Reti Shane; Penk Chris; Verrall AyeshaDr SHANE RETI (National): Thank you Madam Chair. Given that contribution has the Minister seen overseas evidence where most jurisdictions—apart from ourselves and the United States—believe that the harms caused by direct-to-consumer advertising outweigh any perceived or real unintended consequences and certainly any New Zealand Bill of Rights Act - like implications?CHRIS PENK (National—Kaipara ki Mahurangi): I take a brief call mostly for the purposes of allowing the Minister to have time to respond to my colleague's contribution. I suppose just to pick up on Dr Reti's point regarding New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) implications; for the uninitiated of course our New Zealand Bill of Rights Act includes that section 14 Freedom of expression": the right to impart but also the right to receive opinions and information and so forth. And no doubt my learned colleague who obviously knows much more about things medical as well as other fields than me presumably refers to the fact that it would be helpful to ensure within reasonable limitations or justified limitations in terms of NZ BORA that people have the ability to make informed decisions on their own account.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I thank the members for their contribution. In response to Dr Reti's contribution: yes I have been advised that Australia has a ban on direct-to-consumer advertising. I'm advised the European Union has a directive but individual members of the European Union vary widely in how that directive is implemented—and there are numerous reports of how pharmaceutical companies escape that regulation. So I think to cast the international picture as black and white is perhaps not totally accurate. My role as Minister is to make sure that I have diligently considered the implications in terms of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act (BORA) and the fact is that there needs to be in my view further consideration of that because the bill that went to select committee did not have a proposal for direct-to-consumer advertising. There is an opportunity to evaluate a concrete proposal when secondary legislation is developed and to have that evaluated for its BORA implications.I'd like to go back to the contribution of Mr Menéndez March about the resourcing and prevention of undue influence on the Government's decision process. I hope Mr Menéndez March is reassured by the widespread concern across parties in the House about this issue that there is support for Government of any form to be able to regulate in this area. But the issue he raises reminds me of the legislation the work we've done in regulating tobacco in New Zealand—another area where lobbying and inappropriate influence of regulatory processes and legislation is an area of concern. I have a lot of confidence in the ability of the Ministry of Health officials to protect their regulatory processes from that type of influence and I think as you can see there are numerous—both in the conversation we're having today and the conversation we previously had on tobacco control—CHAIRPERSON (Hon Jacqui Dean): Order. I'm just going to have to rule on this because it is out of order for any member to impute any influence on the Government of the day. Now I will review Hansard and if such a comment was made then the House should view that very seriously. So I would appreciate it in the meantime if the Minister just steered away from that.Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I'm confident that the regulatory process will be resourced so as to make sure that all the appropriate considerations are taken into account."