Pallett SarahSARAH PALLETT (Labour—Ilam): Thank you Mr Speaker. Thank you so much for that. It's as a member of the Health Committee that I rise happily in support of the Sunscreen (Product Safety Standard) Bill at its second reading. I'd just like to acknowledge Mr Muller. It's lovely to have you back in the House Mr Muller. We have a few members here who have been away from us for some time and so there are many people here that it's lovely to see back.I'd like to also acknowledge and thank the chair of the Health Committee Dr Liz Craig for her excellent work the Health Committee members themselves obviously all of the officials and clerks of the committee. I think as Mr Muller has alluded to before this was not a long bill initially but it did present some challenges which I will explore in a little bit more detail later and hopefully add to the words of my colleague across the floor. It was really lovely for the committee to all be on the same page. We were unanimous in our support for the bill for its intention and for the amendments. We were supporting this bill because we all really agreed on the basic principle that we should be able to rely on the accuracy of labelling of sunscreen products particularly important for sunscreen because the consequences as we heard in the first reading can be dire and can lead to as we have heard increased carcinoma which can be fatal.We're aware that the Therapeutic Products Bill which we will be introducing at the earliest possible opportunity will be addressing the issues found in this bill and more. But we strongly felt that it was important to support this bill because it would provide immediate and a little bit more timely cover. But the Therapeutic Products Bill will address other issues such as accredited laboratories and how often testing should happen. But in the meantime we welcome this bill.I'm personally convinced of the need to protect New Zealanders against inaccurate claims that you know a product will protect them from the adverse effects of the sun. As a child I lived in a place the island of Jersey in the Channel Islands that's nearly as beautiful as New Zealand. Jersey in the 1970s when I was very young and the 1980s was a tourist destination. It was famous not only for Jersey cows which is where every single cow in New Zealand and everywhere in the world comes from but for potatoes. The famous Jersey Benne potatoes originate from the Jersey Royal. We're very proud of those but also of Bergerac. You'll have seen in Bergerac potentially—I think a lot of people in New Zealand have been fans—that Jersey is seen as an island in perpetual summer. Like most kids I certainly remember that as the case. But it was a time of sunbathing. It was a time of sunbathing when people would actually intentionally go out into the sun put olive oil on their skin and try to get the deepest possible tan that they could. We would have a lot of tourists as I said because it was so beautiful. We'd get a lot of tourists from areas that are less sunny. Newcastle springs to mind immediately not to disrespect Newcastle it's completely beautiful but it's not known for its lengthy hours of sunshine. The natives of Newcastle Geordies are often naturally pale as a result. When they visited our beautiful island and sort of sat in the sun for a while they would find themselves often in the emergency department looking extremely red a little bit like lobsters. I'm ashamed to say at the time we would often make fun as they sort of fluoresced down the High Street. But we didn't know then as we were chuckling that these episodes of burning could lead them to have skin cancer in the future. But as I said the legislation before us was a little bit more complex than we'd anticipated. As Mr Muller said earlier as it was introduced the bill required the Minister of Commerce and Consumer Affairs to recommend that mandatory regulations be set to provide a product safety standard under section 29 of the Fair Trading Act. In essence the intention of this was to move the standard from voluntary to mandatory. But we received advice in the committee that the empowering provisions of the Fair Trading Act didn't appear to allow a product safety standard to be made for the purpose of mandating this Australian - New Zealand standard for sunscreen. Now we did have quite a lot of conversation on this topic and I remember not all of us necessarily concurred with this particular view but we did come to a conclusion. The advice that we received was as I said that section 29(1) was designed to prevent or minimise the risk of injury by addressing potential harm that was inherent in the product. The feeling was that the product itself wasn't the thing that was going to cause the harm. It was really a little bit like dancing on the head of a pin sometimes. But we did come to a conclusion and provided some legal clarity with the recommendations that you see in the version in front of you which is to recommend that compliance with the standard should be mandated in the primary legislation. So accordingly we recommended replacing clause 5. What this does is it basically removes the requirement on the Minister to make a regulation. Instead it simply mandates in the primary Act that the standards apply as if they were product safety standards made through regulation.What we also did in our discussions and working through this legislation was to provide a new definition of sunscreen product". We basically expanded it to be a little bit more expansive. So moved to a product that "contains or is represented as containing any component able to absorb reflect or scatter ultraviolet rays and that is intended to be on the surface of human skin with the purpose of protecting against reddening of the skin caused by ultraviolet radiation and other ultraviolet-induced damage;" with a few other components to that definition. I remember in the first reading my colleague Naisi Chen speaking at length and extensively and with great knowledge about the particular products that weren't included in the definition. She certainly enlightened many of us about the various different cosmetic products that might be seen to or were expected to provide some form of protection against the ultraviolet radiation that you would expect from a product with an SPF factor. So hopefully what we've done here is we've expanded the definition to a point where it does provide a little bit more coverage pun completely not intended.But of course it would probably be remiss of me to not add a little bit of a public service announcement whilst I was giving my speech here. Because it isn't just about the Sun Protection Factor; you do need to make sure when you're using sunscreen—you can't get the healthcare provider out of me I'm afraid and you never will. So I have to really share a little bit of information here. We need to be using our sunscreen liberally. Quite frankly I don't think I've been using enough the entire time I've been on this planet; six to seven teaspoons per application. I looked at derm—yes. Dr Webb is looking at me with alarm because I don't think he's been doing that either. There was some advice on DermNet New Zealand that said that you need to use it liberally you need to use it early because it takes 20 to 30 minutes to absorb and you need to reapply after half an hour they said so the mountains and valleys are protected. I'm not entirely certain what mountains and valleys they're referring to but you know I'll take their advice to keep applying every two hours. So I think for a lot of New Zealanders that'll be information that's relatively new. It shouldn't be. I mean I think we've been sharing this information for long enough but I think that the sheer quantity—I'm drifting slightly away from the bill but the intention is to make sure that we're providing really good and safe coverage for our communities and make sure that they do understand how these need to be used.So as we heard before Sun Protection Factor is really part of the conversation that we've been having. A Sun Protection Factor of 30 will allow—oh actually I think I'll go to 50 because it's easier to do the maths. A Sun Protection Factor of 50 means that 98 percent of the ultraviolet rays are filtered through. So only 2 percent will get through. That's really what we're talking about here—making sure that if you have a label on a bottle that says you have that protection when you apply that product as I've said liberally to the mountains and valleys that when you do that you actually are going to get what it says on the tin you're going to have that protection because we've seen that multiple brands have not been doing so. Multiple brands have been making claims for their Sun Protection Factor that haven't been accurate. We really need to support this piece of legislation and to thank Mr Muller for bringing it to the House so that New Zealanders as soon as is humanly possible can be protected from the adverse effects of the sun. I commend this bill to the House."