Chadwick Steve: Human Tissue (Organ Donation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Chadwick Steve: Human Tissue (Organ Donation) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
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STEVE CHADWICK (Labour—Rotorua) 
: 
 I am pleased to take a call tonight and I congratulate Dr Jackie Blue on her initiatives in bringing this bill to the House. However I have to say that I have great reservations about it and I am glad to have the opportunity to mention them. 
I was chair of the Health Committee when we heard Andy Tookey’s petition and we were all very moved. I am glad he is here tonight to see this bill coming to the House. I think this bill will certainly stimulate and increase discussion about the position of organ donation in New Zealand. 
We were very careful. We took Andy’s petition very very seriously because we are worried about the organ donation rate in this country. We came up with eight recommendations and not one of those recommendations was a legislative option. I remind all members that after we had heard the petition not one of our eight recommendations suggested a bill. We were focused on ongoing education campaigns. We were looking at a national public awareness campaign. We knew there needed to be a lot of discussion with Maori over the issues of lore not law. We knew that we were a long way away from increasing that level of awareness. We instigated the establishment of Organ Donation New Zealand and I was really thrilled to see that happen. My colleague Sue Kedgley said that nothing has happened but Organ Donation New Zealand is now set up. It is now moving to develop policies and protocols to increase awareness of the need for organ donation. 
I admit to some frustration with the New Zealand driver’s-licence system and the farce that it is to tick the box to be registered as a donor. I sought approval from Cabinet to draft a member’s bill. Off I went with a legal drafter to see the intensivists at Auckland Hospital. I was told very very clearly that no matter what is on the driver’s licence and on a register they will never look at that first because they never want to be put in the position with end-of-life care of looking like they are harvesting organs. They want a family to reach its own conclusion in respect of end-of-life care. They do not want it to look like they see the tick on the register then go in to harvest the organs. We have to respect that. They are the intensivists whom we all depend upon when we have a loved one needing end-of-life care. I came out of that meeting with those people who now run Organ Donation New Zealand and decided that I would not draft a bill. That was after doing a lot of research on the international figures. 
I think this Government has gone about this issue the right way. It is about incremental change. We now have Organ Donation New Zealand. It is progressing. We have also developed a human tissue bill. That has been done. We are waiting for the bill to be introduced as the Minister Pete Hodgson said. Developing that bill was an incredibly important step because when we went out on consultation with a discussion document we received an enormous response from people around the country. They too did not understand the complexity around organ donation. That bill will address the issues that are in Dr Blue’s bill. I think it will be interesting to see which one comes first and how the Health Committee interfaces the approaches. 
I do not believe that legislation is the right mechanism at this stage to increase organ availability. I think we need to look at the issue of informed consent when we get our driver’s licence or when we register with a primary health organisation. That is the time to have a discussion with the family doctor about what it means to be a donor and whether a donor can give some organs and not others. We can then go back and make our families very aware of our wishes. That is indicative consent that the family will give. I do not like the fact that the family has no power of veto. I do not think that will help towards the yield of organs which we want in order to increase the numbers on the Organ Donor Register. 
It will be interesting to see how the Health Committee looks at the human tissue legislation and at Dr Blue’s bill. I urge the Health Committee to invite those intensivists to participate and also to look at the very interesting opinion that is held at the moment by the New Zealand Medical Association which has a contrary view. The committee has the difficult task of putting those views together and I wish it well.