O'Connor SimonSIMON O'CONNOR (National—Tāmaki): Can I start by saying on this evening what a great day it is to be a monarchist—when you have an apolitical head of State and you do not have to go through what republics are. I just want to put that on record.Mr Chair I want to acknowledge the member sitting in the chair beside you Chris Bishop for the work that he has done. I think it has been rightly pointed out that he is working and has worked with a number of people to bring this bill to the House and now into the Committee stage. Chris Bishop has worked very hard and cooperatively with the select committee to take the bill from how it was packaged to us originally to the package that we see now and as a sign that he continues to work there is a Supplementary Order Paper in his name on the Table and I might get to that a little bit later.There is undoubtable need for this legislation and I am in agreement actually with what the former speaker Annette King just said. There is a lot more to be done and we can touch on that where necessary as well. But in this Committee stage we are here to look at the particular parts of this bill and where we as a select committee have got to. I just want in this first contribution to really keep my focus on Part 1—I know all parts are being debated together—and as people who are looking through the bill will see Part 1 is a substantial rewrite.In terms of trying to understand why the rewrite happened there have actually been a number of changes that have occurred. In clause 4—something as simple as the definition or interpretation area—you already see why the member and the committee had to make changes: we had to make allowances for the health practitioners Act. In fact we have only just made changes around that recently in this House so I think it is really important to give the context that the changes have happened partly as the discussions in the committee occurred but partly as well when trying to adapt to the ever-changing health situation that we are in. We have also sought in the deliberations that we have had to align this piece of legislation—The CHAIRPERSON (Lindsay Tisch): I am sorry to interrupt the honourable member. The time has come for me to leave the Chair for the dinner break. This debate is interrupted and I shall resume the Chair at 7.30 p.m.Sitting suspended from 6 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.The CHAIRPERSON (Hon Chester Borrows): Kia ora mai tātou tēnā tātou katoa. My mihi this evening: e kore ā muri e hokia [what is done is done]. Members the House in Committee on the Compensation for Live Organ Donors Bill is resumed. Members before the dinner break we were considering all provisions in one debate. Simon O'Connor had the call and he has less than 2 minutes and 46 seconds remaining.SIMON O'CONNOR: Thank you Mr Chair—2 minutes and 46 seconds of his first call and we will see whether he gets the second! Serendipitously I have just actually come from a function with the Lung Foundation. I have been talking to some of the medical staff who were telling me about some colleagues who at this very moment are actually doing a lung transplant. I think that is actually quite well as I say serendipitous to this topic. What is happening there is just a small example of what this bill in the name of Chris Bishop is trying not only to support in that particular instance moving forward but also in terms of trying to see an increase. Ultimately behind this bill is the desire to see more donation in New Zealand—in the first instance live donation but as I have referenced many times before wider donations than that.At the break I was just indicating first and foremost looking at Part 1 one of the reasons why there have been some substantial changes to this bill. The first that I had touched on was actually that the legislation in and around health is changing. I use the example of the Health Practitioners (Replacement of Statutory Reference to Medical Practitioners) Bill which is now an Act that has been before the House. We have been trying to integrate that and you can see that in clause 4.In respect of clause 5 I was just noting that actually it has been really important for the committee that we did not wish to recreate the wheel. So you will see in the likes of clause 5 in Part 1 that we have tied the notion of earnings to what is in the Accident Compensation Act of 2001. If I get an opportunity later to take a call I will actually expand on how we have dealt with the whole ACC question because for those who have been listening to earlier debates it was one of the little conundrums that we faced in the committee of how we provide entitlement to people who are on ACC but in giving them entitlement through this bill make sure that they do not subsequently lose their ACC entitlement. That is in later parts. So it has been important particularly in Part 1 to link things back to existing Acts and to keep it relatively simple.We then move into the area of Part 2. This is primarily around earnings and members will know that when we started this process it was a remuneration of about 80 percent. But it did not take long with not only the encouragement of the member but through the work of the select committee before we thought we would move to something like 100 percent. So that has been a really good step particularly on the basis of cost neutrality. We have taken that from other countries and introduced it here—that this is not just simply about 80 percent recompense but we can actually go to 100 percent. In fact there are further elements and I think they are in Part 2 that also allow for elements around travel and so forth.So we have taken a long time as a committee to delve through that. As people might anticipate there are a number of complexities in this. As other people have noted as has the member in the chair himself what was an initially good suggestion has brought about a whole range of changes and quite rightly so. So what we are doing here is 100 percent. We have made sure that there are transitional arrangements in particular around this. I want to tease both those elements out. So as I said 100 percent recompense—that is really important. The transitional side is that we want to be very careful in how we have drafted this to make sure that no one is going to hold off the altruistic action of donating an organ. So transitional arrangements have been discussed in the committee and added into this bill.I will not go at this point through all the complexities of that. We did look around at who should be donating. We have discussed this and you will see articulated in clause 9 of Part 2 provisions around who qualifies for a donation. Again I suppose it is just trying to draw to the attention of the Committee that it is very easy for us to talk about the good that is live organ donation but from that simple concept comes a whole complexity.One element we have looked at is obviously those from overseas and we have dealt with that and we have also looked at income thresholds. Again there was a lot of debate in the committee but it was a collegial one and we said that actually it is going to be 100 percent of whatever a person's income is. So granted you could be earning millions and millions of dollars and in theory we will reimburse that. First and foremost if this is the altruistic action that you are taking then you should not be at any loss. Again we see that neutrality principle that we have brought into the bill. The other issue of course is that there is a relatively low likelihood; it is almost scandalous—and I had to use that word—how low the rates are. We are not trying to trade off that but it is a recognition that it is regardless of your income. We believe and I am hoping as the House continues to support this that you should have that earning remunerated fully.We are also making sure that that earning is up for 12 weeks. Those following the bill will see that is in clause 10. There is some discretion—that is in subclause (2) of clause 10. I draw attention to that specifically of course. I think it is important to know that it is not just hard and fast; I think we appreciate in the Health Committee—and I am sure everyone here does as well—that not everyone is the same. That element of discretion rolls right through this bill in a number of clauses. In order to wrap up because I can see other colleagues are keen to take a call discretion is being operated by the Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and depending on whether I get the opportunity to take further calls we have made the decision in this bill to put this under—sorry it is the Ministry of Health; I apologise it has gone to the Ministry of Health not the MSD. We have taken it from MSD and put it into the Ministry of Health and again there is a high degree of discretion to the Director-General of Health in this space. So I am just going to leave my initial thoughts there and I am looking forward to other contributions from the Committee.