Goldsmith Paul: Radiation Safety Bill — Second ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeGoldsmith Paul: Radiation Safety Bill — Second Reading[Sitting date: 03 November 2015. Volume:709;Page:7635. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon PAUL GOLDSMITH (Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs) on behalf of theMinister of Health: I move That the Radiation Safety Bill be now read a second time. Members will no doubt recall that this bill will repeal and replace the Radiation Protection Act 1965 and its regulations. This will provide a much-needed update to our 50-year-old legislation by introducing best-practice principles in radiation safety to New Zealand law. The bill also enhances security measures that will provide a means for New Zealand to meet its international obligations relating to radioactive material. The bill will regulate the many beneficial applications in which ionising radiation is used on a daily basis in this country. In this respect the bill remains broadly similar in scope to the legislation it is replacing.I would like to thank the Health Committee for its work on the bill. The committee received 14 submissions including considered comment from the Regulations Review Committee and heard three oral submissions. As members might expect for a bill of this type some of the submissions and advice considered by the committee was of a highly technical nature. The committee has recommended a number of improvements. The reported-back bill clarifies the separate roles that codes of practice and regulations will play under the bill.Codes of practice have become the only means of specifying how the fundamental requirements of the bill must be met. Members may also recall that the fundamental requirements of the bill specify that ionising radiation can be used only where a justified benefit can be demonstrated. Where this is the case planned radiation exposures must be as low as are reasonably achievable. In all cases radiation exposures must not exceed the limits specified in the bill. The fundamental requirements also deal with other aspects of safety security transport storage and disposal of radiation sources. Codes of practice will be issued for the different practices that involve radiation use. These practices occur across the fields of medicine and in other health services veterinary medicine science research and industry. Regulations have become the means for specifying how the other provisions of the legislation must be met. These include licensing and consent processes record-keeping safety planning and the setting of fees for example.Improvements to the bill also introduce the requirements that codes of practice are reviewed at least once every 5 years consulted on during introduction or review and provided to Parliament for consideration as disallowable instruments under the Legislation Act 2012. Because codes of practice have become the only means of specifying how to comply with the fundamental requirements the regulation-making provisions on fundamental requirements will no longer be needed and have been removed. Some of the regulation-making provisions have benefited from additional clarification of their intended purpose. These include provisions to make regulations to exempt very small radiation sources from authorisation and registration requirements providing the resulting radiation exposures are below specified levels. This will allow for example for the continued beneficial use of household smoke detectors without the user being required to obtain a licence to do so.The bill’s approach to ensuring appropriate standards are met by radiation ancillary service providers has been altered. These service providers help to ensure the fundamental requirements are being met by calibrating equipment used to measure radiation and assessing radiation exposures received by radiation workers. It was intended to regulate these services provided using an approvals regime. However to complement other changes to the bill these services will now be specified in codes of practice and will become the responsibility of owners and managers of radiation sources as part of their licence conditions.The bill has been amended to make it clear that a single source licence and a single radiation safety plan can apply to more than one radiation source where this is appropriate. A source licence is a licence to own or to control and manage a radiation source. Some owners such as district health boards for example have control and management of a number of radiation sources. This improvement will help keep the administrative burden of managing radiation risks as low as is reasonably possible without compromising safety or security in any way.The bill contains a provision to allow unlicensed persons to use radiation under the direct supervision of an authorised person. Further provisions have been added to allow an unlicensed person to use radiation sources providing they are acting under the written instruction of an authorised person. This will apply to only those uses of radiation that are mechanical or procedural in nature. An example of such a situation might be the operation of baggage X-ray equipment at airports for security purposes. This amendment makes the bill more usable in these lower-risk situations.The provisions to act under written instruction are not intended for higher-risk users of radiation or for clinical procedures that involve intended exposure of people to radiation. In these situations high standards of safety training day-to-day practice and decision making are expected. Therefore a licence exception in lieu of designated radiation safety training continues to be the only means of meeting radiation safety standards allowed for under the bill.The fees charged under the bill are to recover the costs of administrating the bill. Fees will vary to a high degree depending on the size of the risk that is being managed. For some activities fees will be high. Principles and safeguards have been added to the fee-setting provisions to ensure that suitable consultation is undertaken that fees are justifiable and as low as possible and that the fee-setting process is transparent.Some scientific and technical terms have been clarified in the interpretation section of this bill. An oversight has been corrected to ensure that the Radiation Safety Advisory Council established by the bill will be subject to the Official Information Act 1982. Provisions have been added to clarify safety requirements for volunteers—often family members—who provide comfort and care for people who are being treated with radiation. Also the committee has taken the opportunity to simplify some of the drafting in the bill.The bill regulates ionising radiation only and no changes have been made on this particular matter. I am advised that the committee discussed in its deliberations the potential health effects of exposure to non-ionising radiation. I am also aware that the committee received both submissions and technical advice on the nature of and differences between ionising and non-ionising radiation. In retaining the bill’s focus on ionising radiation only the committee has unanimously reported back a bill designed to regulate the unique phenomenon of ionising radiation.The reported-back bill meets its stated purpose of establishing a legislative framework to protect the health and safety of people and to protect the environment from the harmful effects of ionising radiation while allowing for its safe and beneficial use. I commend the bill to the House.