Ryall Tony: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
Ryall Tony: Law Reform (Epidemic Preparedness) Bill — First Reading 
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Hon TONY RYALL (National—Bay of Plenty) 
: 
 The National Party in Opposition will support the progress of the bill to the Government Administration Committee. I wonder whether the Minister Clayton Cosgrove indicated a time frame for consideration. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Yes. 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: We are also prepared to support that on the understanding that if extra time is needed then the Minister and the Business Committee will facilitate that. 
Protecting human health is at the crux of New Zealand’s pandemic preparedness. If we fail to protect our people’s health we are also likely to fail in our secondary goals of maintaining social cohesion and seeking to mitigate the economic and social consequences of the pandemic. When pandemic strains emerge they sweep through communities and nations with frightening velocity. The three pandemics we saw in the past century circled the globe and in many communities they had spread through the human population within months. 
The concentrated mortality of a pandemic can be shocking. The 1918 pandemic for example killed more people in 6 months than who died in the last 25 years from AIDS and more than were killed in World War I. So the effects of a pandemic are indeed very serious for our country. The primary strategy of the Government and of Parliament has to be to protect human health by seeking to prevent the emergence of any strain of pandemic and if possible to contain any human outbreak at its source if that emergence does occur. 
The National Party has taken a particular interest in pandemic planning in New Zealand since it identified that the Government had prepared a priority list for Tamiflu that the Minister of Health knew nothing about—other than the fact that he was on it. I think we have demonstrated in the last few months the perfect role of a vigorous and informed Opposition party. It has been National’s raising various issues in pandemic planning that has basically forced the Government’s hand and actually got it to a position where the Minister of Health said on television that he lies awake at night worried about the pandemic. I suspect that it might be Tony Ryall’s questions that keep him awake at night. The Opposition has raised the issues in pandemic planning and we have highlighted the inefficiencies and ineffectualness of the Government’s early responses and the Government has responded to the agenda we have set. But today I also want to identify to the Government the new areas that its work must now move on to. 
 In the last 24 hours President Bush unveiled a $7.1 billion plan to prepare for a flu pandemic in the United States. It involves improving vaccines stockpiling antiviral drugs and changing and enforcing rules involving the United States. That is an investment that New Zealand should welcome. The President is investing $2.8 billion in what he calls a “crash program” to accelerate the development of new technology to speed up vaccine makers’ ability to produce enough vaccine to protect people in that country. The benefit of that investment will be felt here in New Zealand. 
Darren Hughes 
: Vote for President Bush! 
Hon TONY RYALL 
: We might have to get Judith Collins to come and deal with that member. 
It is vital to recognise that protecting human health during a pandemic will require a number of things. It will require strong domestic and international surveillance good identification testing the rapid development and production of health interventions targeted use of antivirals community infection control measures effective understanding of risk reduction strategies and the full involvement of the public and private sectors. 
The United States’ pandemic plan which was released in the last 24 hours addressed the most gaping hole in this Government’s pandemic preparedness. From the very beginning I have asked the Government what the plan is to get medical treatment to people who are sick in their homes. The Health Committee asked the Government the same question because that is where most people will be during a pandemic. Most people will be at home. President Bush’s pandemic plan—the American strategy—basically addressed that issue. We have not done so in New Zealand. 
The Americans are saying: “Given that most persons with pandemic influenza will experience typical influenza symptoms most persons who seek care can be managed appropriately by [non-hospital] providers using a home-based approach. Appropriate management of … pandemic influenza cases may reduce the risk of progression to severe disease and thereby reduce demand for inpatient care. A system of effective home-based care would decrease the burden on health care providers and hospitals and lessen exposure of unaffected persons to persons with influenza. Telephone call centers should be established or augmented within affected communities to provide advice on whether to stay home or to seek care.” This is the important bit: “Home health care providers and organizations can provide follow-up for those who are managed at home decreasing potential exposure of the public to persons who are ill and may transmit infection.” So clear thinking is going on in other countries about how to deal with a problem that this Government has not yet dealt with. 
There are a number of areas that the Government still has to deal with. Many of those areas are the consequences that ordinary people will be confronted with. What happens if someone defaults on his or her contractual obligations because he or she is sick with bird flu? What happens if someone cannot go to work or earn income because that person has bird flu and cannot meet his or her mortgage payments? The Government has not talked about how to deal with those consequences. What happens if people cannot meet their legal payment requirements because their bank is closed due to the pandemic? What will happen then? There has been no thinking on that at all here. The Government has provided some changes in this legislation to make it easier to provide special-needs grants to people who are affected by a pandemic but how will we get money to volunteers who might need to go and buy food for people who are sick at home? None of that is covered in this legislation. 
But what is covered in this legislation—and we should spend some time talking about it—is the fact that one of the biggest risks to the community will be in the area of law and order. There is potential for considerable disorder in a number of situations. For example hospital facilities may be overwhelmed by those seeking care and treatment for their family members and people may vie for limited doses of vaccines and antivirals. There may be difficulties due to disruption of the provision of basic necessities like food and to individuals attempting to leave areas where outbreaks have occurred. I suspect that during a pandemic the biggest crisis the Government will face will be one of public disorder because if people start fighting to get into hospitals to get limited food left in supermarkets or to get out of quarantine zones then we will very quickly be on a road to anarchy and disorder in our communities. That is why it is so important that communities engage in pandemic planning so that people are aware of what their responsibilities will be to themselves their families and others. That is one of the very real points that the National Party has been making from day one in its efforts to get the Government to focus on the important issues involved in pandemic planning. 
I want the Government to know that we will be asking questions in the select committee about what it is doing about particularly the economic consequences to families. After the Hawke’s Bay earthquake far-reaching regulations were passed to allow authorities to deal with all the economic issues. Regulations have been used—they were used in that situation—and they allowed authorities and agents of the State to deal with the breakdown of contractual arrangements. The Government should be dealing with that. I have raised this issue with the Prime Minister and the Minister of Health; they came back and said they would have to talk to the banks. That work should have been going on months ago because contractual arrangements and the breakdown of people’s income will be fundamental. That is the biggest gap in this legislation.