandemics every century. The last one to dramatically hit the New Zealand shores was the 1918 Spanish flu that saw a 98 percent exposure rate of the population to the virus and a 40 percent infection rate and of that 40 percent 2 percent died. That was over 8000 people. It was experienced in three waves each lasting about 6 weeks. 
Every year in New Zealand we are hit by some strain of flu and most years the death rate for such bouts and related infections is actually a lot more sizable than many New Zealanders realise. We have all had the flu experienced its unpleasantness and have recovered. But every year hundreds of New Zealanders do not recover and die from the virus or related infections. 
On the global stage New Zealand is less likely than most to have to implement a pandemic plan due to our geographical isolation. However with the large number of New Zealanders holidaying and working overseas our isolation should never be taken as some sort of automatic protection. The Government’s pandemic plan is rightly based around a worst-case scenario and it is interesting to note that as we strip away the fat from our public health system to make it cost-effective we are unwittingly going to end up with a health system that simply will not cope with up to 40 percent of its staff off work seriously ill with the flu. 
Although no one wants us to have to ever exercise the powers set out in this bill we have to understand that this is written with an absolute catastrophe in mind on a national scale. If a worst-case scenario played itself out in this country it would not just be the death rate that would be tragic. Treasury has predicted that the blow to our economy would be of such magnitude that our lives—those of us who live through it—would never be the same. It would take us a long time to recover. 
United Future has as a party a natural aversion to excessive rules and regulations and there are some provisions in this bill that under normal circumstances we would have huge concerns about. I think it will be important for the select committee to check very carefully what the time frames are and what the definitions are around when these pandemic rules apply. When do they begin? Obviously it would be with a declaration that we are in a pandemic but when do we determine that it is over and normal law can be reinstated? 
This will need to be thought through very carefully and I think we need to listen very carefully to submitters particularly those who have some expertise in this area. I would also like to think that the select committee considering this bill will lay it alongside these provisions those that are already contained in civil defence legislation and that it will also look at some of the local government legislation that currently exists allowing local government officials to isolate their regions should they so chose to do. A national pandemic plan may be thwarted by a local council that determines to put some oil cans across the roads—the exit and entrance into its area—and forbid anybody to come in. 
United Future would like to encourage the Government as it continues to plan and refine its plans and to listen to what is happening overseas to be a little bit more proactive than merely planning. We believe there is a range of no-regret policies that could be implemented and funded now so that even if a pandemic does not occur we will never regret their implementation. Let me give an example. One of the reasons it is hard to get children in schools to wash their hands—and let us be clear one of the main ways that we can avoid getting this bug if it does arrive in New Zealand is to have very high standards of hygiene around hand-washing and the way we handle coughing and sneezing and things like that—is that very few schools have hot running water in their toilet blocks. In the middle of winter which is a likely time for this type of pandemic to hit children are very averse to coming out of the toilet and putting their hands under a tap of freezing cold water to wash their hands. Apparently someone has cited a figure that it would cost $30 million to have every public school in New Zealand with hot running water. But maybe it is an amount of money that could well be spent with very good results for our ongoing health outcomes in this country. 
We need to look at our safer community initiatives around building better connectedness in neighbourhoods because certainly we are not going to be able to rely on the normal hospitals and health professionals in a worst-case scenario. We are going to have to help look after each other and people are going to have to stay at home and look after themselves. At present lots of people do not even know the names of people who live on either side of them. Some really great initiatives have been put in place in areas such as New Plymouth where the safer community council has a project called “three doors down” that encourages people to get to meet and know the names of people who live three doors down on either side of their property. What a great idea. It would certainly be good for social connectedness and if we did have a pandemic on our hands that is the kind of initiative that would be very very useful. 
I agree with the Maori Party that it would be a very sensible thing to have a Maori emergency response team funded now so that it can start to plan and work with its people around marae in this country and discuss the types of issues that would need to be considered particularly some of the ones that were raised by Tariana Turia. I think she raised some very interesting points. 
 We also need to stay abreast of international thinking. For instance current thinking with pandemic planning is that one of the first things we would do is close all schools. Apparently over in Australia people are for very good reasons rethinking that. It will be interesting to see the conclusions they come to and their reasons behind that. They are reviewing that because of some of the other problems it might create—workforce problems children needing to be cared for at home and children not being properly cared for at home and the kinds of social problems that would create. Some of the current solutions that are part of our New Zealand pandemic plan need constantly to be reviewed against international best practice as it is being considered by others. 
I do feel a sense of confidence. It sounds like the National Party members feel despairing about the current level of preparedness. I do not feel so concerned. I have kept in contact with Ministry of Health officials on this. One of the things I would like to encourage as part of a no-regrets policy is that every caucus in this House right now makes a time to be briefed as a caucus by the Ministry of Health on this important area. As local MPs it is really important that we start to make sure that the information we get to hear is disseminated out into our communities our local government our non-governmental organisation sector our schools and our Government departments as they exist at a local level. 
I managed to host an official from the Ministry of Health in Whakatane just yesterday. It was a meeting of invited people who reflect key organisations in our communities and it was called so that those people could hear the briefings I have been privileged to hear so that they could respond and go back to their organisations and make any adjustments that might be necessary. I am sure that if every caucus in this Parliament took the time to get a full caucus briefing on this matter they would leave very sobered by the facts as they are presented. It is a very important issue and I think that members would all go back to their electorates with some really important initiatives that they want to see done. 
United Future is supporting this bill. We think it is important and we welcome its introduction. We are mindful that some of its provisions are serious and need to be carefully monitored through the select committee process. 
Bill read a first time.