Veterinarians Bill

I refer the Minister in the chair, the Hon Jim Anderton, to clause 4, “Interpretation” and to the definition of “Minister”: “Minister means the Minister of the Crown who, under the authority of a warrant or with the authority of the Prime Minister, is for the time being responsible for the administration of this Act”. I want the new Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Jim Sutton, to take the opportunity—

💬 Hon Member: Jim Anderton.

Sorry, it was a slip. Yes, of course.

💬 Chris Auchinvole: An excusable slip.

Yes, an excusable slip. I ask the new Minister, the Hon Jim Anderton, whether in fact he has had a discussion with the Prime Minister, and whether in fact he has been given the responsibility for the administration of this Act, because the Minister’s role in the Act is quite important. I note that the provision relating to the composition of the council, which we will discuss later on, requires the Minister to appoint, by notice in the Gazette, two lay persons and one veterinarian. Therefore, I think it is important that the Committee understands who the Minister is, because this particular legislation has had a somewhat chequered career in that it was originally under the control of the previous Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Jim Sutton. Then, by the time it came before the House, it was shepherded through its initial stages by, and still remains in the name of, the Hon Damien O'Connor, who I note has not taken part in this debate so far. Therefore, I think the Committee deserves to know whether the Minister has been specifically given the role of being responsible for the administration of this Act.

I say to the new Minister of Agriculture, the Hon Jim Anderton—

💬 Hon Clayton Cosgrove: A good man.

Well, Clayton Cosgrove interjects and says that he is a good man. I can speak on behalf of the farmers of New Zealand and say that at this stage they are prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. I acknowledge that we were long overdue for a new Minister of Agriculture, in that his predecessor, the Hon Jim Sutton, had clearly lost interest in the portfolio. I say to the new Minister, in response to the interjection from Clayton Cosgrove, that farmers will give him the benefit of the doubt, but he will have to do better than he has done so far. He has had two issues of relevance to agriculture. Obviously, the first was the apple issue, on which we finally have a piece of paper and a report from the Australians, but we have a long way to go.

R Doug Woolerton: A piece of paper?

Well, it is about a 500-page piece of paper; I accept that. The second issue, of course, and one that is worrying farmers, particularly those in Gisborne, is the totally zero response from the Government to those guys who have been devastated by two significant floods, one after another.

So I tell the Minister that we require an answer to the particular question I have raised: has he been specifically given, at this stage and with the authority of Helen Clark, Prime Minister, responsibility for the administration of this very vital act?

I would like to draw the attention of the Committee to, obviously, Part 1, “Preliminary provisions”—the part we are debating—and, in particular, to clause 3, the purpose clause. I point out something that I think will be of interest to members—that originally clause 3, as it was presented to the Primary Production Committee, stated that the purpose was to “establish a registration system for veterinarians:”. The purpose was also to “establish a certification system” for veterinarians, to “establish a complaints and disciplinary process for veterinarians:”, to “establish medical and competence assessment processes for veterinarians:”, and to “continue the Veterinary Council of New Zealand”.

But we had to change that. The first job of the select committee was to change the purpose of that legislation. The purpose of this Parliament is not to establish certification systems, complaints and disciplinary processes, veterinary councils, or any manner of committees; the purpose of this Act is to protect the public interest. All those other things—establishing a certification system, establishing a complaints and disciplinary process, and establishing medical and competence assessment processes—are means to an end. The end itself, as under the new, unanimous clause, is to protect the public interest. That is why our attitude on this side of the Chamber is different, because we know that committees and processes are simply means to an end, as opposed to the attitude of those on that side of the Chamber, who believe that committees, processes, and endless meetings are ends in themselves.

In fact, we are here to protect the public interest, so I will read the new purpose clause for the benefit of the Committee and the Minister in the chair, the Hon Jim Anderton: “The purpose of this Act is to protect the public interest by aiming to ensure that veterinarians are competent to practise;”. That is what this bill is all about. It just sets up the processes, committees, registration systems, and disciplinary procedures to make sure that vets in this country who service farmers and families with small animals are competent to practise. I emphasise that we are not setting up committees, councils, and disciplinary procedures to give Labour Party members jobs on boards, credit card expenses, and flights to Wellington once a month—that is not why we are setting up those committees—the only reason we are setting them up is to ensure that veterinarians are competent to practise.

I underline that to members of the Committee, because it is very important. We had to throw away and push off the table all those provisions when we received this bill at the select committee. We had to start again and say that the end result is competent veterinarians, which is in the public interest. Whereas the Labour Government, of course, drafted a bill that just sets up committees, laws, regulations, and all sorts of loopholes for everyone else in this country to jump through.

I move on to clause 4, “Interpretation”. I will be asking for a second 5-minute speech on this, because there is something I do want to talk about—the issue of the certificate of registration. Members will recall that I talked before about temporary registration for those veterinarians coming from overseas and wanting to practise in New Zealand for a short time, and about the desire of New Zealand to harness their skills for an extended time—not for the 3 months in the current Act, plus 3 months for good behaviour, but for 12 months, as in the original bill. If we could just have South African veterinarians who were enthusiastic come to New Zealand for 12 months! If we could just attract them here for 12 months, perhaps they would stay a further 12 months, and perhaps they would look for residency and then citizenship so that they could contribute to our country. That was the thought that went through our minds, so we changed those clauses, which we will talk about in the debate on Part 2.

Members will notice that in Part 1 of the original bill there was no definition of “certification of registration”, but the select committee has put that in there, because the issue around the certification of registration is very, very important. Why? Because there are two types of registration. The first is the limited registration that people coming from overseas, whom we want to attract to this country, will undergo for a time. Originally, limited registration applied for 3 months plus another 3 months, but the Minister proposed to change that to 12 months plus 12 months. The select committee removed the time frames altogether.

Then there is the provisional registration definition. Provisional registration is different from limited registration in that it applies to New Zealanders who leave university and want to apply to be registered. If that is the first time those people have wanted to be registered, and they are not visitors from overseas, they will get a provisional registration.

I ask the Minister why he did not actually state in the definitions that limited registration was for those people who were coming to New Zealand temporarily, and that provisional registration was for New Zealanders who wanted to be registered for the first time. That would have been so much easier. I see the scales coming off the eyes of members of this Committee and the sudden penny-drop all over the faces of my colleagues who have suddenly realised what the Minister meant. Phil Heatley has a hole in one, he has nailed it! What I am trying to say is that limited registration is for those foreign people coming to New Zealand who want to practise for a short time—and, hopefully, continue to practise—whereas provisional registration is for those young Kiwis who have studied here and who are being registered for the first time. I would have thought that perhaps we could have had that distinction set out in the clauses, which would have made it much easier.

I would like to raise something for members who have been looking at the commentary on the bill. I notice that when the commentary deals with the registration issue, it refers to temporary registration. I think, in retrospect, that was actually an error on the select committee’s part when it drafted the commentary, because within the new legislation there is no reference at all to temporary registration. Limited registration is the proper term; temporary registration is not mentioned in the context of the bill.

I think members will become confused when they realise that there is limited registration by statute and provisional registration by statute, but no temporary registration. Temporary registration is mentioned in the commentary. Everyone is searching for it amongst the clauses in the legislation, but they cannot find it. They are panicking; they are running for the officials. Well, I can tell members now to calm down, sit down, and take a deep breath, because we made an error. We have referred to temporary registration, but there is no such thing. We should not have taken Clayton Cosgrove’s advice during that 5 minutes when he woke up in the select committee and said that we should call it “temporary registration” because people would understand what it meant. We should not have taken his advice, but we did out of sympathy. I regret doing that. We should have just continued with the term “limited registration”, which we actually use within the clauses of the bill, and we would not have the confusion we see in the Committee today. I am glad I have been able to put members right on that particular issue.

I also point out the definitions around the term “veterinarian”. People might think that the definition of “veterinarian” in a veterinarians bill is not significant, but I would argue it is. I think the definition of “veterinarian” in a veterinarians bill is very significant, indeed. Members can see that we had to strike out the original definition inserted by Jim Anderton of what a veterinarian was, and redefine that, as well.

I am very glad to follow my fellow colleague’s contribution, and I think that if anybody needs any evidence about how passionate the National Party team is about agricultural issues and issues relating to veterinarians, they need only source the Hansard of my colleague Phil Heatley, who filled in a full 10 minutes on Part 1 of this bill.

I did not have the luxury of being on the Primary Production Committee when this bill was reviewed, so I apologise because some of the questions that I have about this bill might be rather simple compared with those of some of my more learned colleagues who have spoken previously. One of my questions is a simple question for the Minister: why does this bill repeal the Veterinarians Act 1994? My reading of the bill leads me to conclude that many of the changes we are talking about today could have been dealt with by way of amendment to the 1994 Act, as opposed to repealing that Act and rewriting the whole legislation.

My second concern relates to the amount of redrafting that we see just in Part 1. It seems that the first draft was totally inadequate, and I am sure the Primary Production Committee worked very hard to improve the bill, because we need only look at Part 1 to see that, basically, it has been rewritten in its entirety. When huge chunks have been struck out and new clauses have been put into the bill, it makes me wonder whether the work was done in the first instance to draft this bill properly prior to its going to the Primary Production Committee. It is clear from some of the changes that have been made that Part 1 was totally inadequate, because it has been rewritten almost in its entirety.

My next question relates to the purpose of the bill, which is written down as being to protect the public interest by aiming to ensure that veterinarians are competent to practise. I understand that, and I understand that we need to have regulation for a wide range of professions in this country, but I ask what mischief was this bill trying to solve. I have been in Parliament since 1999 and I have to say that I have not had one complaint from a constituent about a veterinarian. It is clear to me that there has not really been a groundswell of concern about the sector, albeit it is a very important one. Veterinarians play a role almost like a rural general practitioner in many of our communities in the South Island, but I have not seen any huge concerns raised about the sector. So I go back to my initial point of asking why we could not have dealt with some of these changes just by way of amendment, as opposed to rewriting the entire bill.

Although there is not a huge concern about Kiwi vets who have been trained in New Zealand universities, which are easy for us to oversee to ensure that vets reach a certain standard, I wonder whether these changes are basically designed to ensure that we have greater consistency and oversight of some overseas vets who come into the country—of which there are very many. I wonder whether this bill is designed just to try to incorporate some of the concerns that people have had about people coming from overseas who may not have qualifications that are easily likened to New Zealand qualifications. Perhaps that is the case, and I would be interested in the Minister’s view on that.

I come back to the main point that I suppose most members of the Committee agree on, which is that most professions need some kind of overarching legislation that allows them to self-regulate as much as possible to be able to deal with complaints and issues of registration.

I move, That the question be now put.

I am delighted to make a contribution on the Veterinarians Bill, for all sorts of reasons. It replaces the Veterinarians Act 1994, and I seem to recall that the young member of Parliament chairing the Primary Production Committee that dealt with that bill in 1994 was me. Interestingly, I note that although the Act is called the Veterinarians Act 2004, the bill I dealt with in the select committee in 1994 had lain around for 8 years. So it is time we dealt with this legislation again, obviously.

I pick up the point that Katherine Rich raised. I really want to know what mischief we are correcting, given that such a precise and accurate endeavour was made in 1994. I just look at the members of the committee and see that there has been about a 33 percent attrition rate of the members who were there—they did not return—and very few of those members are still on the Primary Production Committee. So it was a very stressful occurrence for them.

It is important that we get the bill right. Other members have stressed the importance of having the appropriate mechanisms surrounding veterinary practice in New Zealand. We need to consider a heap of issues. The bill, in its purpose and interpretation provisions in Part 1, sets out, in broad terms, to deal with some of those issues. There is the issue of animal welfare. We need to take a very responsible attitude to the way in which we treat and deal with our animals. We should ensure that we have a register of vets, that we require certain standards, that we have a process of registration, and that there is a process of review should anything inappropriate occur. The purpose and interpretation provisions set out some of those issues.

It is also very important from a consumer point of view that the products from our primary industry are known and trusted, and that there is a very clear perception that New Zealand is on top of the issues of veterinary care, animal welfare, veterinary science, and all of those things, to give assurance that we have in place the very best practices.

Katherine Rich said, when she was talking about this mischief thing, that she had not had any complaints. I have had one complaint. I have read the bill briefly, and it is not contained in there. It is a matter that I will take to the PC eradicator. I say to the Minister that the following story did occur, and I am not fabricating it. About a month ago a lady came to my office. The lady’s name is Mrs Court, and she loves cats. She came into my office and said that her cat had been sick. She took it to the vet. The vet gave it an ECG and said that the cat needed to stay for a night or two for medication. So the vet started treating the cat. After 3 days, Mrs Court was a little concerned for its welfare, so she rang the veterinary practice and asked how the cat was. The person who responded on the telephone said: “I am sorry, madam, under privacy laws I cannot respond.” I say to the Minister that that is absolutely true. I am not sure whether the person was being overzealous, but it says something about where our levels of political correctness have got to. I am not sure whether she expected the cat to lay a complaint if its owner actually received a report that was not accurate, or that was accurate and was that the cat was swinging the lead—I am not sure of the issues that surrounded that response. But, as true as I stand here, that story occurred in Invercargill. I have not found out whether Mrs Court’s cat is better, is well, or what the story is.

I say to the Minister that I would hope that in the new legislation we are enacting today we take a sensible approach to all matters veterinary. There are some issues surrounding veterinary practice that the bill, in its purposes and interpretation provisions, does not look at, and I do not know whether it can.

I rise to speak in support of the bill and to speak about the preliminary provisions. The purpose of this legislation is to protect a number of different interests: those of the public, and also those of rural and provincial New Zealand. I understand that this legislation came to the House under the name of the previous Minister of Agriculture—and previous member for Aoraki, as well—the Hon Jim Sutton, and that it came in a particularly interesting manner. What happened after that was that it went to the Primary Production Committee. Thank goodness that the members of the select committee, which was ably chaired by the Hon David Carter, did an enormous amount of work—[Interruption] Very good timing.

I ask members to look at the preliminary provisions, where they will see the start of a theme, a theme where we see many new paragraphs and many struck out paragraphs. That theme continues throughout all the parts of the bill, so no doubt I will refer to it again later. The vets were very interested in this bill. When I talked to my local vets they said they thanked goodness that this bill was coming before the House under urgency, because they really needed to see that happen before Christmas. But what happened? When the previous Minister of Agriculture brought this bill before the House, something did not happen: consultation with the sector. Because of that, there was such a mess for the select committee to sort out that we were left with this document full of changes.

Why is it so important that the vets have these changes? They tell me that they have large problems in recruiting vets for rural practice in New Zealand. We have heard from other members here today that it is common for women, in particular, who have trained as vets to go into urban practice. That is not really surprising. Urban practices deal with smaller animals, and we also understand from others’ assertions that it is a more profitable type of practice. But that does not change the fact that New Zealand is so dependent upon primary production that we need to have plenty of rural vets—so much so that we know that one of the 10 submitters on the bill, Massey University, came before the select committee because it was so interested in making sure there are the essential numbers of vets.

Our primary production industry needs rural vets, and therefore we have before the Committee this legislation, which may well make it easier for vets to be recruited from overseas for rural New Zealand. The provisions within this amendment allow for those sorts of things to be sorted out and for the establishment of a limited registration system—a system that we will see later now provides a registration period long enough to entice overseas vets to stay in New Zealand long enough to get their heads around what it is to practise in New Zealand. Vets certainly do not mind this legislation; they are very much in support of it. They welcome it and they certainly welcome seeing it come before Parliament before Christmas.

I thank the Committee and continue to support the preliminary provisions in Part 1.

I move, That the question be now put.

Motion agreed to.

The question was put that the amendment set out on Supplementary Order Paper 8 in the name of the Hon Jim Anderton to clause 4 be agreed to.

Amendment agreed to.

Part 1 as amended agreed to.

Part 2 Registration and practising certificates