Hutchison Paul: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
Hutchison Paul: Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill — In Committee 
[Volume:611;Page:8070] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (NZ National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Thank you Madam Chairperson for the opportunity to speak on this very important Part 1 of the Health Practitioners Competence Assurance Bill. Those who have to work under this legislation have expressed their lack of confidence in this Labour Government by withdrawing their support for this bill because of the Government’s gross incompetence in drafting such an inappropriate bill. It is of huge significance that those practitioners—the Association of Salaried Medical Specialists and the New Zealand Medical Association—have withdrawn their support for this bill because they have no confidence in it. After all they are the very ones who will be required to take ultimate responsibility when the going gets tough. 
I note that the purpose clause states: “The principal purpose of this Act is to protect the health and safety of members of the public by providing for mechanisms to ensure that health practitioners are competent and fit to practise their professions.” How on earth can an Act protect the health and safety of members of the public? Once again because the Minister of Health failed to listen to the professions she has not listened to their suggestion when they said: “We do not accept that this Act on its own will protect the health and safety of members of the public.” This clause as currently drafted conveys absolutely that impression. The professionals said: “We suggest that the first sentence be amended to read ‘The principal purpose of this Act is to assist in protecting the health and safety of members of the public.’ ” 
The Minister of Health is so far removed from reality that she thinks an Act alone will achieve its purpose. Let us read on a little bit further for some of the purposes of this bill. I note that one of the basic principles of New Zealand professional tradition has been left out of this bill and that is the concept of professional self-regulation. It has been totally left out of this bill. It is so hugely important and so hugely respected amongst the professions of New Zealand yet this Labour Government leaves it out of the bill. I intend to move an amendment to subclause (2) of the purpose clause. My amendment would add to the subclause: “(f) the recognition of professional self-regulation as the basis of health practice in New Zealand.” This is highly important this is highly constructive and I hope that the Minister and the Government will take note of it. 
I did notice that the ACT member Heather Roy pointed out that there is no definition of “competence” in this bill and she is absolutely correct because after all “competence” is supposed to be related to the quality or extent of being “competent”. We have a bill whereby the two major medical organisations have withdrawn their confidence in the Government clearly expressing that the Government is totally incompetent. I note that in the dictionary definition of “competence” the “Linguistics” part of the entry states: “A person’s subconscious knowledge of the rules governing the formation of speech in their first language.” Now I can often often contrast it with performance. We have had a fair amount of subconscious dealing from Labour Government members because this bill absolutely encompasses their subconscious Pavlovian reflex to institute as much possible complexity as they can imagine. This bill is supposed to be modelled on the Medical Practitioners Act which in a reasonably efficient way in about 110 pages has served the New Zealand public reasonably successfully. Here we have a monolith; something like 272 pages that the Labour Government of New Zealand has managed to—