Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill — Instruction to Committee In Committee 
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Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill 
Instruction to Committee 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I move  
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the whole House on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill that it take the bill part by part. 
Motion agreed to. 
In Committee 
Part 1 Preliminary provisions 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 It is with great pleasure that I speak on Part 1 “Preliminary provisions” of this Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill which deals particularly with the purposes the principles and the areas of procedures or treatments that can be declared to be established procedures. 
Undoubtedly we have seen a revolution of treatment in this reproductive field particularly since 1978 when the first test-tube baby was born. But what has to be realised is that there is a whole spectrum of treatments available to a modern society which may go from very simple treatments such as ovulation induction or sperm production improvement to the more complex technologies. I think it is important that it is clearly spelt out in the purposes clause that the bill is to secure the benefits of assisted reproductive procedures and established procedures for mainstream society. 
I have noted from various groups who have opposed this bill such as some individual Roman Catholics or even some Maori that they find it difficult to accept some of the modern technologies that are available. But in reality as a former practising clinician in this field I have found no group who has not wanted for one reason or another to take advantage of those assisted reproductive technologies. Undoubtedly there is the reality of a need among all groups in society that I know of to take advantage of their benefits. 
What clearly is contentious are some of the complex technologies to do with cloning hybridisation and further possibilities that might be associated with stem cells. Part 1 through the schedules makes clear provision to prohibit unacceptable assisted reproductive procedures. Undoubtedly in schedule 1 we have a list of procedures that are unacceptable to mainstream society. That list is likely to grow and through the provisions of this bill to change from time to time but it is unlikely to be changed without considerable deliberation and care. 
The other aspect of the purposes clause that I think is worth while commenting on is the establishment of a comprehensive information-keeping regime to ensure that people born from donated embryos or donated cells can find out about their genetic origins. There is no doubt that one of the major thrusts of the submissions we had is that people do indeed want to find out about their backgrounds. One of the major philosophies behind this bill is the promotion of the ethos of openness which I think is absolutely appropriate. 
It is also vital that clear records are kept to ensure that morbidity and mortality are recorded so that successful procedures can be monitored. Again there is a set of principles spelt out clearly to ensure that the health and well-being of children born as a result should be an important consideration in all decisions about procedures. At one stage of events it was to be a paramount consideration but undoubtedly the practicality is that all people involved in procedures do have a degree of risk. It is vital that risks to men women and children are all taken into account as being seriously important. I do think that the Health Committee perhaps has become a little politically correct when it not only pointed out that the needs— 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 The Assisted Human Reproduction Bill which was a Government bill introduced in 1998 and the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill which was a member’s bill introduced in 1996 in the name of Dianne Yates basically became a hybrid with a Supplementary Order Paper which we have in the Committee tonight. The Health Committee worked very comprehensively on this bill. It is highly technical and I think we have all agreed on the outcomes. 
Unless people have actually been through the process of knowing what it is like to not be able to have a child when a family wants that and when mum and dad are desperate to have a child they do not fully understand how emotive these issues can become. To get a bill on human assisted reproductive technology that will meet the requirements of those people who are emotionally involved in the process plus protect society from those people who would want to experiment at a level that most people would not find acceptable is what has been the aim of this bill. 
The bill itself under the purposes and principles establishes that there will be no cloning no hybrid embryos and no commercial surrogacy. Now surrogacy in a non-commercial sense is going to be acceptable under this bill but not in a commercial sense. 
Stem cell research of course in other countries of the world has been highly contentious. For those members who read the 
 New Zealand Herald 
 this morning they will have seen that even in the American presidential elections it has become a huge debate where Kerry has actually blasted George Bush over health-care cuts because he wants to stop stem cell research. In this country I think we are lucky to have this bill coming before the House at this time rather than 5 or 6 years ago because technology and our understanding of what can be done and what is acceptable has moved a great deal as developments have occurred. 
When the Health Committee went to Australia 2 years ago one of the main topics being debated at that time was about human assisted reproductive technology and stem cell research. As a doctor and a geriatrician I have to support stem cell research. It can or may offer huge advances for the future. It may offer huge advances for patients who may have diseases such as Parkinson’s disease—a disease that affects a very small part of the brain the substantianigra but causes massive problems and disability and eventually the death of the patient. Anything that for the future could stem the tide or perhaps turn it round and effect a cure of a disease such as Parkinson’s or motor neurone disease I think it is our obligation that we should be able to continue that research here in New Zealand and throughout the world. The purpose of this bill is to give a robust and flexible framework to regulation and guide the performances of future assisted reproductive technology. Things change markedly in this area sometimes just by accident; someone finds a better way or observes a better way to actually have a positive outcome. 
 The other principal concern within this bill is that of the donor children—those children who are actually created as a result of a donated egg or sperm. These children do need to have access to their genetic information and I certainly support Dr Paul Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper which would mean that a register of donors is kept so that children can have access. 
We had a lot of debate about the age at which a child should be able to get access to the actual name of the donor and that will remain at 18 but the genetic information will be available before that time. 
Also of concern for the purposes and principles of this bill was how we allow additions perhaps to the list of prohibited actions that is contained in schedule 1. What would be prohibited and what would be considered to be acceptable progression for reproductive purposes? How do we add something to the list and how do we take it off? 
JUDITH COLLINS (National—Clevedon) 
: 
 I congratulate Dianne Yates on having the gumption to bring this bill to the House and on working with the Health Committee to make sure she got a bill that I believe the vast majority of parliamentarians here will support. 
The fact is that regulations of this particular nature are not going to please everybody but at the moment the area is vastly under-regulated and there is a need for some regulation. Some parts of this bill are probably too permissive. Some parts are probably too tough. All of those sorts of things probably apply but it is at least an attempt to do something and put some stakes in the ground as to what is and is not acceptable in the area of human assisted reproductive technology. 
I am particularly pleased that we have a Supplementary Order Paper from Paul Hutchison in relation to the voluntary register to be maintained by the Registrar-General about the birth and donor details for children who are born from assisted reproductive technology. One of the reasons is—I have said it once and I will say it again—that all children deserve to know their whakapapa. It does not matter which race they are. They should know their ethnicity and where they come from. I am really pleased that we have an acknowledgment of that. 
This register will be voluntary. Many of us would like to see it expanded to become compulsory because of the children’s needs. Having said that I accept that it would be very difficult to get that to work in an area where there is so little donation available and it would possibly stop that small amount of donation. So I am happy to support that. 
Also having looked at clause 4 “Principles” I do have some reservations about the political correctness of the bill. I am very supportive of the provision in paragraph (g) which states: “the different ethical spiritual and cultural perspectives in society should be considered and treated with respect.” I think that is a very sensible provision. However I do not understand why there needs to be a separate provision to say that the needs values and beliefs of Maori should be treated with respect. This implies that Maori are in some way not in fact part of society. I think that that provision is unfortunate and that it brings political correctness in the extreme into what is probably going to be pretty much a multiparty-supported bill. I find that somewhat silly and I think it could well be deleted. 
Having said that I note that the changes that have been made to the bill—and they are numerous—show the degree of thoroughness that the select committee was able to bring to its consideration of the bill. The bill has been around for a while so technology has changed in that time. I do query whether we are likely to have to look at this legislation again in the near future because of further changes to technology. Perhaps the permissiveness of the bill will make that unnecessary but I wonder. 
It is certainly funny that we live in a country where we are very very concerned about human assisted reproductive technology yet we do not really value children and parenthood as much as we should. In fact the very first and best thing we can do in society is be good parents. No matter what we do in this Parliament none of it is of any use at all if nobody is out there being a good parent. None of it is of any use to us past this generation unless we do in fact value children their parents and the people who give up so much to become parents and we very much value what happens to those children after they are born. 
I am happy to go along with the purposes of the bill. I am happy to support the bill and I will be supporting as well the amendments put forward by Paul Hutchison. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I have to state upfront that United Future will from here on be registering a split vote. As the member for United Future who is on the Health Committee I have faced some issues and some struggles. There are some conscience issues that crop up in this bill that I have a personal problem with. But I have tried to separate those issues from the need to look at the regulatory framework that is being proposed here to see regardless of whether I like which category everything has been placed in whether the system for regulating this technology is appropriate. But at that level I again have had some problems. 
I take some time now to thank Dianne Yates. I think there is probably no one else in this House who has shown such a commitment to getting a system to regulate this technology. The work she has done the trips she has taken and the research she has done have been quite phenomenal. If this bill reflected her original bill then my position at the end of this process would be quite different. None of us wants to see medical science held back from making breakthroughs that alleviate suffering but my concern is that we are straying into areas where the very nature of what it means to be human is put up for grabs and we need to be very careful in the way we allow this to advance. 
What I am saying is that the means by which we achieve good outcomes in health are as important ethically as the outcomes themselves. I have some real concerns. There was a joke in the House earlier about the fact we should not worry because the market will determine the outcomes and that is my very real fear. 
Simon Power 
: That wasn’t a joke. I was serious. 
JUDY TURNER 
: Was it not? I thank Mr Power. I want to cite a story that I have read about and told members before. In the United States a drug a growth hormone was developed by drug companies to treat dwarfism. It was given orphan drug status by the American Government because the expected uptake of the drug was quite small. What actually happened was that the uptake was phenomenal. It was way outside expectations. It had never been expected that lots of mums and dads would rush out and procure it for their short children to see whether they could up the ante and improve their height. In Western society where we are very consumer driven we have to understand that technologies like the ones we are regulating here will have a demand on them that is beyond just the demand that people with critical health problems or fertility problems will require—hence my feeling that the real need here is for caution. 
 I proposed a couple of amendments in Part 1; one is to the definition of an embryo. The current definition in the bill talks about an embryo then excludes from the definition embryonic stem cells. I feel that in a warped sort of way this definition says that one is an embryo unless it does not suit our purposes and then one is not an embryo. I believe that the reason for this wording is that we want to keep the door wide open for future stem cell legislation. 
I also want to make it clear that I am not against the use of stem cells or stem cell research. I do have some ethical problems with where we get stem cells from. Certainly I have real reservations about embryonic stem cells being used particularly when we have seen some fabulous advances and medical breakthroughs as we find the very good use we can make of adult stem cells and that would certainly be my preference. 
As we go through the bill and in particular in Part 2 there are some areas that I have a huge concern about and I want to leave some of my comments until then. 
PITA PARAONE (NZ First) 
:  
Tena koe e te Heamana. A tenaratatou e noho tahi anai roto i te Whare i te ranei. E tuakeanatenei ki te tautoko ingawhakaaro o taku hoa o matoui roto o Aotearoa Tuatahi a Barbara Stewart. 
I stand in support of the contribution that my colleague Barbara Stewart has committed to this bill. I tender her apologies. To assure members that I did have some participation in this process I tell them that this matter came before the Health Committee during my membership of it. 
New Zealand First supports this bill and in particular the amendment proposed by Dr Hutchison. This is an emotive issue and within Part 1 the purposes and principles of this bill are very clearly defined and specified. They advise on the procedures and treatments that may be declared to be established procedures. We believe that the bill adopts a cautious but balanced approach to this area of human-assisted reproductive technology. Very clearly the bill states that one of its purposes is to prohibit unacceptable assisted reproductive procedures. It is thanks to the responsible attitudes of fertility clinics and fertility service providers to date that nothing untoward has happened in this area. 
I should say that we totally support the paragraph of the purposes clause that clarifies that the bill is intended to protect the “safety dignity and rights of all individuals but particularly those of women and children in the use of these procedures and research:”. This is a very personal issue. The health risks of children born as a result of these procedures are generally higher than those of children associated with natural conception. I think it is timely that we have a bill that will bring some regulation to this whole area of reproduction. We must be very aware that all decisions made about the use of this technology however must reflect that children born through its use become adults and decisions made today will impact on those children throughout their life. 
In talking in that regard as a Maori I am very conscious of the importance of whakapapa in terms of children born under this process. That is one of the reasons why we give strong support to the Supplementary Order Paper promoted by Dr Hutchison. It will give some clarity to one’s understanding of whom one is descended from. If that register is not available to offspring of this technology then the question of whakapapa becomes diminished in terms of Maori. 
While I am talking about Maori I mention that my colleague Judith Collins made reference in particular to clause 4(f) which states that “the needs values and beliefs of Maori should be considered and treated with respect:”. That was not the original wording promoted by the bill. I am glad that that particular paragraph is there instead of the original wording which referred to the principles of the Treaty of Waitangi. But if I do have any criticism it is that I think that clause 4(g)—which states that “the different ethical spiritual and cultural perspectives in society should be considered and treated with respect.”—could apply to everybody in New Zealand not only non-Maori. There is an implication that it does not refer to Maori and that Maori concerns are addressed in clause 4(f). 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I thank those members who have already spoken on this bill and thank them for their kind comments about it. 
I want to talk about the importance of the principles clause because as Judy Turner has already mentioned this bill to a large extent is about what it means to be human. Whatever we do in life we are interfering with life and we are progressing life. We are now talking about technologies that are not available in nature—whatever we call nature—so we do have a responsibility to ensure that whatever we do with this technology we are responsible for it. 
In relation to the principle of ensuring the health and well-being of children born from these technologies I point out that we are particularly concerned about the safety and dignity of the present and future generations. I disagree with the Supplementary Order Paper from Paul Hutchison who wants to do away with the stress on women in terms of these procedures because many people are afraid of a “rent-a-womb” situation developing and of commercialisation. That is not in this bill but they are afraid that it may occur in some future time and Judy Turner has pointed that out. I remind people that a survey in Australia pointed out that the gestational parent was very much of concern because although we are talking about test-tube babies or in vitro babies whose conception occurs in a glass dish there is still that wonderful thing called a mother which in technology is now called— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: What about a father? 
DIANNE YATES 
: I am just pointing that out. The gestational parent spends 9 months bringing a child into the world and I am concerned that the research in Australia showed that there was greater emphasis on the gestational parent as well as the father who had contributed to the genetic make-up of the child. That is why the Health Committee discussed for a very long time the inclusion of the word “women” in this clause and that is why I am not very keen on Dr Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper on this issue. 
It is a very very important principle that we have informed consent throughout reproductive processes and also that as has been pointed out by the New Zealand First speaker children are aware of their genetic origins. I point out that the register is part of the bill. Dr Hutchison’s amendment is talking about those who have donated gametes in the past. I can assure New Zealand First that the register of donors is in the substantive bill and the member’s Supplementary Order Paper refers to those who have donated in the past who may wish to volunteer information about themselves for the records. 
Anther point that Dr Hutchison has put forward is to omit the reference to the beliefs of Maori. That issue too was discussed in great length by the select committee. The committee decided to leave it in as well as the reference to different ethical spiritual and cultural perspectives. I stress to the Committee that the principles in the bill were discussed at great length by the select committee and I think the member’s Supplementary Order Paper is not really acceptable in this regard. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I start by paying a tribute to the last speaker Dianne Yates for introducing this bill. I am sure that without Dianne Yates’ bill we would still not be in a position to put in place legislation around this incredibly important and highly contentious area. 
It is very sad that Dianne Yates’ original bill has been gutted to the extent that it has. I am quite sure that Dianne Yates herself feels very sad about the extent to which the bill has been gutted. If anyone wonders about the extent to which it has been gutted he or she need only look at the pages of the original bill; it would have set up an institution to oversee the whole area and it would have had licences and very clear conditions. It was very very explicit. Unfortunately all of those very excellent provisions that were in Dianne Yates’ original bill have as I said been gutted. 
Tragically we are left with a bill that has very very excellent intentions that we strongly support but regrettably sets up one of the weakest most permissive regulatory regimes for assisted human reproductive technology in the Western World. Indeed I would argue that we could question whether the purpose of the legislation is being adhered to in the remainder of the bill. The purpose provision states that the purpose of the legislation is to regulate the use of human embryos by artificial means and so on and so forth but in truth there is no regulation—astonishingly—proposed in the bill. Instead the whole bill relies on guidelines which do not have the legal force of law and which can be so vaguely worded that are very very difficult to enforce. The guidelines will be drawn up by an unelected and unaccountable ministerial advisory committee which will have the task of approving controversial technologies without any parliamentary scrutiny. That is extraordinary. Fortunately there will be some consultation but ultimately we are giving an unelected and unaccountable advisory committee unprecedented and virtually unlimited powers to determine policies about reproductive technologies in New Zealand. 
In so doing this bill is breaching the well-established parliamentary principle that matters of policy and substance should be dealt with by Parliament. It is a well-established convention that policy should not be delegated beyond Parliament to technical committees but here we are giving an unelected and unaccountable advisory committee the ability to set guidelines that in effect set policy in this most highly contentious highly controversial area. If Parliament does not have some greater say in this sort of area one wonders what its purpose is. As one submitter said Dr Frankenstein would have found that the regulatory regime proposed in this bill—or rather the lack of it—gave him ample opportunity to argue for the creation of his monster. A submitter made that observation. 
It is tragic that we have ended up with a bill without any regulation. The Greens will be putting up an amendment to give the guidelines the force of regulation. It is a mystery to me why the Government is so implacably opposed to having regulation of this important and highly contentious area. Canada has just passed some legislation that has regulations and a mechanism to enable new regulations to go through Parliament to be debated in Parliament and to be sent to its equivalent of our Health Committee. England has a licensing regime and so on and so forth. It is a mystery to me why our Government and the officials are absolutely hell-bent on having no regulation whatsoever. I have never understood what the reason for that is. A previous speaker said we might have to revisit this bill. I believe that she is correct. I believe that we will revisit it because of the lack of regulation. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I was slightly reassured by the previous speaker Sue Kedgley for the Greens on this Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill by something that I am sure she did not intend when she described the officials as having been hell-bent against regulation. That is not what I have discerned from reading the bill. I speak for myself and for a number of my colleagues. I cannot say that I speak for the ACT party because we are divided on this bill. When I look at the bill I see that it is a sickening exhibit of sentimentality. It is a typical example of the kind of—I know that I am not allowed to use the word “hypocrisy” in relation to members of this House—the hypocrisy that is exhibited by the establishment when it has a dreadful social problem and instead of addressing it decides to focus on a trivial and an almost non-existent problem as a smokescreen. What we have here is a whole lot of pious cant about the dignity and rights of individuals about the protection of health safety and welfare about the importance of knowing one’s genetic origins about the importance of regulating unacceptable behaviour about dealing with nasty commerce and donated cells and about informing people of their genetic origins. 
That cant comes from a Parliament that not only tolerates but facilitates thousands of births every year of kids who will never know their fathers—kids who have natural fathers they will never know because our welfare system is determined to sponsor single-parent families without responsibility. This Parliament is running a welfare system that does not mind that kids are being born every day with foetal alcohol syndrome to entirely unsuitable women—to people who would never have children if in fact the normal social sanctions were applied when they were irresponsible. This is a Parliament that has presided over introducing a legal system that means that thousands of babies are born who will never know their father. The normal social sanctions are the sorts of regimes that apply in most societies whereby people do not bear children until they can take care of them and until they know that they are able to give them education a stable home life and grandparents—all the things that those of us who have been blessed with that kind of upbringing take for granted and that we now in all sincerity have abandoned for a good chunk of our population. By taking from families that are working and by structuring a welfare system that gives funding to children to have children we are providing for all the things in our welfare system that this legislation suddenly states are utterly unacceptable where there is assisted reproduction. 
I listened to the members who spoke so piously in favour of this bill talk about the importance of the embryo. They are scared of Frankenstein’s monster. One would think that it is unlikely that any parent involved in an assisted reproduction process will not be very anxious. It is highly unlikely that there will be a single woman or man involved in the process who will not have the utmost anxiety about the best interests of the child that is produced. These will be the most wanted children in New Zealand. These will be children who do not need any official to look after them these baby children around whom risks are taken. It may be that experimental procedures are invoked but what is the risk of those kinds of experiments where the medical profession has its hands deep in them compared with the risk to the number of children who are conceived in a drunken or drug-induced passion? Kids are being born when conception was a complete blur and the entire pregnancy has been chemically affected. What does the Government do about that? It pays for it. It says that there is no consequence as a result of doing that. There is not even a power to intervene. Yet this House in a great rush of sickly sentiment is saying we should spend time on supervising these births. 
JILL PETTIS (Senior Whip—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the question be now put 
. 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 There are groups in society who for one reason or another are not able to have children. In clause 3 among the purposes provided it is explained that the bill is: “(d) to provide a robust and flexible framework for regulating and guiding the performance of assisted reproductive procedures and the conduct of human reproductive research:”. Having said that I say that technology has moved ahead but it has to be better. It needs to be precise especially when we are dealing with life. Technology is more stringent than it was before and research gives an assurance of protection. There is also the direction and guidance in the bill to privacy and areas that are sensitive. 
There will be areas of dissatisfaction. To various ethnic groups this technology will be a no-no because of their beliefs and spiritual backgrounds. As mentioned by previous speakers genealogy or whakapapa links are important and will be a concern for Maori and Pacific Island groups. By way of explanation from a Maori perspective I tell members that historically the perpetuation of the family and blood lines was a very important event. When a child was born the placenta was kept and buried in the area where that child came from. The pito or umbilical cord symbolically tied that child to its tribe its whanau its hapu and the land it inherited. I do not know whether those concerned ever looked at that for it is where disputes could start because of that spiritual belief—the perpetuation of family and its link in this case for Maori and I think for most Pacific Island people to their land. That has always been historically important and still is today. 
My presentation on this bill will be brief but I would like to ensure that those things are taken into consideration because life to all of us in this House and to those outside its boundaries is sacred. It must be treated as such. If not this technology and all the regulations and laws that go with it can go out the window. 
First on the priority list of this House is to consider how people look at this legislation and at the sanctity that is brought into the family. Without that sanctity and respect for life and the sacredness in which most people hold life the legislation cannot be considered. However New Zealand First at this stage supports the bill but the bill has to be stringent. The protection of the child conceived and of the parents has to be taken care of. There is no doubt that when the child is born it will be treated as any other ordinary person and that it will have its parents’ love kindness respect and care. That is paramount and it must be. If parents are not prepared as the previous ACT speaker said to take care of the child where do we go to from here? 
I admire the tenacity with which Dianne Yates has presented the bill but all these things have to be taken into consideration as well as the Supplementary Order Paper of Dr Hutchison. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 The importance of this bill to the House is perhaps underestimated. I do not share the view of the ACT party that the bill is to do with the welfare system. It is to do with much more complex issues than that in many ways. The reason why this is important is that under this structure as set out in Part 1 it is really the only time—and could be the only time for many years actually—that Parliament has an opportunity to discuss what it regards as the bottom lines that will apply to human-assisted reproductive technology. That is of some concern to me. 
Part 1 sets out the objectives of the bill—the robust and flexible framework. One word that does not appear anywhere in there is “accountable”. We have the mechanism of the advisory committees and ethics committees that are advisory to the Minister but I just want to reflect on a number of years spent in this Parliament trying to get at such committees. In fact members may be interested to know that it is fairly difficult for the Minister to get at such committees. 
When I was Minister of Health there was a committee of some name with a similar function—I cannot recall the name—making decisions that in my view were ground-breaking in the science that was put to them. As the Minister who appointed the advisory committee I was greatly anxious about what would happen if the committee made decisions that I believed were wrong—were against the public interest and outside the scope of what Parliament would accept. As it turned out in those cases the advisory committee made decisions that I believed were right. In my view they made the correct call consistent with the public interest. 
But there is no guarantee of that and this is the only chance that I as a member of Parliament will have to set the bottom lines that those committees have to act within—which puts an unfortunate burden on the list of banned procedures. Quite frankly I would like the list to be an awful lot longer than it is. Unless that is the case I will not get the chance to come back. 
I know that the members of an advisory committee will not have to face the same scrutiny as a ministry. I know that any ministerial interference with that process will be regarded as a breach of good faith because that is what was threatened when I sought advice about what role I might take as Minister of Health in those decisions. 
So that is where I believe there is something missing from Part 1—the clarity of the accountability mechanism. The purposes and the principles in the bill are sufficiently general that committees could be able—I am not saying they will be able—to make decisions that from a public policy point of view a future Parliament would like to challenge. There is no direct or effective way of doing that. It may require Parliament to bring in legislation at some urgency. 
Again the bill forces that process. It forces a confrontational process with Parliament because Parliament is not able to exercise the kind of ongoing accountability and public policy guidance that those committees might need. So I think that that is a concern. 
I have also been concerned on looking through the principles about the way the Health Committee has downgraded the paramountcy principle in respect of the welfare of children. This bill is not about children only. I have almost more concern now about the alleged therapeutic benefits of a lot of this research. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I have to say that I agree with every utterance of the previous speaker Bill English and I wish that he had been sitting on the Health Committee. Regrettably it was his colleagues sitting on our committee along with others who were so implacably opposed to any mechanism being introduced to make that unelected and unaccountable advisory committee have some accountability to Parliament. I would like to assure the Hon Bill English that the Green Party did try very hard to introduce some mechanism that would enable Parliament to have some scrutiny over the decisions—the so-called guidelines but in fact the policy decisions—of the advisory committee. We failed because of the opposition of his party and others but we will be bringing these amendments here and he will have an opportunity to vote for them. 
We will be putting up two amendments. The first amendment gives the guidelines the force of regulation so that at least they will be regulations and will have to go to the Regulations Review Committee whereas at the moment they are just “wiffly waffly” guidelines. I do not know where guidelines go—perhaps to the Minister? They certainly do not have parliamentary scrutiny. Secondly we have an amendment that would propose our doing what the Canadian system does which is to state that the guidelines—or the regulations as we hope they will become—will have the mechanism to be able to go before Parliament and to be debated and sent to the Health Committee. If the Minister chooses to ignore the recommendations of that committee the Minister would have to give very good reason for that. 
So I think that Mr English has made some extremely good points because the fact is that Parliament basically has no role in this extraordinarily important and controversial area once we have set up this bill. All this bill does is set up a very broad umbrella. It sets up some very fine purposes and principles but then does not even give them the force of regulation. It then essentially hands the entire thing lock stock and barrel to this unelected and unaccountable committee. It does not provide for any mechanism for Parliament to debate those bottom lines as Mr English put it and to look at those or to have scrutiny over some of the ground-breaking decisions that advisory committees will no doubt be making. As Mr English has pointed out it is extremely worrying that those committees are effectively a law unto themselves. So what we are doing in this bill is giving the ability to decide on the future of the human race with respect to New Zealand to that unelected unaccountable committee that will essentially be a law unto itself. 
The member from ACT was scornful about why we should be interfering in these things. Frankly most of society agrees that in this bill we are debating a very profound aspect of what it is to be human. I presume the member from ACT would be happy to have cloning and happy to have genetic engineering of humans which is what he seemed to be implying. Well I can assure the Committee— 
Stephen Franks 
: Absolutely! 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: The trouble is as the member from ACT may be aware there has been a tremendous failure in efforts to clone and genetically engineer animals. There have been hundreds and hundreds of attempts and hundreds of animals are born with severe abnormalities before scientists clone successfully. Is that the sort of thing he would advocate? I think that maybe he needs to do a bit more reading about genetic engineering and cloning in order to understand the huge risks there are in this area. 
I want to point out to Mr English and others who fortunately share my concerns about the total lack of accountability in this bill that there are some amendments on the Table they can support. Hopefully Mr English might be able to persuade his colleague Dr Hutchinson and others that in fact the incredibly lax system that we have introduced does as Simon Power said leave it up to the market—the market will decide. That is basically what this bill is doing and I hope that that member over the dinner break might prevail upon some of his colleagues to support the proposal by the Green Party to introduce accountability and regulations into the bill. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I want to take a brief call on Part 1 to explain my other amendment to clause 6. But in starting I want to disagree with my colleague Sue Kedgley on one matter. I did not find the officials a brick wall. I think that any brick wall they had to stand behind was one created by Cabinet. I actually found the officials to be extremely helpful. At times I felt like a bit of a fly in the ointment to the process but I always found them very gracious and I thank them for the way they worked with us. 
I would also like to commend the Hon Bill English for his contribution. I think he absolutely hit the nail on the head regarding my position in that this is the one and only chance that will be offered to us as elected representatives to have a say in the way the direction of this technology will go. I find that scary and the fact that the word accountability or the fact that the understanding of what it means to be accountable to this House is lost in this process worries me a huge amount. 
That is why I proposed an amendment to clause 6 so that treatments that were to be declared established procedures had final scrutiny by Parliament. Of course once something is considered an established procedure as long as the practitioners administering the procedure are qualified they no longer require any further ethics committee approval because the procedure is set in place. But before we allow a procedure to hit that final category I think it would be hugely important for this House to be re-engaged with the final recommendation. I understand that the best way for that to happen is for the Regulations Review Committee to look at what is being proposed and so that is what my amendment seeks to do. 
The huge difference between guidelines and regulations I guess is the area that worries me the most. When we read the Canadian legislation which is strongly regulatory we see that what is allowed and what will happen is extremely clear clause-by-clause. There are no grey areas: one is very clear as one reads it what is to be expected. That is the power of regulation. I understand that regulation in some areas of life can be onerous can shut down a positive move forward in some directions and can slow processes down unnecessarily. But in this particular situation regulations would give effective clarification and certainly the work of the Regulations Review Committee to check what is being proposed is an extremely fortuitous function of Parliament. 
My amendment then to clause 6 would require a check to be made by the Regulations Review Committee before Orders in Council were made on established procedures. The select committee would then report on how it found the guidelines and procedures that were being touted as established procedures and would give us a sense of what was going on. That is the proposal I have for clause 6. I will leave it at that but I really encourage members to consider supporting that check. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to further address Part 1 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. As I indicated the ACT party will split its vote on this. We have two members who believe that the bill is defective but still worth supporting and we have six members who believe that it is a classic example of the errors of legislating when no mischief has been identified. Usually we pass law when we find that something wrong is being done or threatened. People cannot even identify what it is they are scared of in this case. The mischief may be bad outcomes but if people wanted to look at bad outcomes and were really worried about kids being born with genetic disadvantages why are they not worried about kids who are born to smoking mothers? Why are they not doing something about kids born with lifelong disabilities as a result of alcohol consumption during the critical period after conception? 
I have just heard arguments that this is the one and only chance for Parliament to look at the issue. Parliament will look at this every year—because it is sexy because it gets headlines and because politicians looking anxious and concerned can intervene in this area with no practical consequences. What we have here is an idea that Parliament’s wisdom will exceed that of the anxious would-be parents the concerned doctors and the professionals who would like to deal with disease. 
A very good example of how pitiful a parliamentary attempt to deal with this issue is is my layman’s look at the definitions in Part 1. As I read them they do not do anything about genetic engineering even though half the speeches have been about that. It is not prohibited by this bill. The bill states that it deals with embryos and gametes at the cellular level and with fusing cells. It does not even deal with introducing specific genes or modifying specific genes as long as a hybrid is not created. Am I right? I would be very interested to know whether the member in the chair Dianne Yates can advise on this matter. I have looked at the schedules and I think this is a classic example of a pathetic group of politicians deciding to intervene in a very big public splash and not realising that the legislation does not even address the issues they are making most of their slogans about. 
It does not deal with modified embryos. It does not deal with genetic experimentation. It does not deal—nor should it—with an attempt for example to introduce extra genes into the reproductive mechanism to cope with some desperate inherited disease. I just hope that by raising the pathetic inadequacy of this bill I do not find a member suddenly rushing through an amendment to try to block even that area. 
This bill scratches a political itch—a desire to be seen to be publicly upholding someone’s cultural values. In clause 4 “Principles” paragraph (f) directs that “the needs values and beliefs of Maori should be considered and treated with respect:”. Of course—but what does that mean? This is slogan law. How much respect? Does it override the rights of everyone else even if some Maori decide they do not like any kind of interference with the course of nature however red in tooth and claw nature may be? 
Then I see that someone decided that that provision looked a little bit racist so the next provision was stuck in: “the different ethical spiritual and cultural perspectives in society should be considered and treated with respect.” How respectfully at the moment are we treating the 30-odd percent of New Zealanders who are Catholic when we openly have the Abortion Supervisory Committee admitting that we have abortion on demand? Catholics think that that is murder. I do not but they think it is murder. The law treats abortion on demand as highly illegal yet the House connives year after year at 18000 or 20000 embryos being destroyed a great affront to those Catholics and in breach of the law and we do nothing. Instead we pass drivel law like this. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 It does seem odd that Mr Franks might agree with the regulation of lawyers but not with the regulation of the production of humans because that is what the bill is about. If anything Parliament’s interest in the issue is to do with the fact that a growing proportion of human assisted reproductive technology is publicly funded and Parliament should always be interested in the ethical use of public funds. 
I signal some concern about the way Part 1 is structured. It does not really cover research which will be important in our consideration of Part 2. A fair bit of the focus of the principles and purposes of the bill is to do with the benefits of assisted reproductive procedures. There is a strong focus on reproductive procedures—in particular on those of women and children—and the use of those procedures in research. Of course a growing proportion of the activity is in research for its own sake. It is for the production of human tissue for the purposes of research not for the purposes of reproduction. Substantial numbers of embryos can be created without any intent to use them in reproduction. According to the rules here scientists can do whatever they want to with the human tissue created in the first 10 days fully intending to destroy or not progress the tissue beyond that 10 days. 
I am concerned that the principles in clause 4 are laid out as if it is all about offspring and babies being born. I would be interested if the member could tell me a bit more about that because the more I have thought about it the more I think Parliament’s concern should focus on the scope and direction of research. A lot of the issues around reproduction are not new. Mr Franks might think Parliament deals with this issue regularly because it is sexy but it has actually taken years to get to this stage. Having some legislation is certainly better than having none but in that time committees have dealt with a lot of the issues to do with reproduction. In my view what lies ahead of us are much greater challenges to do with the issue of the research carried out on embryos however one wants to define their existence. 
Part 1 seems to me to be sadly lacking in that respect. It provides a useful framework for coming to decisions about established procedures—that is the things that have been going on—and it is quite a useful device but it is not a very useful framework for dealing with what might happen next. While some feel very confident that scientific research will follow paths that most people are happy with others of us do not share that confidence. There is no reason to believe that that will automatically be the case. In my view the purpose and principles are weak in that respect. 
I particularly want to look at how the select committee dealt with the paramount issue the welfare of the child. There is I suppose a sensible scientific view about risk. Those procedures are risky. In fact from a natural point of view they are hugely inefficient and wasteful procedures. An enormous amount of production goes on and a very small number of offspring come out the other end. I know those efficiency rates are increasing somewhat. We know very little about why so many in vitro fertilisations fail. I suspect that it is because the process is much more open to genetic mistakes and that is one reason why a lot of the gametes produced do not survive. 
 So it is a hugely risky process. But I do not like that sense of risk about the scientific procedure being seen as some kind of qualification on how we should see the risk to the offspring. While we know the procedures themselves are risky I am disappointed to see that the committee came to the conclusion that the health and well-being of the children born should not be paramount but should only be an important consideration. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: There are a number of clauses to vote on in Part 1— 
Simon Power 
: I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Just as a point of clarification I have checked this with the Deputy Leader of the House but I want to make sure that from where you are sitting the leave sought to allow votes to be split is confirmed from the second reading through to the Committee stage. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for that and I do have it in front of me. Leave was given and it was agreed that notwithstanding Standing Order 144(1)(b) the party votes cast by a party on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill include numbers cast for the Ayes and the Noes and recorded abstentions. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to clause 3 be agreed to: 
to delete from paragraph (a) after the word “individual” the words “but particularly those of women and children” and substitute the words “women men and children”.  
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 25 
New Zealand National 22; ACT New Zealand 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 95 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 5; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to clause 4 be agreed to: 
to omit paragraph (f). 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 31 
New Zealand National 22; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 89 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 5; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to insert a definition of “Customs officer” in clause 5 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 8 
New Zealand National 1; United Future 7. 
Noes 112 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 1; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 in the name of Judy Turner to add new subclauses (4) and (5) to clause 6 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 19 
New Zealand National 1; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 101 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 1 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 2; United Future 3; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 5; Maori Party 1. 
Part 1 as amended agreed to. 
Part 2 Prohibited and regulated activities 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: The question now is that Part 2 clauses 8 to 41 and including debate on schedule 1 stand part. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 2 has some of the most important aspects of this bill. Not only does it deal with the area of prohibited and regulated activities it also deals with the very important ministerial advisory committee and the ethics committee. Mr Chairperson might I say at this stage that it would be helpful because of the wideness of this part to be able to have multiple calls if at all possible. 
I start by once again making the point that there have been no specific regulations governing this area of reproductive technology in New Zealand but there have been a variety of bills. Over the last 20 to 30 years the newer reproductive technologies have become much more prominent and at the same time the ability to adopt children has become almost negligible in New Zealand. Consequently there are significant numbers of men and women in New Zealand who more and more wish to take advantage of those technologies. To suggest there is no harm is absolutely inappropriate. But it is important to realise there is such a spectrum of procedures available. There are not just complicated ones like in vitro fertilisation. It varies from simply allowing the environment of the female genital tract to be marginally changed to allow conception to occur to much more complicated procedures that carry with them excessive harm. We have had cases in New Zealand of mortality occurring from ovulation stimulation associated with in vitro fertilisation. 
So there are indeed examples in this country of mortality. If one goes through the list in schedule 1 for instance one can see the prohibition on cloning embryos. We in this country know from animal reproduction and from the work done with Dolly the sheep in Britain that there are higher morbidity mortality and ageing problems associated with cloned animals. There is no doubt that at this stage of events it would be unwise to embark on those procedures with humans. It is right and proper that there is such a list. 
I also point out that clause 8 in schedule 1 includes a prohibition against implanting into a human being a genetically modified gamete human embryo or hybrid embryo. Undoubtedly there are provisions throughout this bill that deal with the area of genetic modification and that is absolutely right and proper. However this bill does not deal with the area of stem cell research. It will be addressed through the Human Tissue Act but once again it is highly contentious. 
We note that so many areas in the bill have a wide polarity of view about them. We are seeing right now the tremendous debate in the United States on stem cell research. On the one hand President Bush has banned it except in very restricted circumstances and on the other hand the presidential contender Kerry has promised $100 million of extra funding into stem cell research. There is no doubt that the spectrum of technologies involved engender with them a great polarity of view. That is why it has been so important to reach a practical balance. On the one hand there are simple procedures for which it would be totally inappropriate to bring in amendments through Parliament every time. 
SIMON POWER (National—Rangitikei) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. Just as a point of clarification my colleague Dr Paul Hutchison indicated at the start of his contribution that he was keen to make more than one contribution to this part of the debate. In the first part of the Committee stage the Government senior whip moved a closure motion. I seek your advice Mr Chairperson in respect of the convention. I believe that during a members’ day the matter is very much in members’ hands as to when a part in a debate comes to a conclusion. I would be interested in what the Deputy Leader of the House has to say. I just want to confirm with you that we will not be engaged in a time-based closure motion situation. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I thank the honourable member for drawing that to my attention. He will note that the senior whip has not put any more closure motions. In reality the position is that it is in the hands of the chair of the Committee as to when a closure motion is accepted. He will also know that last time the speakers were given a good hearing and I think it went very well. 
Hon MARK BURTON (Acting Leader of the House) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Mr Chairperson. In the spirit of good communication I can assure the member that subject to the normal ability of any member to seek a closure motion if he or she feels the debate is deteriorating and to seek the decision of the chair I do not think Government members are in any hurry to curtail this debate. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 2 and schedule 1 deal with some of the concerns I have heard people express in this Chamber. Schedule 1 clearly delineates those prohibited activities that will not be allowed to take place in New Zealand without resulting in 2 years’ imprisonment or a $200000 fine. There are quite hefty penalties for anybody who attempts to break the law in respect of this legislation. 
Some of the things we are debating tonight have to do with philosophy. The issues in this bill come back to the understanding of when life begins to the whole concept from the past of test-tube babies and to where we go in allowing the level of human assisted reproductive technology to develop in this country. The areas in schedule 1 that are prohibited are very clearly delineated. There was discussion on what would be an accepted activity and about how new technologies being developed would be allowed on to the accepted activity list. Concerns were expressed about how Parliament would have scrutiny over new developments that there is doubt about. 
Clause 10 refers to the ethics committee and states that human in vitro embryos can be kept for only 10 years. I think clause 10 gives us a really good example of how an ethics committee would work. It states that a gamete or embryo can be kept for a period of only 10 years and that it would then be up to the ethics committee to make a decision whether to approve any longer period. Let us imagine a child of 13 who finds that she has ovarian cancer and who wants her eggs to be kept and stored. At the end of 10 years she would be only 23. That person may not have found a permanent partner in life and may not want to have a child at that time so she would ask for ethics committee approval for the 10-year period to be extended. If she did not know about that time period and the end of the 10-year period was coming up in a couple of months there would have to be a fairly speedy process. We could not have a 2-year process for approval because those eggs would be destroyed and that would be the end of her chance ever to have children. So we do need a process that can respond to such a situation. 
Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: Before the dinner break we were talking about the role of the ethics committee as well as the role of the ministerial advisory committee as set out in Part 2. We are also considering schedule 1—“Prohibited Actions”. There are nine points clearly set out in this schedule which state that artificially forming for reproductive purposes a hybrid embryo implanting a cloned embryo implanting an animal gamete or embryo into a human and so on are all prohibited. This legislation will have the power to give surety in these areas. 
Another issue that was debated and that will be restricted is the sex selection of human embryos. A sex-linked genetic defect is a defence against the charge of breaking clause 11 which states the restrictions on sex selection of human embryos. So people cannot say that they want a girl or a boy and have an embryo selected on that basis. However if there is a genetic disorder or disease that is passed on because of the sex of the child then a child’s sex can be selected for that reason. 
There will be only one ethics committee and that is appropriate because this is a very highly specialised area and there should be only one agency. The advisory committee about which the Green Party has stated its concerns will have eight to 12 members. They will be looking at the issues of donations of embryos embryo splitting gametes derived from dead people informed consent pre-implantation genetic analysis—that is examining what the genetic code of an embryo may be before it is implanted to ensure that it does not have defects—and importation and exportation of in vitro donated cells. When we start looking at some of these issues we begin to realise the complexity of the issue that we have been debating. For example if people who immigrate to this country have frozen embryos in another country there has to be provision for them to be able to bring in those embryos if they want implantation at a later date. There may be a situation where a man has donated sperm and he still lives in a different country. If a woman has one child through the process of using the donated sperm and she may want to have another child with that same genetic inheritance there has to be a way to be able to import or export in vitro donated cells. Gametes derived from someone who has died brought up a very interesting case in Britain where a woman wanted to use the sperm cells from her husband who had been killed in an accident to create a child. That was a hard-fought legal case. 
These are all interesting ethical and procedural matters that the ministerial advisory committee will have to look at. They often arise from one specific case that may end up before the courts and then worldwide attention is focused on that particular case to look at the moral and ethical dilemmas that are brought about by such a case. 
The other thing we must remember about this bill is that although it has a certain jurisdiction we also have the hazardous substances and new organisms legislation and the Medicines Act. The legislation overlaps to some degree concerning the use of therapies such as somatic cell gene therapy and embryonic stem cell therapy used in genetic modification. There is an overlap that is somewhat different from that of other countries. 
I turn to the status of the advisory committees. It will be an offence to go outside the guidelines. We heard the Hon Bill English’s concerns about the advisory committee and the Minister. The Minister is an elected representative of the country who has been appointed to be in charge of health. He or she will have the responsibility as an elected official to look at the advice given by the ministerial advisory committee. It is a committee appointed by that Minister or maybe by a former Minister. If there are concerns then the Minister should seek further advice either from the public to have a debate on these issues or from the Ministry of Health. The Minister could even ask the select committee for an inquiry or the legislation could be changed if he or she is unhappy with what may have happened or have been proposed. The Minister of Health will be the person who will make those changes. It will be that person’s responsibility to decide what will change from being experimental to becoming a recognised procedure. Look back to the cloning of Dolly the sheep. When that occurred around the world there was a call for legislation to try to prevent cloning and that will happen with this legislation tonight. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why support it? 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT 
: I am supporting this bill because it gives a clear way to regulate against the sorts of things that very few people in this country would want to see. They would not want to see cloning and they would not want to see the genetic engineering of babies—they would not want to see that. But there needs to be a process whereby we can move forward. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 I listened to that speech and thought it a very good example of the kind of well-meaning humbug we find so often when Parliament rushes to legislate in areas in which it understands nothing. 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: 8 long years. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: The rush was in introducing it. The reason it has not gone through is that parliamentarians even though they would love to look busy in this area realised that they do not have the faintest idea of what is happening. They do not know how to regulate this issue and do not know what the mischief is but they still want to write rules. That is why it is a rush to legislate. The fact that they have not managed to get it through is slight evidence of a wee bit of humility but no more—a tiny bit of humility. In Part 2 of the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill the establishment is saying that it really wants to make rules although it has not got a clue why. Here we ban the commercial supply of embryos. We ban paid surrogacy. If this bill was covering— 
Judy Turner 
: Are you for it? 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: I am absolutely in favour of paid surrogacy. A woman who goes through all of those months of pregnancy fully deserves to be paid for the time the investment the weariness and all the other costs that relate to pregnancy. She should absolutely be paid for her surrogacy. 
I cannot understand at all why New Zealanders should be prohibited from even seeing advertisements. What a fatuous bill! Under clause 15 the penalty will be 3 months in prison or a fine of $2500 if someone’s Internet site shows that somewhere in the world one might be paid to hold an embryo—to be a mother for someone else. There have been wet nurses and nannies for generations for centuries. In fact the ruling classes have often wanted someone else to do all the hard work of child bearing. We now say that that is to be criminalised! 
It will happen. New Zealanders will do it. They will go to the United States China or some Pacific Island country—somewhere where someone will carry a child for them—and they will pay the women handsomely. But this sanctimonious mob in this Parliament says: “Oh no we think that’s awful. We’ll ban that.” 
I know why there is an ACT party in this Parliament: because we are not bound by political correctness. We are not too scared to say it like it is. We stand up and ask why this measure is being put through. Why is clause 11 putting a legal restriction on sex selection of human embryos? Who is to say that New Zealand people will not do that anyway? It could easily be that shortly we will know exactly what environments in the womb or the uterus favour male sperm. It could easily be that shortly this matter will be right out of the hands of the politicians and the people will be able to decide. Then we will have the real decision—the decision as to what we do if people consistently favour one gender over the other. We do not know which one it will be but it is very likely that humans will work it out without the help of an all-wise all-knowing nanny Government. They will work out what to do if a sex imbalance emerges. We are watching that huge experiment happening in China right at this minute. 
This Government says it will ban sex selection in New Zealand but it knows that it cannot enforce that and it knows that people will find excuses. It is interesting as a lawyer to consider the sorts of arguments that might be put to a court on exactly what is a genetic disorder or disease. There are many propensities that are gender related and that people might argue they do not want their children to incur. I know for example that schizophrenia has a higher propensity in certain families than in others and that it is gender related. Will that be an excuse? I suspect it will. I suspect that the unhappy uncomfortable couple who are looking at a higher propensity to incur a certain disease will be able to walk around this restriction in exactly the same way as people have walked around our anti-abortion law by pretending to find serious mental risk when they want to justify an abortion. 
This measure is an exercise in futility. It is an exercise in smugness and sanctimony. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 Well I am not sure why Mr Franks is so exercised about this bill because I think that—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Franks is implying that this bill sets stringent regulations on these various issues. If he looks at the fine print he will find that it does no such thing—that in fact some rather wiffly-waffly guidelines around these various things—[ 
Interruption 
] Mr Chairperson I seek your protection. I am unable to hear myself think because of the shouting in my right ear. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: I will protect the member. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: The point is that far from having strict regulation we will have instead some wiffly-waffly guidelines that will set policy in far-reaching areas—areas such as embryo splitting and the derivation of gametes from deceased persons. We will actually have that unelected and unaccountable committee setting policy in areas that the ordinary New Zealander will have very very strong views and feelings about. In fact an unelected and unaccountable committee will be making those far-reaching decisions and setting guidelines—guidelines that if existing guidelines are any indication will be extremely vague. So Mr Franks need not be worried. I think that most people will find a way around those guidelines. I suspect that most of the guidelines will not even be enforceable. 
I want to mention that the Green Party has a couple of amendments to this part. One is to tighten up the rules around preimplantation genetic diagnosis and to prevent it from being used to select embryos for reasons other than preventing serious genetic diseases or increasing the likelihood of implantation. We strongly support the use of embryo selection techniques such as preimplantation genetic diagnosis to help couples who carry genes for disorders such as Huntingdon’s disease cystic fibrosis and so forth. But we are strongly opposed to the use of that particular technology for social or eugenic purposes. 
The problem is that in the way the bill is currently drafted it could be used to allow people to select embryos for any other genetic characteristic except sex. Now Mr Franks will not be worried about that but I have an article here in which James Watson a biologist who has been very involved in this area stirred some controversy in the United States recently by saying that if a gene for homosexuality were discovered a woman should be free to abort a foetus that carried it or to select such an embryo. That created something of an uproar but the truth of the matter is that it would be left to that particular unelected and accountable committee to make far-reaching decisions such as that. 
The National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction put out some guidelines on preimplantation genetic diagnosis and if anyone had concerns about the guidelines of the advisory committee these guidelines from the ethics committee would enhance those concerns. They are not only extremely vague but they set down few stipulations. They state: “Preimplantation genetic diagnosis for conditions that are not covered here can be approved on a case-by-case basis.” In other words that committee is basically saying that it will be possible to use the technology to select desirable traits in off-spring and screen out undesirable traits on a case-by-case basis—so it leaves it wide open. With our amendment therefore we want to make it absolutely clear that embryo selection techniques such as those can be used only to prevent serious genetic diseases or disorders and that they cannot be used to improve athletic performance or whatever. 
I note that the United Kingdom has regulations around preimplantation genetic diagnosis which once again of course are much much tighter than ours. The UK allows only a very limited number of licensed clinics to use the technology and then only for severe and life-threatening disorders. 
BILL GUDGEON (NZ First) 
: 
 New Zealand First is happy to support Part 2. We especially support the list of prohibited actions in clause 8 which states in subclause (1): “Every person commits an offence who takes an action described in Schedule 1.” Because of the great sensitivity here in relation to ethnic peoples touching on the sanctity of birth and children I speak on behalf of those people and say that this should be taken into consideration. New Zealand First is happy with the list of prohibited actions and supports it. We are pleased with the provisions that prohibit the genetic engineering of humans and the sex selection of embryos for any reason other than treating or preventing genetic disease. This is a sensitive topic. There are those of us who believe that a spirit of a person is chosen to be male or female even before it enters into this life. So we are very very happy with the part of the bill that prohibits the genetic engineering of humans and the sex selection of embryos. This will be allowed only for treating or preventing genetic disease. 
 It is great to have a functions and ethics committee set out clearly. The committee will be held responsible for the activity allowed for the laws and functions and for the counsel and advice that might be given to the public. It holds a great responsibility towards the general public towards humanity and towards people who through no fault of their own are unable to have children of their own. They are people who are in a situation where they have to make serious decisions. 
We believe that the number of people on the advisory committee may be too large. Between eight and 12 members would I think be sufficient in terms of control and keeping track of this legislation. There should be a member of the ethics committee on the advisory committee by right. Too many lay persons on an advisory committee may have a detrimental effect in terms of the expertise already there. It is great to have the advisory committee guidelines made public. Because of the seriousness sensitivity and importance of this legislation the public and the people it affects need to be advised of what is actually happening. We welcome the strengthened provisions for public involvement. 
Other than that when we look at the restrictions on sex selection of human embryos we notice that there is a penalty of up to 1 year’s jail and a fine of $100000 or both for breaches in this area. With the seriousness of this issue I think the penalties should be extended a bit more. There are many who may be able to afford the $100000 or even look at spending 1 year in prison—it would be all over with the flick of the fingers and back to it again. Clause 11(2) states: “Every person commits an offence who contravenes this section and is liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 1 year or a fine not exceeding $100000 or both.” 
Stephen Franks 
: Who’s the victim? 
BILL GUDGEON 
: In this case the people involved. They would not be victims because—[ 
Interruption 
] The member from ACT has had his say. They have made that choice. They have made the decision to be put in that situation and they know the responsibilities that go with it. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I to refer to comments made earlier by Mr Franks. He said that we do not need a framework that society will work it out for itself and that it will all come right in the wash. He cited the situation in China and said that although China now has a slight imbalance in its population due to sex selection it will all clean up in the wash. When we look at the percentages in China we see that the situation does not look too bad—until we look at the real figures. In the next 10 years I say to Mr Franks China will have 30 million males. There will not be enough females to partner them. I do not quite know how that will come out in the wash. That is the current situation due to sex selection in China. 
I want to talk about some of the amendments I have put forward to Part 2. The first is to clause 9. Clause 9 provides for the ability for an embryo to be developed for 14 days. A very interesting bit of wording that has slipped into the clause refers to the fact that in counting those 14 days we exclude any day during which the development of the embryo is suspended. I have asked officials about this and they thought my concerns were unfounded. However I have done the maths and I still cannot figure out how else this can work. Assuming that the technology is developed whereby we can suspend development start it again and then suspend it again—and I am sure that at present no embryo could survive that repeated process but we may yet develop the technology—then that means an embryo could start developing for one two three or four days and then say on day five have its development suspended. But day five does not have to be counted because it is the day the action was suspended. So even though the embryo is 5 days old it is called a 4-day-old embryo. Then it can be thawed—or whatever the process is—and the counting started again. Its development can then be further suspended but the day on which that occurs does not have to be counted. That means that an embryo that is officially 14 days old has actually been developed beyond 14 days because of the exclusion provision in this clause. I propose that we eliminate the bracketed words in paragraphs (a) and (b) of clause 9(4). That would mean that we count 14 real days and if development is suspended on a given day that day is still counted as a full day. 
The next amendment I propose is to clause 11 “Restrictions on sex selection of human embryos”. It is a simple change to the heading of that clause about sex selection so that we regulate sex selection using not just embryos but of course gametes as we understand that sex selection can take place before an egg is fertilised. 
Stephen Franks 
: Ooh you’re on to that! 
JUDY TURNER 
: We want to make sure if we are to have some regulation around this that we cover the full extent of the process. 
Clause 33 is another where I would like to see the ability for the advisory committee to include a representative from the Office of the Commissioner for Children that representative to be on the committee specifically to make sure that the interests of offspring are fully explored on any given issue. I think it is important that children’s interests are specifically attended to at that level. 
Also I would like new clause 35A “Guidelines to be referred to committee of the House of Representatives” to be inserted. This requires that guidelines from the ministerial advisory committee be referred back to Parliament for scrutiny. 
During the debate on this part we have had some discussion on the “PGD” or preimplantation genetic diagnosis process. I want to bring up an interesting point. In New Zealand in the middle of this debate on this legislation it has been advertised that the Minister is calling for submissions from people who want to have their say on what sort of guidelines should be set for this process. Interested people have received letters with some dates set as to when submissions close. The date is 12 November this year. However it appears that the Minister has already made a decision on this matter and has announced it I think in the last day or so. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 We have heard the arguments from Stephen Franks who certainly would like to have no regulations and who states that there is almost no risk with these procedures. We have heard from a member at the other end of the spectrum Sue Kedgley from the Greens who would love to have far greater regulations and who also suggests there is an enormous degree of risk with most of these procedures. In the middle is Judy Turner who wants the suspending of embryos to last for a microsecond within 14 days. They are all pretty impossible tasks and they all demonstrate the need for flexibility within the mechanism we come up with to achieve a practical solution in dealing with this vast spectrum of human assisted reproductive technology. Once again I stress the fact that there is such a vast spectrum of it that it is impossible— 
Stephen Franks 
: Stay out of it then. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
:—to be able to generalise or make rigid rules either way. I hear Stephen Franks say we should stay out of it but we just have to go to one specific area. 
 For instance let us look at clause 13 “Commercial supply of human embryos or human gametes prohibited”. Undoubtedly in New Zealand there is a strong feeling that altruistic surrogacy and the altruistic supply of human embryos and gametes provide a hugely positive opportunity for those couples in need. But we know from the United States of America where commercial surrogacy and commercial dealing in human tissues occurs that some of the most awful distortions of human nature and results are imposed on the babies due to legal entanglements and fighting. We certainly would not want that sort of dealing to happen in New Zealand at this stage of events or at least until we sort it out a little bit. 
Stephen Franks 
: Tell us about it! 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: I am sure that it would personally suit Mr Franks very well. It would keep him in business at high cost to the misery of potentially hundreds of thousands of people for a long long time to come. There are much more important things to work out. Practically it would be quite inappropriate in my view to have such dealing in a country where we do have altruistic donors who are willing on an altruistic basis to make it possible for people to take advantage of the technologies available. I think it was Sue Kedgley who said that there are no regulations but here is a specific regulation that basically bans the commercial use of embryos ovaries and surrogacy and undoubtedly that is right and proper. 
When we look at clause 10 we see that human in vitro embryos and human in vitro gametes are not to be stored for more than 10 years. As my colleague Dr Lynda Scott pointed out that is a hugely important provision. If indeed a young girl of 15 was diagnosed with cancer then this may be her only opportunity to store her own gametes. She would be only 25 after 10 years—much below the average age of conception these days in New Zealand—but due to the flexibility of this bill the ethics committee could allow her to have those gametes stored further. On the other hand it is very important to have this under constant monitoring because that same girl could have died. Who then owns the gametes embryos or whatever they are? Once again we get into these enormous potential legal tangles. These are not simple matters but it is important to work out some basic areas where we decide by consensus that there is sheer practicality for having these provisions and I believe in clause 10 that is exactly what has happened. 
Clause 11 talks about restrictions on sex selection of human embryos. Once again this is an area where there is a possible defence. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 The previous National Party speaker slightly mischaracterised my argument. I was not arguing that there should be no regulation; of course the normal constraints of the Hippocratic oath “first do no harm” and all the other kinds of obligations on medical practitioners should apply. The idea that someone should be allowed to deliberately or quite cold-bloodedly sacrifice the interests of one patient for money is antithetical to that in any event. In this area all the normal medical ethics would prevail. There is no reason to consider that they are excluded. However the member talked about enormous complexities and legal problems. We simply do not know that. 
Parliament is imagining a host of menaces and Frankenstenian monsters and deciding in advance what powers it will confer on a group of doctors. They will kick for touch because they are already battered by legal risks. They will make sure New Zealand is not at the forefront of any of this. New Zealanders who are rich will be fine. New Zealanders with the money will be able to go off shore just as Irish women had to go off shore to get around the Catholic Church - inspired ban on contraceptives—in fact as New Zealanders used to have to go off shore for abortions. Wealthy people will not be hurt by this. This will hurt ordinary hard-working people who cannot afford to go to countries that do not have a bunch of politicians who are quite so sanctimonious. 
When I look at the provisions that were mentioned for example clause 13 “Commercial supply of human embryos or human gametes prohibited” I see there is no reason why people would cease to be altruistic simply because others might advertise and be willing to pay for the inconvenience embarrassment and risk particularly now that this bill goes on to require that there be disclosure. Now we cannot have anonymous donors although we can still have entirely anonymous fathers—I think we have 15000 of them every year through the welfare system where there is no requirement to disclose who impregnated the beneficiary. We now have a requirement. People may want to be compensated for the risk that in 10 or 15 years’ time someone will front up to them and say: “Hello dad I want you to meet your moral obligations.” 
What we have here is a very prissy and very anti-commercial attitude. It sounds very fine saying that there should not be commercial surrogacy but it really means that the really public-spirited person the person who has loved having her own kids has found pregnancy not to be a burden and would be quite happy to add that delight to another family cannot be compensated. Curiously enough the elite folk in the industry have made sure that they have exempted themselves. They are allowed to collect store transport counsel surrogacy inseminate for surrogacy purpose do ovulation and pregnancy tests for surrogacy services and give legal advice. They are free of any sanction. However the woman who does all the work and who actually carries the child could be fined $100000 by the prigs who pass this law. 
I ask this Parliament to think a little bit past the self-righteousness that goes in saying: “We will only have volunteers in this industry.” That is all very well if there are enough volunteers. What about the thousands of New Zealanders out there at the moment who cannot find adopted children? Volunteering does not necessarily meet the demand. In an orgy of self-congratulation this Parliament is about to pass a bill that simply states that we cannot compensate someone for carrying a child for another family. I do not see anything worthy about that. I do not see anything high-moralled about that. I see that as a simple exercise—one group of privileged people saying: “We will judge others.” Similarly with advertising. Then look at the committee provisions. This committee however it is composed will do something that our society rejected years ago. When electricity came in when flying came in or when motorcars came in if a committee of experts had been available to decide whether those were utterly safe they would never have gone anywhere. They would not have happened. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 When we look at the fine print of this bill someone like Mr Franks should be very reassured because in the absence of any regulation basically it is all left to some very vague guidelines that would enable almost anything to take place and that would be very very hard to police. Dr Hutchison corrected me—there are some regulations that prohibit some things and we are very thrilled about those. Despite what Mr Franks said they do prohibit genetic engineering cloning and a few other things and we are very very pleased about those. But although this bill has a whole set of regulations about what is prohibited it basically has no regulations about what is permitted and that is our problem. That is why we have a very simple amendment to insert new clause 35A which basically states that guidelines issued by the advisory committee may be used as a basis of an ethics committee approval once they have been issued as regulations. 
I want to point out to the Committee just how weak those guidelines are. I have a number of those guidelines and one could literally drive the veritable bus through any of them. In fact I do not see how any of them could be enforced. As an example the guidelines on pre-implantation genetic diagnosis just released 2 days ago say basically that it is the responsibility of the providers—the fertility clinics—to decide whether a disorder is likely to be serious in an offspring of a particular couple. So it is up to the fertility clinics to decide. Where does one draw the line? What is a serious disorder? Is it a cleft palate? What is it? That is just an example. The guidelines state that pre-implantation genetic diagnosis for anything will be considered on a case-by-case basis. Dr Linda Scott is looking perplexed. She should look at the guidelines. 
Another guideline I have here is for the disposal storage and use of sperm of a deceased man and it states: “A clinic should undertake an annual review … It is expected that sperm collected in the circumstances would be stored for a maximum period specified by the clinics.” How will that be enforced? It is expected that they will be collected for a maximum period—it is expected. It is also stated that partners of the deceased should be encouraged to inform the wider family or whanau. How will that be reinforced? These are wiffly-waffly words—“it is expected; we should have done this or we should have done that.” How will the Government try to use that as a basis for policy making regulation or enforcement? It will not be able to. 
Here is another example and this will exercise Stephen Franks. It is “Guidelines for non-commercial altruistic surrogacy using IVF as a treatment” and it states that the prospective birth mother and her partner should have completed their family as this may reduce the likelihood they will want to keep the child. It also states that they should take measures to ensure that they do not conceive their own child during the treatment. Frankly it is just laughable. Fortunately the Minister is listening to this. Those are the guidelines that will regulate some of the most far-reaching things in New Zealand about how far we may go in assisted human reproduction and where we will set the limits. Basically Mr Franks can rest assured. 
If one was cynical one would say that this bill is almost in the category of a regulatory facade. It sort of implies that there are clear limits but when we dig down and look at the fine print we see instead that we have some wiffly-waffly guidelines that basically will be unenforceable. That is why all we are asking is that the guidelines as in every other Western country that has legislation should have regulatory force. All we are asking is that they have the force of regulation that would have to be considered by the Regulations Review Committee. Also we have amendments to the effect that the guidelines should come before Parliament and be sent to the Health Committee for consideration. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I take over from where my colleague Sue Kedgley left off on this issue because I share her concerns. These guidelines are nothing short of a complete abdication of responsibility by the ministerial advisory committee. They are saying: “Our advice is that we give the responsibility to clinics.” That is so far from what any of us in the select committee thought the guidelines would be like. We thought they would have a little more substance to them than that. Straight away for me alarm bells are ringing. That brings me to I guess what is my greatest concern. 
If I had to pick one issue out of this bill and say that for me it is the No. 1 scary issue it is clause 37 which is directly linked to the issue Ms Kedgley has just been talking about and is directly linked to these proposed guidelines. Clause 37 states that the advisory committee is to provide specific advice in respect of human assisted reproductive technology and it lists a number of things that the ministerial advisory committee has to develop guidelines on as a No. 1 priority. Some of these things were strongly recommended by submitters to be included on the prohibited activities list but they were not included on that list. They have been put in here and the ministerial advisory committee has by its intention already shown that it will abdicate its responsibility and pass it over to fertility clinics and fertility counsellors. Those clinics and counsellors will decide what should be done on issues such as donations of embryos embryo splitting which has a huge number of implications and even legal ramifications gametes derived from deceased persons—this is our own “Mrs Blood” potential; we are now asking for guidelines on those to be developed with no reference back to this House—and requirements for informed consent. 
Even the requirements for informed consent are interesting. When we look at what ethics committees decide we see that most of what the guidelines seem to be concerned about is whether everybody has signed the right piece of paper and whether everybody has consented rather than some of the considerations that a lot of us have. What are we doing to society? What will be the long-term outcomes for offspring and their families as a result of allowing those procedures? We need to look at the bigger picture not just at whether everybody who is involved today has signed the appropriate consent form. 
We are requiring the committee to provide guidelines on pre-implantation genetic analysis. We are asking it to provide guidelines on the importing or exporting from New Zealand of in vitro donated cells or in vitro donated embryos. These are hugely significant issues. Mr Franks is making light of the fact that we will have court cases out of this. I tell Mr Franks that there are already active court cases right now in New Zealand involving biological parents warring with each other over who is the legal guardian. For instance we have cases where— 
Stephen Franks 
: This doesn’t resolve it. 
JUDY TURNER 
: That’s my point. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why support it? 
JUDY TURNER 
: I am not supporting it. 
Stephen Franks 
: Why are you voting for it? 
JUDY TURNER 
: I am not voting for it. This is the point I make. However my solution is totally different from that of Mr Franks. His solution is: “Let’s all just take our hands off and let the market get it right.” I am saying that this legislation is too loose. We need to tighten it down. We need to turn these guidelines into regulations so that we are very very clear issue by issue as to what is acceptable practice and what is unacceptable practice. There has been a general scrutiny of these issues by people with a vested interest. As members of the House of Representatives we are in what I consider to be the unenviable position of representing large numbers of voters in this matter and to be excluded from any part of this process would be a very very sad thing. 
I encourage members of the Committee who have a copy of the bill in front of them to take a very close look at clause 37 which I think is the most dangerous clause. If I was concerned before I entered the Chamber tonight I am now even more concerned when I see the test case of what is already recommended in the guidelines which as I said before show a complete abdication of responsibility. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I did not finish talking about the Green’s final amendment to clause 72. I would like to take a final call on this one. 
Richard Worth 
: You’re jumping ahead. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: I am sorry the member is absolutely right. I will go back to new clause 35A. I thank the member for pointing out that I have jumped ahead of myself. 
Basically I want to make it absolutely clear that the Green Party is supporting this bill but only because we believe it is slightly better than the status quo. We are not supporting this bill because we think it is marvellous and we are enthusiastic about it. What we did think was an excellent bill was Dianne Yates’ original bill before it was gutted. The original bill set up a proper licensing regime and a system based on what is used in the United Kingdom—a system similar to that in Canada and other places. 
The bill has been completely gutted. It must be distressing to Dianne Yates but I am sure she takes the view of the Green Party that it is better to have something in this area than nothing. At least we have outlawed some of the worst excesses—namely genetic engineering and cloning—and at least we will have a committee that will consider the issues and call for submissions. 
I am interested that some of our members were as horrified as I was to read the guidelines that have been put out. All we will have in the future are those waffly guidelines. I agree with Judy Turner. Frankly it is shocking that the guidelines would leave it up to providers to decide on such fundamental issues as what is a serious genetic disorder and what is not. It is completely left up to the fertility clinics. 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: An excellent idea. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Well that is not what Bill English was saying. Of course I know that some members on that side of the Chamber have a background in fertility clinics and from their perspective I am sure that fertility clinics would like the absolute minimum of regulation. Well they have it in this bill. They have virtually the green light to do whatever they like. We have a bit of a regulatory facade in many respects which makes it sound as though we have some sort of control over these areas but frankly when we look at the fine print we see that the guidelines are virtually unenforceable. What will happen if some fertility clinic goes beyond these wiffly-waffly guidelines? How will someone try to enforce them? I have read out some of these things such as “they should do this” and “they should take measures for that” but frankly the guidelines are completely unenforceable. 
I appeal to members to do the simple thing of putting them into regulation. The Associate Minister of Justice David Benson-Pope is here. I know he has taken this bill on at the last minute and I know he is very very busy but I appeal to him to show a little common sense. What is the problem with following the example that has just gone through the Canadian Parliament and giving the guidelines the force of regulation? Why is the Labour Party so utterly opposed to putting regulations on these extraordinarily contentious areas? We have regulations for almost every conceivable thing. The Regulations Review Committee deals with regulations morning noon and night. The chairman of that committee Richard Worth is sitting here. Why on earth would we not have a regulation surrounding such issues as the taking of gametes from deceased persons embryo splitting and other such contentious issues? Why would we allow that to go to an unelected unaccountable committee which as Bill English pointed out is basically a law unto itself and not accountable to anybody? Why will we not even allow those issues to be debated and discussed in this Parliament? 
I will let members know when we come to my amendment to Dr Hutchison’s Supplementary Order Paper that our amendment states specifically that if the issues are inconsequential and small then of course the Minister can say they do not need to come to Parliament. We are saying that only on contentious issues—those about which New Zealanders are likely to feel very strongly—should we in this House have the ability to discuss and debate them. Let us make no mistake about it this committee is basically setting policy. 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 I have made no secret of the fact that in some areas of this bill I would prefer a regulatory system rather than guidelines. As members know guidelines cannot be enforced but regulations can and they have a checks and balances process through the Regulations Review Committee. 
Some areas in the bill that are internationally highly controversial are open to the guideline process—such as as we have seen taking gametes from a deceased person. The consent process in terms of both the technology and the patient is also left up to guidelines. In most other countries that have this legislation the consent process is also subject to regulation and is quite clearly spelt out. That is particularly the case as has been said already in Canada. 
The other thing I wish to speak about is Judy Turner’s amendment to clause 33. I think it is a very good amendment. Clause 33 refers to the ministerial advisory committee and who should be on it. The select committee agreed there would be one member with expertise in reproductive technology one member with expertise in human reproductive research one or more members with expertise in ethics one or more Maori members with expertise in Maori custom and values one or more members with the ability to articulate issues from a consumer perspective and one or more members with expertise in relevant areas of law. 
This amendment also states that there should be one member with the ability to articulate the interests of children and refers to the appointee being someone from the Office of the Commissioner for Children. Taking note of the opinions of in vitro fertilisation children who submitted on the bill and of what Dr Hutchison said I think it is an extremely good idea and a very good amendment. The paramountcy of the rights of the child have not been included in the bill and I think it would be a very very good idea for someone on the ministerial advisory committee to be given the responsibility to represent the rights of children and to be able to look at the future interests of those who are born from this process. It is part of the principles of the bill and by including the clause 33 amendment in the name of Judy Turner we will have the interests of children at heart. That will also include and take into account some of the concerns Mr English has about this bill. I think it is a very good amendment and we will be supporting it. 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 Again I appreciate the opportunity to participate in the debate on the Human Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill. This is the bill that will regulate assisted conception and forbid cloning and hybrid embryo transfers etc. It is not common in Parliament that we debate issues in genuine debates. I have appreciated the opportunity to hear Ms Judy Turner’s contributions and to see the amendments she has put forward. She tells us that United Future will oppose this bill and I am glad about that. But she has attempted nevertheless to mitigate its consequences. I am however really puzzled about the position of the Green Party. The member sitting beside me Sue Kedgley who spoke for the Green Party on this bill has talked constantly about it being effectively not regulation at all. She has called it “wiffly waffly” and not achieving any objectives. She has used a whole lot of terms to say that the bill does not do anything. 
What I am baffled about is that Sue Kedgley was the deputy chairperson of the Health Committee and the committee’s report states: “The Green Party is pleased at the way many aspects of this bill have been strengthened by the select committee. We are particularly pleased with the new provisions that prohibit the genetic engineering of humans and that prohibit the sex selection of embryos for any reason other than treating and preventing genetic disease. We also welcome the strengthened requirements for public consultation …”. That does not sound very “wiffly waffly”. The report goes on to state: “The bill gives the Ministerial Advisory Committee wide-ranging and virtually unlimited powers to issue guidelines and advice on any matter relating to any kind of assisted reproductive procedure …”. Now it is true that at this stage guidelines could be seen as “wiffly waffly” but Ms Kedgley goes on to state in the report: “These ‘guidelines’ will not only set out policy on a wide range of assisted reproductive procedures; they will also be in reality binding legal instruments or a form of delegated legislation …”. 
 How is it that we can hear so many strident speeches in the Chamber about “wiffly waffly” non-prohibitions that at the same time are binding legal instruments or a form of delegated legislation? They have to be one thing or the other. I would really appreciate it if the member in the chair Dianne Yates who is in charge of the bill could seek advice from the officials and give us at least their view on whether this stuff is as “wiffly waffly” inconsequential and irrelevant as the Green member has been portraying it or whether it is as I fear a straightjacket on medical research and on medical technology in this country. This is yet another incentive for our best young graduates to disappear overseas to far more interesting and vibrant scientific environments. Worse still it is a reason because it is binding for ordinary New Zealanders who desperately want children to go elsewhere and spend their hard-earned money from New Zealand on doctors and other technologies in countries where people have not panicked at the first sign of a change in the status quo. That is what this issue is about. 
This bill is equivalent to a bunch of politicians deciding when the Wright brothers first took off from an airfield that they had better appoint a bunch of experts to decide whether anyone should be allowed to fly in case they hurt themselves. There is no difference in substance. There is no evidence of any significant risk that has materialised to anyone in this area. There are legal uncertainties just as the Wright brothers faced legal uncertainties. I have confidence that the cases that Judy Turner has mentioned will be worked out by the courts and that we will learn from those in a way that a bunch of sanctimonious parliamentarians can never learn by consulting their fear of the dark. What we have here as has been admitted is ignorance and a lack of knowledge of what could or may happen. We have a decision that instead of the New Zealand tradition that what is not specifically prohibited is lawful which is the proud boast of English law what is not specifically permitted is prohibited. That is a very bad legal principle. It follows the Continental principle. That is what despots do—they do not do anything unless they have been told that they can do it. That is what this law does. That is why most of the ACT party will vote against this bill. We think it is a very proud principle of freedom that one can do anything that is not specifically prohibited. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 There were two points that I just wanted to answer. One was the repeated assertion by Stephen Franks that there is a risk-free aspect to the technologies addressed in this bill. 
Stephen Franks 
: No risks. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON 
: Well he seems to be wavering on that. Undoubtedly there is a spectrum of risk. Although at one end it is indeed serious at the other end it is minimal; hence the beauty of the way that this bill is constructed in that it allows flexibility. 
The other point that I want to make once again is the value of the guidelines. Sue Kedgley from the Greens asked us what constitutes a serious congenital or genetic condition and that of course is extremely difficult to define. Last night on National Radio we heard a discussion on the proposed guidelines for pre-genetic implantation diagnosis in New Zealand by a variety of experts in the area including people from the disability sector. They made a very strong plea that there may be one particular condition such as Down’s syndrome where for the parents and in the circumstances in which such a child is born it is hugely beneficial for those around it. However they also made the point that there may be a condition like Lesch-Nyhan syndrome where automatically the baby will be born without any ability to have a functioning brain will tend to be self-destructive and will inevitably die. A parent who has had a child like that on two or three occasions would undoubtedly find it hugely traumatic to have a further similarly affected child. Pre-genetic diagnosis is a new technology that may avoid such a disastrous consequence. The point I want to make to Sue Kedgley is that the judgment of what constitutes a serious condition is extremely difficult and is variable so it is impossible to regulate a whole list of things that we will ban or that we will stop. Hence that is the absolutely appropriate reason for offering guidelines that the experts can then get on with applying practically. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 8(2) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 9(4) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 9(3) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 in the name of Judy Turner to clause 9(4) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 7 
United Future 7. 
Noes 113 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 1; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 in the name of Judy Turner to the heading of clause 11 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 17 
Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 269 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert new clause 11A be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 11 
New Zealand National 1; Green Party 9; United Future 1. 
Noes 109 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 7; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 22 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to clause 23(b) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to the heading of clause 25 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to insert new clause 25A be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 267 in the name of the Hon David Benson-Pope to add new subclause (7A) to clause 26 be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 103 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 6; Progressive 2. 
Noes 17 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Clem Simich) 
: The next amendment is to clause 33 in the name of Judy Turner. It is a typescript amendment to add a new paragraph (g) and subclause (4)(a). It replaces the amendment to clause 33 set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268. 
The question was put that the following amendments in the name of Judy Turner to clause 33 be agreed to: 
to add to subclause (4)(f) the expression “; and”; 
to insert the following new subclause: 
(4)(g) 1 or more members with the ability to articulate the interests of children.; and 
to insert after subclause (4) the following new subclause: 
(4A) Any person appointed by virtue of subsection (4)(g) must at the time of his or her appointment hold the office of Children’s Commissioner or be a representative or employee of the person who holds that office. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments be agreed to. 
Ayes 84 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1. 
Noes 36 
New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendments agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 268 in the name of Judy Turner to insert new clause 35A be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 30 
New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; United Future 8. 
Noes 90 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 27; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 269 in the name of Sue Kedgley to insert new clause 35A be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 13 
New Zealand National 1; Green Party 9; United Future 3. 
Noes 107 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 26; New Zealand First 13; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 5; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 2 as amended be agreed to 
. 
Ayes 102 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 2; United Future 3; Progressive 2. 
Noes 18 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 5; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Part 2 as amended agreed to. 
Part 3 Information about donors of donated embryos or donated cells and donor offspring 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 This part deals with information about donors of donated embryos or donated cells and donor offspring. I think once again that this part very much exemplifies the long genesis of this bill and the thought that has gone into it from a whole variety of papers with one in particular— 
Assisted Human Reproduction: Navigating our Future 
. 
One of the themes that came through so strongly based on the evidence that Professor Bill Daniels and others provided was that the ethos of openness was extraordinarily important in this area of reproduction. Undoubtedly children do want to know where they have come from and who their parents are and the major focus of Part 3 is to ensure that there is appropriate information-gathering and the opportunity prospectively for donors and offspring to be able to find appropriate information at appropriate times—again with a degree of flexibility and according to their wants and desires. Generally one of the things that has changed now is that donors will be required to have openness about their identifying qualities and characteristics and eventually to be identifiable to their offspring. 
One of the things clause 42 does however is signal “No retroactive application”. Clearly that is appropriate if donors in the past—and it was the situation in the 1970s and 1980s—had donated anonymously and did not expect to find offspring trying to track them down. It would be quite inappropriate to overturn that. However due to a large variety of both donor offspring and donors around New Zealand contacting me and various others there has been a strong call for a voluntary register. Such a register works successfully in the state of Victoria in Australia and I have put forward Supplementary Order Paper 270 to that effect which I understand the Government will be prepared to support. I think that it will be hugely appreciated by that large number of people who in the 1970s 1980s and early 1990s were not given the opportunity to be able to trace donors. 
It is remarkable to me that I had numerous emails and letters from donors as well as from offspring wanting this to happen. Some were extremely emotional about it and many said: “Look although we realise it may not be possible in every case it is really worthwhile to us and hugely meaningful for us to at least have that possibility there.” 
So I would exhort the Committee to support that Supplementary Order Paper. I added a further amendment to it that deals with half-siblings as well as full offspring. That would mean that brothers and sisters who may not have the same donor could contact each other on a voluntary basis. Again I am hopeful that the Committee will support that aspect. 
Another area that is worthwhile pointing out is clause 51 “Providers must keep track of donor offspring births”. The clinics have just recently approached me about this issue. Of course it is ideal and optimal that all births are clearly traced and recorded and that there is an excellent system. However in the reality of this world where people change their names miscarriages occur people go overseas and all sorts of extraordinary things happen in that biological bell-curve spectrum we have to deal with in this area it would be impossible in practical terms for all providers to be able to track down donor offspring births. Consequently I have tabled a further amendment whereby best endeavours are to be made to track donor offspring births. It is a purely practical technical amendment that again I urge the Committee to support. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I seek leave of the Committee to correct the vote of the ACT party on the last part. I inadvertently voted the wrong way. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Leave is sought for that purpose. Is there any objection? There is not. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN 
: I voted eight opposed to Part 2. It should have been six opposed and two in favour. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The corrected vote for Part 2 as amended is 102 for and 18 against. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 3 “Information about donors of donated embryos or donated cells and donor offspring” concerns an area that many people in New Zealand feel very strongly about because they are donor offspring or they have donated. I totally support Dr Paul Hutchison’s amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 to have a voluntary register established before the date provided in this bill—that is before clinics started recording names. We have had a lot of emails from people contacting us about how they feel when they cannot get access to information on their genetic inheritance. 
All of us want to know where we came from if at all possible. I remember a constituent who came to me early in my time as an MP. She had just had a little boy who had a genetic defect and she never knew that she had been adopted. Right up to after the birth of the baby she never knew and the trauma she faced when she found out was enormous. It made so much of her past life a lie. 
Through this bill there is encouragement for those people who have a child via donated sperm or embryo to be honest and upfront right from the beginning and to let that child know. Up to the age of 16 the child will have access to information on the donor’s genetic make-up. After the age of 18 the child can get the name and also a great deal more information about the donor. Between the ages of 16 and 18 a court order can be made if there are special circumstances when a child needs to know. 
I remember watching a movie and I think it was based on real life where a US doctor had been the donor for many many children within a town. The reason donors have to be willing to have their names made available to children is to stop something like that happening. If people can think of doing something often it will happen. We need legislation to provide a way to prevent those sorts of very unfortunate circumstances from happening. In this bill there is no retroactive application about being able to know about donors but Dr Hutchison’s voluntary register will certainly go some way to helping those people born prior to the introduction of this bill. 
In the 1990s clinics started recording the names of donors so donors had to be prepared to give their names. Often people may want to be donors because they want to be able to help but often a donor may be known to the family. Donors may be in some way involved in the situation. They know the distress that is being caused by the infertility so they are prepared to be donors. 
In the select committee we heard from one person who was a donor offspring—and some submitters wanted the name changed from “donor offspring” to “donor child”. That person talked about the painful experience of closed adoption in the past when children could not find out anything about the genetic inheritance of either their mother or their father and how that had affected them. It is rather unfortunate today that the option of adoption has reduced so much because many adoptions were extremely successful. It is sad to see that that has become much less of an option. 
Part 3 does give pretty clear directions about the age at which someone can find out about the donor and what information can be given out. We had a lot of debate about the age and about whether people who were not yet 18 years old could find out who the donor was. In the end we decided that although genetic information could be obtained donor offspring had to be of a certain maturity before they could handle information about the actual name of the donor. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 As the debate has shown aspects of this bill are highly contentious so it is pleasing that one part I think has the support of all parties in this House. I think that all of us support this provision and all of us I believe will also be supporting Dr Hutchison’s amendment to establish a voluntary register for people who have already been born from assisted human reproductive technology. 
Like others I have been contacted by people who are offspring from human-assisted reproductive technologies and are utterly dismayed that they cannot find out who their parents are. This is what is called an unintended consequence. When people began using this new technology obviously there was no thought that the offspring would be as desperate as anyone else to know who their parents were. So it is interesting that this aspect was ignored by the legislators of the day but now we are trying to rectify it. For many of those people who cannot find out about their parents it is a source of great heartache and distress just as it was in an earlier period for adoptees who were not able to find out about their parents. 
The only other thing I would say is that some people have said that if donors cannot be anonymous then there may be a significant fall-off in donor numbers and I think that that has happened overseas. In fact I heard an interview where the participants said that in Holland there had been a significant decrease in the number of donors once they were no longer able to be anonymous. But the regulators over there said that despite the fall-off in donor numbers they still felt that they had made the right decision in requiring donors to be identified and not be anonymous because ultimately the interests of the child should prevail. 
However there also have been some rare but high profile cases in which for instance someone who ran a clinic had been anonymously donating sperm to literally hundreds and thousands of people. People had not realised this and there were neighbours down the road not realising— 
Dr Lynda Scott 
: There were children who looked alike. 
SUE KEDGLEY 
: Yes the children looked alike and they all came from the same sperm donor. We have had cases of this even in New Zealand where people have found that in various communities children all have the same father as they have come from the same sperm donor. Indeed they could be marrying each other because the sperm donation was all anonymous. There are very very good reasons why we cannot allow donors to hide behind anonymity. This move may result in a fall-off in the number of donors but we will have to live with that because ultimately—as the bill states—the rights of a child to know his or her parents must prevail in this instance. 
Many people have been talking about how sad it is that adoption rates are falling off and infertility rates are increasing. We all tend to look at adoption and technology as being the solutions but in fact we really ought to be looking at why we have such declining rates of fertility in this country and around the world and why sperm counts are estimated to have declined by up to 50 percent. For those reasons we ought to be looking at environmental causes in particular such things as the estrogenic environment that we are creating. Ultimately it is only when we look at the environmental causes behind the decline of fertility that we will find a solution to it. All the technology and techniques are expensive and invasive and they will not provide a solution to the seriously declining fertility that we have in New Zealand. 
However I digress. The Green Party is very very pleased to support Part 3 and to support Paul Hutchison’s amendments to this particular section. 
JUDY TURNER (United Future) 
: 
 I will take a reasonably brief call on this part mainly because as somebody who has to date been very critical of the first two parts of the bill I would like to make a positive contribution on this part which I believe has great merit. While we obviously cannot force parents to disclose to a donor offspring his or her origin I think it will be very important—and I am sure it already happens—that recipients are given very good counselling about the importance of letting children know their genetic background. Historically when sperm donations started we did not anticipate the interest that offspring would have in that further down the track so it is great to now take this opportunity to address that problem. I think that the moment we start to underestimate the huge importance to children of having those important pieces of the jigsaw in place that help them with their identity and sense of who they are we really will have lost our way. Of course this issue is particularly important when we consider that at present in New Zealand nearly 50 percent of in vitro fertilisation procedures are offered to single women and to lesbian women. That fact alone makes it extremely clear why the issue of children being able to access in later years that important information about the identity of their father will become even more substantial. 
Another thing that I think is interesting is a story I heard recently. Apparently if a New Zealander who is overseas bumps into another New Zealander and the two talk together for less than 10 minutes they are more than likely to discover somebody whom they know in common. That means that we are a bit of a village here in New Zealand because of our population base so the chances of accidental incest are increased. Therefore good recording of information and the availability of that information to the people concerned are more crucial for New Zealand children than perhaps for the children of other larger nations. We need to be very aware of that. 
We had a previous speaker talk about a concern that has been expressed about a fall-off in donors. However I really do believe that even at the level of being a donor it is irresponsible in this day and age and with what we understand now to be the case to allow somebody to be a donor who is unwilling to allow the offspring who arise as a consequence of that donation to go without the all-important information about their identity. 
The other thing that struck me based on the experiences of people whom I have spoken to is the number of people who have discovered in their later years a latent genetically inheritable disease that they wanted to then notify offspring of so that their offspring could make lifestyle choices that would lengthen their lives. It will be particularly important that donors are able to track back in order to let that important information be passed on to the appropriate offspring. We are supportive of that. 
We will support Dr Paul Hutchison’s amendment to have a voluntary register. I do though have some concerns that his other amendment would let clinics off the hook a little with regard to their responsibility for maintaining good information. I realise that there will be some difficulties but I think that we need to keep that as tight as possible and put a huge onus on fertility clinics to keep and to strive to keep the very best information possible for the future use of offspring. 
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I rise to take a call in this debate on Part 3 of the bill. In particular the debate has been discussing the importance of a child knowing the identity of his or her donor parent and of the details being recorded. Clause 46 states that the following details of each donor should be recorded: the donor’s name gender and address the donor’s date place and country of birth the donor’s height the colour of the donor’s eyes and hair and the donor’s ethnicity and any relevant cultural affiliation. In the case of a Maori donor his or her whanau hapu and iwi should be recorded to the extent to which the donor is aware of those affiliations. Finally anything to do with the medical history of the donor or the donor’s parents grandparents children and siblings is required. 
The interesting point that I will make is that the Health Committee has obviously gone into a lot of detail about the right of children to understand their heritage culture lineage and place in the world. I totally agree with that concept but I ask the Committee why there is not the same enthusiasm to provide children with that information about their father if they happen to be born to a mother who decides not to name the father of her child on the birth certificate for some other reason such as evading child support payments and so on. Why has Labour not done something similar to this for the 40000 children in New Zealand today who find themselves in that situation? I find the double standards in this Parliament quite bizarre when we can be holier-than-thou and say how important it is for children who come under the auspices of this bill to have the right to know who their other parent is whereas out there in New Zealand today there are 40000 kids whom nobody seems to care about. I find it absolutely bizarre that on the one hand our New Zealand Parliament can treat the issue with such care concern and consideration and on the other hand it does not give a toss. 
I would like the members of the Labour Party who all appear to be voting en masse for this bill to actually reflect on that issue. The issue is alive for every single child out there who does not know who his or her father is not because of the fact that his or her father is hidden away on the other side of the world and cannot be found but simply because the State colludes with the mother to prevent that child from finding out who the father is. I think that is one of the biggest disgraces in New Zealand today and it is aided and abetted by this Government. Just this week the Government passed a bill to a select committee that dealt with this issue without actually even trying to address the right of those children to know their dads in the way that we see in this particular bill here. I think that it is something that this Parliament should actually be ashamed of. If anybody listened to the families and the children out there who do not have a dad and who know that that is because somebody did not ask their mother to provide the detail on the birth certificate they would realise what heartache there is. Also we have heard about the future genetic problems as children who are related and do not know it intermarry and so on. Those issues are alive and well out there and it has been going on for the last decade yet nothing is being done to fix it. 
I would suggest to the member sitting in the chair Dianne Yates who has obviously persuaded her own party that it is an important issue that certain rights and provisions should be made for children that maybe she needs to extend that influence to the other children who are not captured by this bill. I suspect they are out there in far greater numbers than the children this legislation will affect so I suggest she picks that up as an issue that she can help to pass on to her colleagues. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to clause 42 be agreed to.  
Dr MURIEL NEWMAN (Deputy Leader—ACT) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. Can I just clarify. Is this the amendment that will bring in the voluntary register—this is the beginning of that amendment? Is that correct? 
DIANNE YATES (Labour—Hamilton East) 
: 
 Yes. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 6; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 8 
New Zealand National 5; United Future 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to clause 51 be agreed to: 
to omit this clause and substitute the following new clause: 
51Providers to inform themselves about donor offspring births 
Providers must use their best endeavours to keep themselves fully informed about the births of donor offspring. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 22 
New Zealand National 22. 
Noes 98 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 5; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 8; Progressive 2; Maori Party 1; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Amendment not agreed to. 
The question was put that the following amendment in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to proposed new clause 61A set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 in his name be agreed to: 
to add to subclause (9) the following new paragraphs: 
(d)a person whom the Registrar-General believes on reasonable grounds to be a person— 
(i)who shares a donor with the donor offspring; and 
(ii)who is 18 years or older; 
(e)a person whom the Registrar-General believes on reasonable grounds to be a person— 
(i)who shares a donor with the donor offspring; and 
(ii)who is under 18 years. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment to the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 112 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; United Future 6; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 8 
New Zealand National 5; United Future 2; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment to the amendment agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendments set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to insert new clause 61A as amended and new clause 61B be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendments as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 106 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 14 
New Zealand National 5; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Amendments as amended agreed to. 
The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 270 in the name of Dr Paul Hutchison to clause 62(2) be agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That the amendment be agreed to. 
Ayes 106 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 8; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 14 
New Zealand National 5; United Future 8; Maori Party 1. 
Amendment agreed to. 
A party vote was called for on the question  
That Part 3 as amended be agreed to. 
Ayes 106 
New Zealand Labour 51; New Zealand National 22; New Zealand First 13; Green Party 9; ACT New Zealand 2; United Future 6; Progressive 2; Independent: Awatere Huata. 
Noes 14 
New Zealand National 5; ACT New Zealand 6; United Future 2; Maori Party 1. 
Part 3 as amended agreed to. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I have listened to the debate this afternoon and this evening with some interest. I have heard several parties give a split vote. I am formally asking your advice on how I can get to know who in those parties voted for and who voted against. I believe the public is entitled to know. This is quite shattering legislation and I think the public want to know who put their name up to go with it and who voted against it. I know that National recently had a split vote; as did United Future in particular and probably some other parties. I just want your advice on how I can obtain the names of the people who voted for and voted against. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 We voted a split vote at the first reading and this House allowed a split vote to be taken at that time. That has continued today during the Committee stage. The House gave approval for a split vote and that is why we— 
Peter Brown 
: I am not opposing it. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Please be silent while Mr Tisch is speaking. 
LINDSAY TISCH 
: I know the member is not opposing it. The procedure is as we are conducting it. I do not believe when the House has given approval for a split vote that an individual’s vote has to be divulged. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member is quite correct. That is exactly the situation. There is nothing in the Standing Orders that— 
Peter Brown 
: Madam Chair— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: Please be seated. I am just affirming Mr Tisch’s analysis. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I am not wishing for this to become a personal vote. I am simply asking that the parties at least say who voted for and who voted against any particular clause. I believe that the public is entitled to know. I believe with due respect to yourself as Chairperson that this is a serious issue and I do not want to go past it tonight unless I can get some assurance from the Speaker—and I am prepared to call the Speaker back on this matter. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE (Associate Minister of Justice) 
: 
 I understand that this issue was also traversed by the Business Committee today. 
Jill Pettis 
: Yesterday. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: Yesterday—I am corrected. 
Peter Brown 
: No it wasn’t. 
Hon DAVID BENSON-POPE 
: It was actually. I have seen the minute referring to it so it should be no surprise to any party that was represented there. I suggest to the member that if he wishes to have that information he could write to the whips who if they chose or if party members authorised it could make it available. But obstructing the business of the Committee around a procedural issue that has already been debated is hardly constructive or productive. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I want to confirm this. Mr Benson-Pope is quite correct. That is exactly what the Business Committee did agree to and it is entirely a matter for the whips whether they divulge that information. 
LINDSAY TISCH (Junior Whip—National) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I concur with your ruling. We have written proxies from our members which I hold here. I am not prepared to divulge who voted which way. I have cast the votes with the leave of the House for a split vote and it is certainly not my intention to divulge the information about our members’ preferences. This is not a personal vote where we go out to the lobbies. This is a split vote which the House has agreed to. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: And the House gave leave for that. Mr Lindsay Tisch is absolutely correct. That was exactly the procedure the House gave leave for. 
PETER BROWN (Senior Whip—NZ First) 
: 
 I raise a point of order Madam Chairperson. I want to get it absolutely clear in my mind that you are accepting Mr Tisch’s assertion that he can sit privately and in no way divulge who voted one way or the other. That is acceptable to the chair? 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: That is the leave the House gave. It has nothing to do with Mr Tisch. We are talking about the leave the House gave. That was the correct procedure as was indicated. 
PETER BROWN 
: I will seek the leave of the Committee if I have to to divulge—not necessarily now and not privately to me but publicly through the system—who voted which way. I seek leave. 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: The member can seek leave for that purpose; that is quite correct. Is there any objection? There is objection. 
Part 4 Enforcement and miscellaneous provisions 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: This includes debate on schedule 2. 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (National—Clutha-Southland) 
: 
 People might think that Part 4 does not matter much but of course it does because it is about enforcement. Enforcement will matter a lot in this bill because the structure is so loose. There are a few hurdles that a new procedure has to get over and Part 4 puts the whole of the burden of enforcement and practical monitoring on the so-called “authorised person”. That authorised person referred to in clause 64 is defined in the interpretation clause as including the Director-General of Health or someone authorised in writing by the Director-General of Health. The first issue I want to raise is a technical one. For the first 9 months of this legislation the Director-General of Health is both the rule maker and the enforcer. I do not think that will work and I hope officials and the Government are aware of that. 
Clause 75 designates the Director-General of Health as the advisory committee for the first 9 months. The Director-General of Health is also the authorised person who has the powers to enter premises to label things to take jars away and that seems to me to be a pretty fundamental conflict of interest for the initial period of the legislation; I would be interested in the Government giving some explanation of why it thinks that that would work. 
 The second thing is that we are in the odd situation where the transitional provision in clause 75 looks to me to be much more desirable than the permanent one settled in Part 3 because at least a transitional provision makes the advisory committee accountable. The Director-General of Health is someone we can have in front of a select committee he or she is subject to a purchase agreement with the Minister and can have his or her own advisory capacity within the Ministry of Health while carrying on as the advisory committee. That matters because in that 9 months it will not be a committee of the great and good that is potentially making very important decisions that I believe this Parliament should make; it will be the Director-General of Health. 
Let us look at the kinds of decisions that the Director-General of Health will be able to make. He or she will be able to decide whether people will be able to use gametes derived from deceased persons and to decide what the requirements are for informed consent. It is my contention that those decisions ought to be made by the Parliament but because Parliament has voted to support Part 3 those decisions will be made by some vague formless and maybe well-intentioned committee—decisions over embryo splitting and the selection of embryos using pre-implantation genetic analysis; every one of them an ethical and public policy minefield and on which one does not need to be an expert to have an opinion. 
The transitional provisions depending on one’s point of view either make it worse because they put in charge a civil servant subject to political direction—a civil servant subject to political direction will make those decisions; or one can decide that it is a good thing as I think perhaps it is because the Director-General of Health is personally accountable for the decisions in a way that the advisory committee never will be because the Director-General of Health is subject to the accountability procedures of this Parliament. 
I would like to see the term of 9 months extended to 5 years because we would then have a start-up period where the Parliament can get at the people who make the decisions—in this case the Director-General of Health. Nine months is not a long enough transitional period as far as I am concerned. I would make some recommendations to the Director-General of Health in the time that he or she will be the advisory committee—that is not to rush off making decisions about these things except to be conservative and cautious. The Director-General of Health in her capacity as the advisory committee should not allow any of these new procedures to occur. 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 Part 4 indeed does deal with enforcement and miscellaneous provisions. The Hon Bill English has once again asserted that the structure of the bill is too loose. The strength of the bill is due to the fact that it caters for the broad spectrum of conditions and techniques that are available and it allows flexibility. When he talked about transitional provisions and clause 75 which covers the powers of the Director-General of Health I think he should be reminded that the existing situation has worked very well for the last 20 years or so without any specific legislation. As we know a variety of Acts influence this area but now for the first time specific legislation is being applied. 
The other point that I think should hopefully give Mr English some degree of security is the fact that the clinics themselves are all very much affected by the fact that they belong to the Australasian reproductive technology accreditation group. That is a requirement of their being able to register and function. That group in itself has very very strict guidelines as to standards quality and information gathering and it has really served New Zealand and New Zealanders extremely well. It is because of the fact that we—unlike other countries like Canada UK and Australia—have not had specific legislation in this area that this bill has finally come into being after 9 years of gestation. 
While there is indeed under clause 75 the period of 9 months whereby the advisory committee will then come into power in the meantime some very strong safeguards are already in existence. The Hon Bill English should be assured or reminded of the fact that there has not been any major concerns in terms of people breaking the law with the whole spectrum of activities that are available. As I said Part 4 does indeed deal with enforcement and there are some pretty clear enforcement requirements. 
Clause 64 states: “An authorised person who believes on reasonable grounds that any assisted reproductive procedure is performed or any human reproductive research is conducted in a place may at any reasonable time exercise any of the powers in section 65 reasonably necessary to ascertain all or any of the following matters:”—and clause 65(1) lists a wide number of powers: to inspect to make copies of extracts and if suspicions are great to “(d) search for and seize—(i) any equipment or device … (ii) an in vitro gamete: (iii) an in vitro embryo or an in vitro foetus: (iv) a document or record …”. There is a long list of specific things that an authorised person can indeed do. It is right and proper that these enforcement requirements are there and that these powers are there and there are penalties for their being used inappropriately. 
There is no doubt that the bill does have a sufficiently wide span of enforcement instruments available to it and they include the clinics themselves entry of dwelling houses where it might be suspected that inappropriate activity is taking place and the ability to be able to seize equipment and look after it etc. 
One other area is clause 72 which relates to the regulations under the heading “Miscellaneous provisions”. Again a wide number of regulations can be applied by the Governor-General by Order in Council that include prescribing requirements for informed consent and providing for the use or destruction of in vitro gametes or in vitro embryos. 
SUE KEDGLEY (Green) 
: 
 I rise to discuss an amendment to clause 72 that has been proposed by the Green Party. Basically we are providing a procedure whereby regulations would first of all have to be laid before Parliament so that Parliament could examine the proposed regulations and provide some response. It does not require the Minister to follow the advice of Parliament but if the Minister did not and chose to ignore Parliament he or she would have to provide reasons. There is also a provision which would placate Dr Hutchison that would allow regulations to be promulgated without first being laid before Parliament if they were minor or if they protected a person’s health and safety. All this is seeking to do is say that there should be some provision for regulations to be laid before Parliament before they are enacted. Basically this clause is taken from Canadian legislation and as I have previously pointed out Canada does not have the very vague guidelines that we have been talking about all night. It has very specific regulations. In Canada all the policy surrounding this highly contentious area is in regulation and those regulations must be discussed by both Houses of Parliament in Canada. Similarly we know that in England there is a licensing regime and there are regulations. 
This is a last-ditch effort by the Green Party to introduce some—just some—minor scrutiny by Parliament and some accountability into this bill. At the moment once the bill is passed in the next few weeks it will be the end of Parliament’s involvement in this whole contentious area. We will have an unelected and unaccountable committee making policy in the form of rather vague guidelines in these highly contentious areas. It will make policy that is of course technically illegal because our laws say that only Parliament should set policy. Committees like the ministerial advisory committee should only implement policy that is set by Parliament. 
This legislation as we pointed out in our minority report is in clear breach of parliamentary procedures which say that only Parliament should be setting policy. In fact once this legislation comes into effect Parliament will abdicate its role and its ability to make policy in this highly significant area—an area that is full of ethical minefields. If there is any area that Parliament should be able to set policy in it is this area. But no once this bill is passed Parliament will be abdicating its role and leaving it totally to an unaccountable and unelected committee. 
As I have previously pointed out the guidelines issued by the ministerial advisory committee 2 days ago on a highly contentious area of pre-implantation genetic diagnosis do not even suggest that that committee make decisions in this area but instead delegate it to the fertility clinics of New Zealand. It is quite extraordinary. So this amendment is an effort to say that we should at least have some mechanism by which reports and regulations would be laid before this Parliament. The Health Committee could then examine the contentious issues and make recommendations. The Minister would not be obliged to follow those recommendations or the advice of Parliament but would have to provide reasons if he or she chose to ignore them. 
Our amendment would introduce a small degree of accountability and a small degree of scrutiny. I suspect that it will be defeated as previous amendments we have put forward tonight will be. So we will be setting up the most permissive and the weakest regime for assisted human reproductive technology in the Western World and we in this Parliament will be abdicating our ability to set policy in this highly contentious and controversial area. I think we all need to be absolutely clear that that is what we are doing here tonight. 
Dr LYNDA SCOTT (National—Kaikoura) 
: 
 Part 4 which deals with the regulations and transitional provisions the role of the Director-General of Health and compliance is different from what was originally proposed in the first two bills because of the Health and Disability Services (Safety) Act. Previously the two bills that were adapted by the Supplementary Order Paper had a quite considerable amount in them about licensing of the actual facilities that are performing fertility services. One member made the point that we have been boxing along quite nicely for all this time and we have not had any legislation in this area but of course science is moving on and developing and there is the possibility that cloning could occur in New Zealand. If other countries in the world stop those procedures then people will look to a country that did not have— 
The CHAIRPERSON (Ann Hartley) 
: I am sorry to interrupt the member but the time has come for me to report progress. 
Progress reported.