Stewart Barbara: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeStewart Barbara: Health (Protection) Amendment Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 27 May 2015. Volume:705;Page:4085. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]BARBARA STEWART (NZ First): I am very pleased to take a call on behalf of New Zealand First. New Zealand First will definitely be supporting the Health (Protection) Amendment Bill.It is a brilliant committee the Health Committee. Basically we work to improve the health of all New Zealanders and we all work very constructively towards that end which is a really good aim for a committee. I must say a thankyou to the officials who were very patient and to all of the many submitters who came along to talk to us.This bill is more and more important—particularly the contact-tracing part—given the number of people who are now coming into New Zealand with multidrug-resistant TB. This type of TB cannot be cured it can only be managed so contact tracing of these people is really really important. We know that there are many of them in the hospitals but we also know that there are many walking around our streets our cities and we need to ensure that we have notification of them before they contaminate others with the disease.We are satisfied with the confidentiality changes made to this bill—thanks to Kevin Hague from the Green Party—regarding the private information of patients. The information of New Zealanders is not going to be freely available beyond the necessities of actually managing an infectious disease so that is an important change that we made as a Health Committee to the bill.I was delighted to hear what Dr Coleman said about the inclusion of chlamydia and other STDs in the list of notifiable diseases. Submitters were absolutely positive that this was something that had to occur. We need to ensure that there is some education around this mandatory notification especially for younger people because the last thing we want is for them to go untreated because they are frightened of some sort of mandatory notification and not getting themselves checked. So confidentiality is important and we will be very interested to see how this works out.We in New Zealand First were hoping to see sunbeds banned. We had heard about it on a previous select committee trip over to Australia and we do not believe that this bill actually goes far enough: to ban commercial sunbeds outright. Many of the submitters—most of the submitters except one—actually wanted these tanning beds banned. I would say that damage that is caused to skin by using a sunbed does not just stop when you turn 18. I know that many years ago I decided that I would like a tan so after trying many of the products to paint one on and getting the racing stripes—not an even sort of look—I decided that I would go to one of these sunbed clinics. I was accepted fair skin and all and I have never had such a bad burn; it took weeks and weeks for it to go away and I did not have any tan whatsoever. As my brother said to me I got the vegetable tan: red as a beetroot and peeling like an onion—and it lasted for months. So I am one of those people who when I heard the submitters come along and talk about the evidence of skin cancer before 35 and the increased risk of melanoma now know that I have to take some action and perhaps look at what I may have done to myself. We know that 2000 cases of skin cancer are identified each year and I am just hoping that I will not be one of those cases in years to come.The Ministry of Health recommended banning these sunbeds for commercial use and we know that Australia has banned these beds as has Brazil. The irony of it is that our sun over here is just as harsh and we should be following their lead. We know that Australia has a higher level of skin cancer than we do but we have a higher death rate from skin cancer than Australia does. We were quite concerned too when Consumer New Zealand came along and after doing a check on many of the sunbed operators found that the regulations were being regularly flouted: 17 out of 20 operators allowed type-1 skin mystery shoppers to have a session—I think I must have had a type 1 skin. Therefore I think that more needs to be done to ensure compliance with these rules—perhaps some consent form perhaps ensuring that people are advised of the dangers—and of course there is the age but I would have been past that age.One of the things that really concerns me is that there is no monitoring on the strength of the light and the intensity of the light that the beds are actually emitting. Knowing that we are now importing second-hand sunbeds from Australia—and many people have them privately in their homes—really makes one wonder what can be done to ensure that the cases of skin cancer that may occur at some later stage are monitored as much as they possibly can be. So there are quite a few issues there.I know that we will be speaking on the sunbeds at some later stage but I would like to say that this is a good bill. The Health Act 1956 needed updating. Since 1956 a lot has changed and we in New Zealand First believe that preventive measures are far better than trying to fix things up once they have actually gone wrong. We need a fence at the top of the cliff rather than the ambulance at the bottom. So we in New Zealand First will be supporting this bill as it is working towards protecting the health of all New Zealanders and for us that is a priority. Thank you.