Medicines Amendment Bill

It is my pleasure to continue the debate on the Medicines Amendment Bill. This bill is long overdue. On—

💬 Mr SPEAKER: Order! Can I just ask members who are leaving the Chamber to try to do it as quietly as possible to allow the member speaking to have a reasonably fair go.

Thank you. On this side of the House, we lament the time that it has actually taken to get the bill to this stage. We are pleased to see that it has come to the House under urgency, but we wonder why it never ever appeared prior to that. We are all aware that the bill is an interim measure until the Australia New Zealand Therapeutic Products Agency is established, when we will act in a joint way with Australia on these matters. It was interesting at the Health Committee that the submitters all generally supported the new regime proposed and the new definitions, even though it did take some time for us all to get our heads around the definitions and to feel quite comfortable with them.

We were pleased to see that this bill uses the skills of the nurse practitioners and they can be more widely used. We know that nurse practitioners provide a valuable service that an increasing number of people depend on, and this is particularly evident in rural areas. Again, we know that pharmacists are now included in this regime, and we are pleased to see the skills of pharmacists used. They are a highly skilled group of people, and in every town people are very comfortable going into their local pharmacy to actually ask for advice. That is the first port of call before we go to the doctor these days.

So, just to quickly sum up, New Zealand First supports the passing of this bill. It allows for greater flexibility where medicine and health changes are happening at an incredible rate. We believe it is in the interests of the health outcomes of all New Zealanders to keep up with the changes that are happening overseas, and we believe that this should be a priority for the Government. Given that we are seeking to increase the flexibility of our health system and to make it more accessible to every New Zealander, we support this bill. Thank you.

Bill read a third time.