Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill

When the House was last considering this bill Simon O’Connor had the floor and has 4 minutes and 50 seconds remaining to speak.

I have to say that the first 10 seconds of my speech, I think, was one of the highlights of my career. I thought it was going to be quite an oration; it turned into a peroration, but I am pleased to be able to take the remaining 4 minutes and 50 seconds to support this bill.

I am very pleased to have in the House Chris Bishop, who is the member supporting this bill. I think it is important to acknowledge the work and the leadership that he is showing here today around what is officially titled the Financial Assistance for Live Organ Donors Bill, here in its first reading. I have often said in the House when it is members’ day that it is a rare privilege for many members of Parliament to actually have a bill put in the ballot and then have it drawn out. For a first-term MP, to have this opportunity is an important one, and I think, importantly, this is a bill of import in itself. That is not to take away from other bills, but we are talking about something rather important here.

For myself, very early on in my political career, or interest, I was working with Dr Jackie Blue and supporting her in Mt Roskill, and one of the early visitors to her office was Andrew Tookey, who is a well-known advocate around organ donation. He made quite an eloquent series of assertions and gave his thoughts to Jackie, and I was quite taken by that. It has been an area that I have been interested in myself over the years, partly because of that but also because of different friends whom I have known and worked with who have gone through, particularly, liver transplants. It has been quite life-transformative. Therefore, it would be remiss of me not to mention Oliver Ibbetson, who is a New Zealander but is currently in Taiwan. He himself has had a liver transplant and I am sure would be very keen on this bill.

It is coming to the Health Committee; I think that is actually an appropriate place for it to come. I know some questions have been raised about why this is not, say, within the Social Services Committee, because the bill itself is quite particular—it is, ultimately, asking that financial assistance be appropriately given. I will not go into all the details—there are many other speakers after me—but the long and the short is that if at the moment you are a live organ donor, you do not get the full recompense that you might in other circumstances. I think the beauty of this bill that Mr Bishop has put forward is that it provides some symmetry between the altruistic act of organ donation and other forms of care, and therefore I think it is appropriate that the Health Committee takes it on board. I imagine, in that, we will be hearing from the likes of the Ministry of Social Development, which facilitates these payments, to understand what is going to happen and the repercussions, but I think that this bill will be discussed in the wider health context.

I think that for listeners or viewers it is important to get a very quick distinction between live organ donorship and that which is not live organ donorship. This is where, effectively, rational adults are able to make a choice and a decision and are prepared, for various reasons, to donate an organ.

As someone who has studied quite a bit of ethics other the years, I say that there are a few ethical issues in this space. Non - live organ donation raises a whole lot of issues. They are not any that necessarily block it, but I think it is important to acknowledge in the House that there are more divergent views in that space. But I certainly, as the chair of the committee, would welcome not only strong, positive feedback on this bill and any suggestions of change to come to the committee but also some of those wider discussions that could be had, because I would like to think that this bill is the beginning of a conversation.

I think it rightly provides a mechanism, as the title suggests, for proper and full recompense—sorry, I should correct myself there. It is not full; I do not think one can ever fully compensate someone around an act like this, but it provides a more appropriate financial package and assistance to someone who has made this choice. But, again, I think we cannot have that financial conversation without at least touching on some of the wider issues of organ donation in this country. One of the issues that we have had is that New Zealand has a rather low organ donation rate. It approaches what the likes of Andrew, Oliver, and others have spoken about in the past, and I think it will be quite important for the Health Committee to hear that again. This conversation is not to get too long or too wide, but I think that understanding some of the wider issues may help us moving forward.

I thank the member. His time has expired.

Debate interrupted.