Appointments — Abortion Supervisory Committee

on behalf of the Minister of Justice: I move, That, pursuant to section 10 of the Contraception, Sterilisation and Abortion Act 1977, this House recommends His Excellency the Governor-General reappoints Dame Linda Holloway as Chair, reappoints Dr Tangimoana Habib as a member and appoints Ms Carolyn McIlraith as a member of the Abortion Supervisory Committee each for terms of 3 years. The terms of appointment of all three members expired in April 2014, and they have continued in office under the rollover provisions of the Act. Dame Linda and Dr Habib both indicated their availability for reappointment. The third current member, Rev. Patricia Allan, indicated her wish to stand down once a replacement could be appointed.

Dame Linda has served as the chairperson of the supervisory committee since June 2007, after retiring from a distinguished career in medicine. She was dean of the Wellington school of medicine and health sciences, then became pro-vice-chancellor of the division of health sciences at Otago University. She is a highly respected anatomical pathologist who served on the Medicines Assessment Advisory Committee, and was one of the advisers to Dame Silvia Cartwright during the inquiry into the treatment for cervical cancer at the National Women’s Hospital.

Dr Habib is a Hamilton-based doctor and has been a member of the supervisory committee since April 2011. She was awarded fellowship of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners—the royal college—in 2003, and currently works as a general practitioner for Te Kohao Health in Hamilton. Dr Habib has been involved in Te Ohu Rata o Aotearoa (Te ORA) Māori doctors association since 2000, and has been a member of Te Akoranga a Māui, the Māori general practitioner faculty, since its inception in 2002. She served on the council of the royal college in 2005 and 2006, and is the continuing medical education provider for Te ORA. She is of Ngāti Tūwharetoa descent.

The proposed new member is Ms Carolyn McIlraith. She is currently employed with Capital and Coast District Health Board and has been counselling for 10 years, specialising in the areas of youth, post-natal depression, grief and loss, sex, psychological first aid, and pregnancy counselling. Prior to retraining as a counsellor she worked in a variety of positions, including customer services, fixed assets, and human resources.

Retaining the experience of Dame Linda and Dr Habib should ensure the stability of the supervisory committee. Ms McIlraith has worked extensively with women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. She will bring a perspective from her social work and counselling background that will meet what the supervisory committee itself has advised is a key input it seeks.

I stand for the Labour Opposition to support the appointment of Dame Linda Holloway and Dr Habib and the new appointment of Carolyn McIlraith—three very good appointments. The two reappointments and Carolyn McIlraith, who works here at Capital and Coast District Health Board as a very, very experienced counsellor, make up, I think, a very strong group of three for what is a pretty difficult job to undertake.

The Abortion Supervisory Committee is one that operates under the Contraception, Sterilisation, and Abortion Act and its function is to keep under review all the provision of New Zealand’s abortion laws and operations and the effect of those provisions. That also includes the licensing of institutions to perform abortions. So it is an area where there are often very strong views, and they are often very strongly presented, and so those who take on this job are people—and have been women—over the years who have been able to bridge the gap between those views to a great extent.

Dame Linda Holloway is very well-known to me from the time before I was a Minister of Health, but particularly during my time as Minister of Health. She has been a long-time advocate for women. She has been a long-time advocate for contraception for women, access to contraception, and access to legal abortion in New Zealand. In fact, she was the person who introduced RU486 to New Zealand—a medical abortion, as opposed to a surgical abortion—and she advocated for many years for another safe way for legal abortion.

Dr Habib is a GP, as you have heard from the Minister. The Act does require that there be two medical practitioners, and so that requirement has been fulfilled and, as I said, Miss Carolyn McIlraith is a counsellor, so I think they are three good very appointments. I think they can take some credit and strength from the latest statistics where you look and see that in December 2014 New Zealand had the lowest number of abortions since 1994. In fact, in its report—the latest report to this House—the committee said that it believes that one of the reasons for that is because of the funding of long-acting subcutaneous implant contraception from August 2010. It has seen an overall decline in abortion rates and notes a dramatic drop in abortion rates for 15 to 19-year-olds, and believes that this could be partially attributed to the introduction of this form of long-term contraception. The committee believes that this downward trend for this age cohort will continue. I think it is that sort of data and information provided by this committee that is really important, in order to be able to see what is happening in the area of abortion.

The committee does, however, say in its recent report that it continues to be very worried about harassment—harassment of women—where you must recognise the right to freedom of expression for people who have strong views on abortion and also the right of women to choose. It is concerned about verbal abuse, distribution of offensive material to people entering hospital—and people go into hospital for many reasons. Women could be there for dozens of reasons. They ought not to be subjected to coercion or humiliation, and I absolutely support the committee on that.

The committee also points out that we now have better access to services in the provincial areas of New Zealand, and that has been an issue in some parts of New Zealand in the past where there was not local access. This meant that women were required to travel long distances to obtain a legal abortion.

So we do support the appointment of these three women to the committee and wish them well in their work continuing their strong advocacy on behalf of those who seek counselling, advice, and legal abortion in New Zealand.

I rise to add the Green Party’s support to the nomination of Dame Linda Holloway as chair, the reappointment of Dr Tangimoana Habib, and the new appointment of Ms Carolyn McIlraith to the Abortion Supervisory Committee. These are women, particularly Dame Linda Holloway and Dr Tangimoana Habib, with a proven track record of strong oversight and advocacy in care for the well-being of women in this country. We certainly welcome the experience of Ms Carolyn McIlraith as a counsellor and as somebody who is currently working at the Capital Coast District Health Board in this area. That expertise, I think, will add a lot to the committee, and we welcome that.

Of course, I am not going to stand in this House and talk about the Abortion Supervisory Committee without mentioning the fact that we believe the law that it is constituted under is well outdated. It is a 1977 law that is built on a fundamental mistrust of women and a belief that we cannot trust women to make decisions about their own bodies and their own health, and that needs changing. The fact that this committee is set up to give operation to a law that criminalises women’s basic, fundamental human right is unjust and needs changing, and although we can trust these women to operate within the constraints that this House has put them under, those constraints are fundamentally wrong and need changing.

The fact that so much of the committee’s work is done in certifying the appointment of certifying consultants—any woman in this country who is seeking a termination has to see two certifying consultants, which may mean that she ends up seeing up to five doctors, and potentially five different appointments in five different places, to be able to access health care. The cost that goes into that for her personally, let alone the cost to our health budget of certifying these consultants—who are paid to basically tick off a system of saying “Yes, this will be mentally injurious to you to have this pregnancy.”, which is a demonstration, again, of that mistrust—is ridiculous.

It is 2015. Most people in this country actually believe that abortion is decriminalised already. The fact that we are all unwilling to address that or even properly have that conversation, to me, is a sign of our fundamental failing, and we hope that that will change in the future. However, that is the place we are at and these women will do the job well, so we support them.

Motion agreed to.