Therapeutic Products Bill

I present a legislative statement on the Therapeutic Products Bill.

SPEAKER: That legislative statement is published under the authority of the House and can be found on the Parliament website.

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: I move, That the Therapeutic Products Bill be now read a third time.

This is a very important day for the future of the New Zealand health system. The Therapeutic Products Bill will introduce a new, comprehensive regime to regulate therapeutic products in New Zealand. As well as replacing and modernising the existing regulatory arrangements for medicines, it provides a fit for purpose regulation of medical devices—innovative products such as cell, gene, and tissue therapies that are currently not fully regulated. The bill also covers natural health products, and these products will have their own regulations under the bill.

It is very important to me, having gone through the COVID pandemic, to ensure that the regulation is flexible enough to support innovation, while ensuring that effective control over quickly evolving health technologies is in place. The bill also aligns with international standards to uphold the standard quality of regulation currently carried out by Manatū Hauora. The bill will ensure the safe use of products used in healthcare delivery, and support both imports and exports from New Zealand.

This bill has been a long time in the making. I’m advised that work on this bill started in 2003. It is intended to replace the Medicines Act 1981 and the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985. The Medicines Act currently provides insufficient coverage for many products used in modern healthcare delivery, and dietary supplement regulations are not fit for purpose, are inflexible, and are out of date. So the bill is truly a once-in-a-generation change for our health system.

I want to acknowledge some of the people who have been important to getting the bill across the line. It has been a significant undertaking. I want to acknowledge the input of all members of this House, the many members of the public who submitted, and all who have expressed their view, both for and against, since the bill has been introduced. In particular, I want to acknowledge the former Minister of Health, the Hon Andrew Little, who introduced the bill to the House in November last year, and also the Health Committee, who recently reported back on the bill.

I’d like to thank committee members for their hard work, and over the last six months reviewing submissions, and the many sensible changes that were made. In particular, I want to acknowledge the chair, Tracey McLellan, and the deputy chair, Neru Leavasa. Thank you both for your work. The committee did an excellent job reviewing more than 16,500 submissions and hearing more than 300 submissions from organisations and officials. They worked tirelessly and produced an excellent bill when they reported back.

I also want to acknowledge officials from the Ministry of Health, who gave their support for navigating this bill, especially Tim Vines, Steve Waldegrave, John McGrath, Jane Hubbard, and John Whaanga. Thank you all for your work and your support. I also want to acknowledge that it has taken almost two decades to get this bill in place, and some of the officials working on the bill have been working on it for 15 years. I also want to give thanks to my colleague Peeni Henare for his contributions to the bill, including in the areas of regulation of rongoā.

You’ll be aware of the changes to the bill since the second reading, including the changes to make sure small-scale natural health products have the ability to be exempted from some of the provisions in the bill. There have also been sensible and proportionate changes in the areas of advertising. I acknowledge that there is concern about the harms caused by direct-to-consumer advertising. Currently in New Zealand, medicines can be advertised direct to consumers under some controls. Officials have looked at the evidence around direct-to-consumer advertising of prescription medicine, and they did not find sufficient evidence to justify a ban. However, changes made to the bill strengthen the controls that can be placed on advertising and include the opportunity for prohibition, should sufficient work be done to justify that in light of some of the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act concerns and that we work through the potential for unintended consequences there.

As a doctor, I am extremely attentive to the views of medical practitioners and advocates who have been in touch to ask for direct-to-consumer advertising to be banned. We do all want the very best for our patients and the public, but as a legislator, I take my role extremely seriously and want to ensure that we do not make legislation about such important matters in haste. I want to be careful that there are no unintended consequences for making decisions without due consideration.

Some small-scale natural health product manufacturers raised concerns that the regulatory regime for natural health products is not risk-proportionate and that the costs involved may drive them out of business. A large number of these producers operate out of their homes and manufacture only a small quantity of goods sold locally—for example, at farmers markets. While natural health products are not risk-free, I’m comfortable that the evidence available suggests that these products do not pose a significant public health risk. After all, the scale of that risk is influenced by the scale of distribution of the product.

Under changes to the bill, regulations can be made to small-scale natural health product manufacturers that will not need to obtain a product authorisation or manufacturing licence from the new regulator where their products are made and supplied to in-person customers in New Zealand. This is a sensible approach. Product authorisation will still be required for imported natural health products. There is still a need, though, to regulate natural health products. This is significant, and the bill will bring New Zealand into line with international counterparts. It is vital that people have the information they need to make informed decisions about natural health products. The regulations will help ensure that products contain safe ingredients, that there is assurance around the manufacturing process, that health claims are based on evidence, and products made in New Zealand and exported overseas meet international standards. The bill is designed to ensure a clear distinction between natural health products, medicines, food, and cosmetics.

It’s also important to address some of the early misinformation that was reported about the bill and its potential impacts. Contrary to some reports on social media and feedback from some submitters, you will still be able to buy natural health products. You will not need a prescription. Practitioners will still be able to deliver care to their clients. There is no list of prohibited ingredients in the bill. There is no proposal to ban common herbs and spices used in cooking. They are not covered by the bill. The impact of the bill on any particular natural health product or ingredient will be determined by secondary legislation, following consultation with stakeholders and the public.

We’ve already canvassed in the committee stage some of the changes around rongoā. Some people have asked why the Crown felt it had a right to bring rongoā into any system of law or regulation. The answer comes in two parts. Rongoā was already involved because many of the natural ingredients it uses, such as mānuka or kawakawa, fall into the category of a natural health product. Secondly, the Crown has an obligation under Te Tiriti to actively protect rongoā and engage Māori on how rongoā could be protected under the law. That’s why the ministry undertook a rongoā work stream last year to explore the relationship between the Therapeutic Products Bill and rongoā and how the legislation could protect it.

There is no available evidence that the practice and regulation of rongoā to date has created significant risks to people’s health. That is the view of Māori, and the evidence supports that. Our decisions reflect what Māori have said, so whānau will continue to use and manage rongoā as they have for generations.

I’m also confident that the bill will be implemented in a way that supports and enables innovation. For New Zealand researchers, innovators, and businesses, it’s important to compete on the global stage, and we need a regulatory regime that enables that innovation, supports exporters, and promotes trust and confidence in the products made here in Aotearoa. The bill does exactly that. It supports new technologies to come to market, and accelerates their entry when necessary, such as in a health emergency. It supports innovation more widely, such as creating pathways that are easily navigated and aligned with international standards. It will make the job easier for importers, local manufacturers, suppliers, and exporters.

I’m very proud to see this bill go through after so many years. I’ve often reflected during the pandemic on the fact that had we gone into the pandemic with a modern regulatory regime for medicines, we would have had a smoother path to approval of the COVID vaccine and the regulations of medical devices that—

Nicola Grigg: Would you have got rapid antigen tests in any faster?

Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL: —for example, diagnostic tests. Those are precisely arguments for this bill. I’m pleased that this Government has been able to see through this piece of regulation that has been 20 years of work across parties on both sides of the House. Alongside our record funding of Pharmac and our removal of the co-pays on medicines, it shows the commitment of this Government to access to medicines for New Zealanders.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. It’s a pleasure to rise on behalf of the National Party and my good friend and colleague, Dr Shane Reti, to oppose this bill, the Therapeutic Products Bill. You’ve got to give it to the Minister, the whole process—

Nicola Grigg: She’s running away.

MATT DOOCEY: —she’s kept a straight face, because, I’m not sure if it’s a medical term or maybe a rugby analogy, but boy, was she given a hospital pass by the last—

DEPUTY SPEAKER: Sorry, just to interrupt—Ms Grigg, you will stand, withdraw, and apologise. You cannot comment on the fact that a Minister has left the House.

Nicola Grigg: I withdraw and apologise.

MATT DOOCEY: Thank you very much, Mr Speaker, and thanks for drawing the point to that. The point I was making was that the Minister was given a hospital pass by the former health Minister, Andrew Little. The Minister said in her first call here of the third reading of this bill, that it was “fit for purpose”—fit for purpose. Remember the other slogans, “Let’s do this.” Now it’s something like “In it for you”. I mean, imagine the ability to get up and say this bill has been fit for purpose when it has so much opposition.

The Minister also said it’s a long time in the making. Well, it actually didn’t have to be a long time in the making because there was a bill on the table under the former National Government in 2017 that many of the submitters have referred to during the process, that this Government could have picked up, and then the bill would have ended up in a better shape than it lands today. The Minister acknowledged the Health Committee members; I want to acknowledge them, especially the Government members who did a very studious job only to be thrown under the bus when it came back in to the second reading and the Minister said, “It’s not good enough, I’m having to put a Supplementary Order Paper in.”

What I find very interesting with the Therapeutic Products Bill—I think this bill is very emblematic of the Government we have today that’s just lurching side to side, limping along till the final whistle in a few weeks’ time. Because the only good news for people today—as the Minister said—is this bill is not enacted until 2026, and by then we will have a National Government in place that will repeal this bill because it’s absolutely been a shambles. We’ve heard that from the 16,500 submitters—16,000 of them opposed this bill—and this bill has been shambolic the whole way through. Plenty of backflips, and now we have a bill that we’ve been told is “fit for purpose”.

What I thought was some subtle messaging by the Minister about our natural health product producers that are opposing this bill, she implied it was just the small-scale natural health products producers, the manufacturers, and then had a go at them for misinformation. Have a look at the sector who’s opposed this bill. It’s been pretty clear right across the natural health products sector that they oppose this bill. We had a new Prime Minister that stood up and said this would be a Government of bread and butter politics—back to the basics—and here we are in a cost of living crisis, putting some very productive New Zealand markets at risk.

Let’s be very clear: the natural health product market is a billion-dollar industry. This bill puts that at risk. The medical devices industry, it’s a billion-dollar industry as well. Let’s not forget the debacle we’ve got with cosmetics that is now under the natural health product definition tangled up in this bill, and that is going to put an industry at risk for New Zealand as well.

The key issue that’s come out time and time again in these debates and the submissions, is the issues of notification versus authorisation. It’s very clear. I mean, if you look at the history when the EU attempted to do this in 2021—I mean, it was a narrower scope, they already had a regulator in place, and this caused huge disruptions to the sectors. Huge time frames, huge cost. So here we are with a wider scope, implementing a new regulator and saying, “Actually, this is all going to be tickety-boo.”

I’ll tell you what’s going to happen for our hard-working manufacturers, our producers, our exporters in the medical devices sector, in the natural health products sector, in the cosmetics sector—their costs are going to go up. Delays are going to be incurred around notifications. One medical device alone, a producer who contacted us said they would need to notify the regulator over 700 times a year for improvements on medical devices. There’s one thing I think the public knows from the last six years under this Government, is anything they do is delayed and bureaucratic.

So I agree with the sector. Why should we have any faith in the regulator and what the Government is introducing in this third reading today? Because when you look at the vital income these sectors bring us by exporting, this overreach of bureaucracy, this regulatory overburden, all it’s going to do is make us less competitive with countries who do not have this level of compliance. That will make our exporters less competitive, and that’s hugely concerning.

In my final comment, I just want to acknowledge some of the brave faces and names who stood up against this bill. I’m thinking specifically of Theresa Zame. Theresa put a petition together because under this bill initially, it was going to stop people accessing medicines through compassionate medicines schemes. Theresa Zame’s story is she has stage 4 lung cancer. She doesn’t qualify for any publicly funded medicines in New Zealand. If she was to go private here, the closest medication she could get would be over $10,000 a month. She imports one prescription, Tagrix, for $1,000 a month, and, in her words, she calls it life-saving. A mum from Gizzy that stood up and led a petition to the forecourt here—thousands of signatures supported by Malcolm Mulholland from Patient Voice Aotearoa.

That issue, of stopping people’s ability to get the vital life-saving medicines they need, is emblematic of this bill right from the start. Poorly thought out. They have lurched back and forth right from the start. Backflipped—trying to make bad good. What’s been very clear is Dr Shane Reti’s position and the National Government—the National Party, getting a bit ahead of myself—the National Party’s position on this bill as well, that we will stand up for those 16,000 submitters that this Government wouldn’t stand up for. Once again, we’ve got a bill in the House that says Wellington knows best. It says Labour knows best. We’re going to run the country out of Wellington. At a time, in a cost of living crisis, why are we putting billion-dollar industries at risk?

So I want to thank everyone who’s submitted to this bill. I want to thank all my colleagues from across the House who have worked hard in the select committee, and I want to give New Zealanders hope that after 14 October, we will make the changes needed to this bill.

E te Māngai o te Whare, I stand in support of the Therapeutic Products Bill, at the third reading at this point in time. For my part, rongoā Māori has been something that is dear to my heart, passionate amongst my community, and led by my whānau. Māori have always determined what rongoā means, how it’s practised, and who can practise it. I’m proud to say that today, in supporting this bill, that still remains the same.

What this bill adds to the practice of rongoā is the protection for this taonga from those who may wish to exploit it—in short, those who want to make a quick buck of ancient mātauranga Māori. They might want to ship it in bulk overseas, or even denigrate its value, or leverage off years of mātauranga Māori in the development of a particular product. The way this bill has been carefully shaped through its iterations, including by listening to the clear expectations of our people, means what has always happened with rongoā will continue to keep happening. Our romiromi will continue to keep rolling. Our mirimiri will keep soothing. Our taonga puoro will keep singing. Our mamaku who will keep healing and our karakia will keep soaring.

Those simple lines there clearly speak to the breadth and the width of rongoā Māori. To simply try and define it to something such as a pill is incorrect. Understanding and appreciating rongoā Māori can only continue to enhance the offering of wellbeing not just to Māori in this nation but to everybody. The bill sets out that rongoā and mātauranga remain in the hands of our people. Its definition, descriptions, and explanations stay with our mātanga and with our tohunga, and its ongoing protection and recognition as a taonga is safeguarded in Te Tiriti o Waitangi in the Crown’s upholding of that responsibility. Ultimately, though, rangatiratanga remains with tangata whenua. I will note, though, as some of these submissions did insist on having a Te Tiriti o Waitangi clause in here, this Government in its health reform work made it clear that our job is to uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi by including a clause that will drive our health sector into the future.

Like other members in the House, I want to acknowledge everyone who participated in the bill’s development, from the careful hands that crafted the draft through to the committee members and the public servants who sifted through thousands of submissions and heard in person the aspirations of Aotearoa New Zealand. We wouldn’t be here today if not for the many people who sent through written submissions, came to our rongoā work stream hui, or took to the streets and online forums to make their voices heard, or grabbed every opportunity to grab the ear of a Minister walking through the street.

We also wouldn’t have gotten to this point today without the expertise and generosity of healers and experts who guided the Crown’s thinking as it stepped through this very important landscape. So in addition to acknowledging the many people working within the machinery of Government, most importantly I want to acknowledge our whānau and our communities; the kaitiaki of rongoā Māori, who made it abundantly clear what they wanted us to do. I said it at the time, ka rongo mātou. That’s what democracy is about—hearing from the people in our communities and ensuring their views, wants, and aspirations are reflected in how we govern this country, no matter the issue, no matter the person. We’ve upheld that noble aspiration today, which is a win for democracy and a win for communities, and, from my perspective, a win for rongoā Māori.

This also wouldn’t have been possible without the leadership of my colleague the Minister the Hon Ayesha Verrall. Nō reira e te tuahine tēnā koe. [And so, sis, thank you.] Thank you for guiding our waka to this milestone today. Thank you for continuing to not only listen but to open your heart to what rongoā Māori means and how precious it is to the communities that practise it and receive it. As the Minister said, the changes we’ve made to the Therapeutic Products Bill will ensure whānau will continue to create, use, and manage rongoā.

So what does that mean for our communities? What it means, in short, is that rongoā services, supply, and activities will continue as they have for generations, not just with the past at its heart but also a more contemporary use. I think of my time during the promotion of the COVID vaccines up and down this country, where we saw rongoā Māori working hand in hand with Western science, where one could receive a vaccination and then go into a wharenui, have karakia, have romiromi, and to be able to reset themselves to get on with their lives.

It means Māori maintain tino rangatiratanga over determining what rongoā means to them and defining who can be a rongoā practitioner. It means that, in most cases, rongoā will be excluded from the new regulatory system and not regulated in the same way that other natural health products will be. It means healers and those who support them can carry out their services and activities on marae and the many places that are important to not only Māori but all of our communities up and down the country. Healers can keep sending their rongoā to individual clients and our whānau.

The bill makes it clear that the regulator can’t make rules about how rongoā activities are carried out or set training and competency requirements for rongoā practitioners. We know that rongoā is already appropriately regulated by Māori communities. The bill respects that and acknowledges Māori as kaitiaki of rongoā. While we go through what this all means for our communities and how little will change, it is also important to clarify that there are one or two circumstances where rongoā will be regulated. That is when rongoā is being sold for commercial wholesale activity, such as supplying rongoā products in bulk to a chain of pharmacies or grocery stores, either here or overseas. If that was the case, then rongoā products would be regulated as natural health products.

But most of the people who are making and supplying rongoā do not operate at this size or in this scale. So, largely speaking, this part of the bill will not apply to most of our rongoā community. For those that do operate in that space, and there are some and some of them are iwi, who look towards the opportunities that production of rongoā might have for them and their communities and other communities, whether domestically or internationally, they’ve asked that they make sure that they be given the opportunity to fall within this regulatory space and be given the opportunity to practice.

We acknowledge the Government doesn’t have all the expertise to protect rongoā in a way that upholds mātauranga Māori and upholds Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That’s why we’re establishing a committee to take on that protection role and guide the implementation of the bill alongside Māori. This committee will be made up of rongoā experts and Māori health leaders with experience in mātauranga in rongoā Māori.

The rongoā Māori advisory committee serves an important but limited role under the bill. The committee won’t screen or set qualifications or professional standards for rongoā practitioners, but if questions come up around a particular activity that claims to be rongoā and is not regulated but perhaps should be, the committee will give its expert advice to the new regulator. The regulator would then need to take the committee’s advice into account before making the right decision.

Heoi anō e te Whare—as you can see, there is still more work to be done. I look forward to continuing to work with Māori as we begin to implement this bill together. There is no rush for the next steps. We have time to get things right. We are committed to walking that journey with our Māori partners, and, in this monumental occasion for the health system in Aotearoa, this is a big win for the voices of our people. This bill will push out our waka that much closer to achieving pae ora, healthy futures, for all New Zealanders. Like my colleague the Minister, I too commend this bill to the House. Kia ora tātou.

Well, how ironic is it that the Associate Minister of Health says that we wouldn’t be here today were it not for the Rongoā Māori submitters on this bill. Well, I would add to that, we wouldn’t be here today if the Government had listened to the 97 percent of the 16,500 submitters who were in opposition to this bill, for good reason. And all the Minister of Health could say was that there was misinformation in dismissing the legitimate concerns of those thousands and thousands of people who the select committee heard.

The Associate Minister says it’s a win for democracy. Well, I remember a day when the Labour members would be up like meerkats if a National Government had introduced a bill as bad as this. In fact, they never did. They were up like meerkats when we introduced good legislation and they would drag out committee stages under urgency. But in the hours that we have been debating this bill, credit to the Associate Minister—he has skin in the game—he has made a material contribution to the debate. The only one—apart from Dr Verrall, who has—apart from probably the odd “I move that the question be now put.” We haven’t heard a dickie bird from the Health Committee members from Labour or any other member of the Labour caucus, and I reckon that’s because they know it’s a bit of a dog.

It’s certainly what they heard in the select committee, and most of those concerns were ignored. There’s a pattern emerging here: there’s a tendency, when faced with a choice—as there was with this bill and the regulatory impact statements articulated them—between different levels of intervention in a regulatory sense. Between no intervention on the one hand and deep, deep intervention on the other—with a range of options in the middle, from minimalist to a more hands-on approach—this Government goes to the extreme bureaucratic end, and this is the product of that attitude. It is a pattern, because this Government believes that activity is a proxy for outcomes. We see it in the DHB reforms, we see it in the polytech reforms, we see it in three waters. As long as we look as if we’re busy and make everybody else busy, we must be making progress. Well, nothing can be further from the truth.

In two main areas, there has been, I think, significant regulatory overkill—that in the area of medical devices and in natural health products, where there was a choice that the Government had to have a lighter-handed regulatory environment. It’s not as if the status quo is light-handed or overly risky. In fact, as a former CE of a surgical hospital with hundreds of pharmaceutical products, thousands and thousands of medical devices from tongue depressors to perfusion machines to beds—they are all regulated already. The idea that this is going to make people safer or reduce risk simply because we overly burdened suppliers and providers with more regulation needs to be challenged. We have to manage risk—there is no question about that—but the question in this policy setting is: are the reductions in risk justified by the increases in cost and bureaucracy? Will there be less risk? Probably. Will there be more cost? Certainly. Are those costs and processes and delays justified? Well, we’ll see, but I don’t think so.

The Minister talks about the COVID response; that the COVID response—according to her—would have been better had this regime been in place. Well, I would say two things about that: the COVID response would have been a lot better had a different Government been in place. But I’m not convinced that it was the regulatory environment—it wasn’t the regulatory environment that caused millions of rapid antigen tests to be wasted, millions of vaccines to be left unused, significant delays, when the Minister of COVID response told us New Zealand was going to be at the front of the queue and then wasn’t. That had nothing to do with the Medicines Act—that had everything to do with management. [Interruption] Oh, they’re up like meerkats now. They don’t like it when the facts are repeated back at them. But those delays had nothing to do with regulation. They had everything to do with talk but no action, because that is emblematic of this Government.

Now, nevertheless, like a good Opposition should, the National Party has tried to improve a poor piece of legislation. To some degree, there were some improvements made in the select committee, but my colleague, Dr Shane Reti, in the select committee process pointed out the overregulation of the natural health products—the requirement for exporters to get authorisation even if their product is not sold here in New Zealand, cosmetics such as shampoos and toothpaste being overly regulated, the duplication of the sunscreen regulations this Parliament passed only a year ago, the fit and proper persons requirements being too stringent, and a number of other things.

National and the ACT Party have proposed sensible amendments to improve the bill and they were rejected. That is the prerogative of the House, the prerogative of the Government. But I think the reason this bill isn’t better is because it was National and ACT that were the people proposing the improvements, not because the improvements did or did not have merit. They are blinded by the fact that somebody else thought of them. They weren’t the only ones, they were what the 16,500 submitters were talking about—and 97 percent of them did oppose it, but there were constructive suggestions and many of them were left on the cutting room floor. For that reason, this bill is going to pass into law in much poorer shape than it could have.

But that is actually inconsequential, because in three months’ time, when there is a new Government, there will be a new approach to regulation, one which is lighter-handed but effective at managing risk commensurate with the costs that go along with it. As a consequence, this will be consigned to the dustbin where it belongs.

Fa‘afetai lava, Mr Speaker. It is a good pleasure to take a brief call on the third reading of the Therapeutic Products Bill. I just want to say that in my own electorate of Takanini, there are many who have been keeping a close eye on the progress of this bill, whether it be community members who think about their medicines or their natural health products, or our clinicians and health professionals in the area who want an updated Medicines Act and Dietary Supplements Regulations that are also risk proportionate.

A huge fa‘afetai to the Minister, Dr Ayesha Verrall, for the work that she has done; also, too, the officials who are sitting up in the gallery—thank you so much, fa‘afetai, for the hard work that you have put in as well. To the chair, Dr Tracey McLellan, and to our members across the House, thank you. It’s been a good discussion, good detailed discussions within the Health Committee. To all the submitters that have come through, thank you for all their input as well in trying to make good changes to this bill.

We all want regulations that have safe ingredients, that make health claims substantiated and regulated as well. Many in South Auckland are approached by practitioners who have shakes and all sorts of things that have health claims, but many that make our people sicker, much more concerned about their medical issues. They come through the door and drop all their medicines and cause more issues with their health conditions. So this will help improve in making sure that these practitioners make the right claims and that is evidence-based.

To the DTCA, or direct-to-consumer advertising, I want to acknowledge my medical colleagues that have put through an open letter, but I thank the Minister in the committee stage in clarifying those concerns and making sure that the regulations are boosted to address some of them. I just want to say that many patients in the area that I work in are quite hard to present to the clinic, and they come in with their late presentations of hard conditions to treat, and some of them come in because of advertising as well. So this is just the flip side—I’ve seen the risk from DTCA but also the positives of having that advertising prompt patients. Many of my patients do present quite late, so having advertising that prompts them to come in with some of those questions is a benefit to us as well.

So I commend this bill to the House. It’s a good bill, and I thank everyone involved. Fa‘afetai.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’d like to speak on behalf of the ACT Party on the Therapeutic Products Bill. It is a very sad day—especially today, when I still just left a meeting early this morning and a young lady came up to me with her concerns, especially around rare disorders. This bill still leaves a whole lot of unanswered questions, especially for those people with cancers and rare disorders. Even though things have been improved, they have not improved enough to give them certainty to be able to get the treatment that they require, especially with medicines that are overseas.

Now, the bill came back to us—because I sit on the Health Committee—with 226 pages. Then during the debate in the committee of the whole House, the Government supplied us with a Supplementary Order Paper (SOP) with another 257 pages. Now, this is why we are concerned, because it still has not answered many questions that many people have written to us. Over 6,000 people put their submissions in, and we listened to as many as we could. We understood, yes, that there was misinformation around herbs and spices. However, if they are in a natural health medicine, they may be regulated because of what they’ve put into, but you can still go and get your normal herbs and spices to cook with.

Now, the other thing is we’re in a cost of living crisis, and these companies that have come to us that make these products—toothpaste, cosmetics, medicines, natural medicines—all we’re going to be doing is adding more costs for them. Yes, they say it’s going to be risk proportional, but we still don’t know what those costs are. And where do these companies put these costs on? To the consumer. So the consumer ends up paying more money for their products. It’s very sad, especially when we know we do need to update our Medicines Act 1981. I look around the House, and I wonder how many were actually—well, at the moment most of us were around in that time. Also the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985—we know these things need to be updated, because we know technology, medicines, everything advances quickly, but we need to do it sensibly, and this does not.

It does not answer many questions for many people. Also, people are still concerned about their intellectual property (IP), providing it to regulatory people. We don’t know how many regulators we’re going to get. We don’t know how many of them there are and what their expertise behind all this is. It just keeps getting more and more—and, yes, there is going to be secondary legislation, but, again, there are too many questions. Too many people are scared about what it’s going to do to their businesses and for those patients that are going to be seeking medicines that aren’t readily available here in New Zealand.

Now, the other thing is everybody thinks this therapeutic bill is all about natural medicines; it’s not. It is everything you can think of. It includes your hip replacements, your knee joints; you name it, we can give it—software. There’s so many things. It also includes our veterinaries as well. So even getting medicines for Fluffy our cat—that they might not be available here is also regulated in this bill. The thing is people forget: not only do we want to look after ourselves, but for most people, their animals are part of their family. So there’s concern around that.

Well, the thing is, as we’re saying, we listened to many people that had given us submissions. We helped to write SOPs. I assume also the National Party was also listening to those people that had submitted and advised us around things that needed to be changed in this bill. I’d like to say to them: we listened, we have done our best for this, but we know that this is not good enough. For me, for 33 years nearly—when you hear that there was a bill back in 2017 that many of these submitters said was good, but it still needed a lot of changes, we could have reformed it. How about we do that instead of reinventing the wheel—which we seem to be doing constantly—which takes up more time, more money, and more resources?

I would also like to thank the officials that have helped us. You guys did a great job. You explained things immensely to all of us. I know it’s hard when we sit and listen and hear that your hard work is being debated. But it’s not your fault; it is what we have heard from many different parts of New Zealand within this sector. It’s quite sad that this Government, I feel, hasn’t listened, and it’s quite sad that we’re here still debating it and that we could have probably made it even much better if things were taken into account. Again, as we are saying, another lot of bureaucratic red tape is being put on the simplest things of cosmetics and toothpaste and sunscreen. It’s just going to be added on and on.

As my learned colleague in the National Party said, it will not come into force until 2026, so when we get into Government, we will be looking forward to looking at this bill, replacing it, fixing it, making it better, and also looking at what good practices are done overseas. Look at what Australia is doing; look at what the US is doing, because we can learn and make things speed up.

Yes, we know there are checks and balances around medicines for Pharmac and Medsafe, but we need to speed up that process. Yes, we know we need to find more money for funding, so let’s make sure we have less red tape so we can afford that funding to make sure it’s going in the right area—and that is to make sure that our people that need the medicines or need their hip replacement joints or the software updated are getting it, and that it’s not going to people in the seats that are just ticking boxes. Let’s must make sure that our people that need this help are getting it.

Shanan Halbert: You’ve got no investment with your tax rates. They’ll be on health cuts.

TONI SEVERIN: Health cuts. No, no, no. We’re talking about the people that are in the head office.

Hon Member: Stupid spending.

TONI SEVERIN: You’re the ones that are spending. When you say, “Let’s make sure that our people, the boots on the ground, are looked after.”, and this is what’s not happening. It is showing all the way through, in all these reforms that have happened in a cost of living crisis, without that much thought and without really listening to those with their feet on the ground, working hard to make sure they’re keeping us all safe.

We know that it is risk proportional. We do know that pharmaceutical medicines can have a higher risk than natural medicines. We also know that some natural medicines can be a risk. We understand that. But we do realise that we do not want more red tape that is adding more costs to our people, because this is the sad reality that this bill does. It just still leaves us, as I said, with far too many questions. When we have listened to, I said, a lovely young lady around rare disorders this day, she is still concerned around the medicines, and especially people who have put the hard work and savings into building companies or making medicines and have created an IP as well as digital stuff—they are still concerned to make sure that these things don’t fall into other people’s hands when they’ve worked hard to create them.

We are happy about a few changes in this bill, but generally there are not too many I can be proud of. It just leaves us with a huge mess to tidy up come 15 October, when we will be elected into Parliament. So on that, we cannot commend this bill to the House. We oppose this bill in its current form that it is in, and we look forward to making it even better—or even a better bill—come this next parliamentary term. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I think this bill isn’t so much about the number of pages it has or the level of red tape. Ultimately, I think most of us recognise that it is important to have a robust regulatory framework for things like medicines, medical devices, natural health products, and active pharmaceutical ingredients, which most of us use either currently or at some point of our lives. It is about supporting good public health outcomes.

In this journey, I do want to acknowledge the Health Committee; the officials; Minister Verrall, who I acknowledge took on this bill and its life form, and that that’s always a challenge for any of us—as someone who took on the health portfolio halfway through the passage of this bill. I want to particularly acknowledge submitters and campaigners, particularly those campaigners that are fighting for Tiriti justice, for patients’ rights, for taking on big pharmaceutical companies and making sure that we have the balance right in this bill

The changes that have happened during the course of the debate, I think, can be attributed to the strong grassroots campaigns that were centred on good public health outcomes and evidence-based policy. I acknowledge that, for us, there will need to be a continuous debate with the passage of this bill about whether the stuff that has now been left to regulations will serve the needs of our communities.

There will always be that tension about whether we could have protected rongoā properly in primary legislation or whether we want to create a kind of regulatory framework for that. Equally, for things like banning direct-to-consumer advertisement, whether we missed the mark on following international best practice by entrenching it in primary legislation or whether we again want to leave it to regulatory frameworks.

We do have examples, recently, of where leaving it to regulations has created tensions, particularly in the medicinal cannabis framework, where we then subject our Public Service to not being necessarily properly resourced to deal with the tensions between lobbying from different groups, particularly those more well-resourced groups. I think this is why sometimes we do need to look at making improvements in primary legislation, which we attempted to do.

I think there could have been more work around the Supplementary Order Papers to perhaps have a more cross-party approach to this. It’s unfortunate that we didn’t get the chance to, and the Supplementary Order Papers do enough cross-party work to, I guess, take it away from the political football and centring it more on what is the best outcome that we can achieve for our communities.

But I do want to push back on the argument that the issue with this bill is the red tape that it creates. Because, actually, there are many instances where there are harmful medical devices that are still out there and being used in our communities. I think of, particularly, surgical mesh. That is an example of a medical device that its banning is well overdue, and this bill will create an avenue to finally put an end to the use of surgical mesh.

I think, therefore, we can’t just cast a blanket statement about whether this bill will be good or not based on whether it’s creating regulations or otherwise; but rather, we must take a nuanced approach and understanding that, yes, there will be scrutiny post the passing of this bill to ensure the regulations are working as intended, but that we can also celebrate the opportunity to actually finally put an end to some of those more harmful uses of certain devices or products that do create a risk for our communities.

Finally, I think I want to again acknowledge that it will be with the force of patients, advocacy groups, Tiriti campaigners, and people who are calling us to not let big pharmaceutical companies drive this conversation to continue scrutinising this bill together. I think we will need to work together, as a Parliament, to support officials and resource officials to do the work that they need. I think that will be the debate to come in the next few years.

So the Green Party will be supporting this bill, but with the caveat of us maintaining that really, really close scrutiny to ensure the regulations work. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Great pleasure this afternoon to rise in support of the Therapeutic Products Bill at its third reading. I also want to add my words of gratitude to the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall and to Dr Tracey McLellan, Dr Anae Neru Leavasa, and the very hard-working Health Committee—and also to our officials, who worked so incredibly hard on what was a very large, dense piece of legislation that has been in progress for some years.

I spoke briefly in my second reading speech on the purpose of the select committee process, which I won’t re-litigate, but I just want to highlight that many changes have been made, and that is the purpose of the select committee—to make sure that this bill was the best that it could be. Changes were needed, and after the Health Committee reported back to the House, as we’ve heard, Government did announce an exemption scheme for small-scale natural health product manufacturers and removed obligations that may apply to rongoā practitioners and activities, which were two areas that we had highlighted, as a committee, of being of critical importance.

Very serious concerns were raised by many of the submitters, and I want to highlight that, although we have been talking on many occasions, about mis- and disinformation, that’s not to say that every presenter was presenting us with mis- and disinformation; that’s a ridiculous assertion to be making. Many serious concerns were raised and we heard them. We read all submissions; we listened intently to the many submitters. One of the most serious concerns was around the importation of prescription medicines, and the Health Committee recommended changes to allow for personal importation, and that’s what we’ve done—I welcome that change.

I find it extraordinary to hear that it is not important that we ensure that cosmetics claiming sun protection factors actually need to adhere to those sun protection factors. The risks from sunscreen that does not meet standard are substantial. I’ve spoken for many, many minutes on the sunscreen products bill that the Hon Todd Muller bought forward, in support of that bill—which was intended as a placeholder before the more robust framework of this piece of legislation, in the Therapeutic Products Bill, which was a point that was agreed across the House. So I don’t know; we seem to need to go back in time and read our speeches again, some of us—on the other side of the House.

But to address misinformation quickly: you will still, under this legislation, be able to buy natural health products; you will not need a prescription. There is no list of prohibited ingredients and no ban on common herbs and spices used in cooking. This was never the intention of this piece of legislation; it is not in this piece of legislation, and to assert that it is is misinformation. I recommend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I’m just going to take a short call and join my colleagues to oppose the Therapeutic Products Bill. I think nobody in this House would deny that the intention of the bill is entirely valid and worthy when it seeks to protect, promote, and improve the health of New Zealanders. I think everybody in here would agree on that, but, unfortunately, this bill that we have in front of us—which is going to pass into law today—is a real failed attempt at that.

There’s a number of reasons why the National Party has opposed this bill since the second reading and during the select committee process. Primarily, to be clear, our concerns have been around the overregulation of natural health products, the effects of the bill on exports, the potential impact that will have on small businesses, the effects on cosmetic products and the users of those cosmetic products, issues around advertising to consumers, the definitions of “fit and proper person”, and, of course, the transition period.

I haven’t, obviously, sat on the Health Committee, but we’ve remained very close with our members who have sat on it, and in the differing view from them in the report back—and, indeed, in the report back itself—it does speak to an entirely shambolic process, and I would suspect that even members on the Government side have felt out of sorts with the way they’ve actually ultimately been treated by their front-bench members. We know that select committees do put a lot of work into the passage of bills through this Parliament and it’s really unfortunate that they have been denied the recommendations that they ultimately have made.

The purpose of a select committee, as we all know, is to scrutinise and approve legislation, and to make sure that when it does make its way to the statute book, it is as workable and as efficient and effective as possible. That is why the National Party supported this bill at the first reading—because we believe that there were parts of this bill that are valid and worthy. But, unfortunately, as it has progressed through the House, it has become more and more cumbersome, less and less workable, and less and less useful to members of the New Zealand public. It’s particularly concerning when we hear that the committee itself was not willing to wait for information from a further three working groups—and when we see numbers like 16,000 submitters opposed to this bill, we know that there’s a vast majority of New Zealanders who feel disenfranchised and unheard by the members of this Parliament, and that is a real shame.

But I come back to one of the original concerns that we have around this bill and that is the overregulation of natural health products. Pulling them in to what is effectively a medicines framework is an overreach. I just want to refer to the National Party’s minority view, where Dr Shane Reti said that the bill has a general ambition to require all medicines and active pharmaceutical ingredients, devices, and natural health products to undergo market authorisation with a therapeutic products regulator.

The National Party believes, as I’ve said, that this is an overreach. We have—and this is really important—no compelling evidence, and nor has the select committee, for substantive and significant or serious harm from natural products. And we’re concerned about the cost of compliance on small manufacturers and retailers. And that, I think, is emblematic of so much of the legislation that comes through this House. It is just not fit for purpose. It is imposing a huge cost of compliance, which ultimately trickles down to regular, ordinary New Zealanders who will ultimately be the users and purchasers of these products.

We also do hold concerns for the impact it’s going to have on a burgeoning and potentially growing export market. A number of other speakers have referred to the cost of living crisis that New Zealand finds ourselves in. Look, we as legislators, I think, have a responsibility to promote and invest—and when I say “invest”, I don’t mean financially—in ways and mechanisms and means that can build our export economy and allow us to get our products offshore. But all this bill does is stifle growth and stimulation and all those important ingredients that are required to get our products overseas and into those huge markets that we look at at the moment with quite some envy.

So on that point, I complete my submission to the House in opposition to this bill and, as other speakers have said, we will repeal it when we’re in Government.

Mānawatia o Puanga Matariki ki a koe koutou, koutou katoa. I’m pleased to be able to take a short call on the Therapeutic Products Bill third reading. I welcome and I’m very happy to see this bill in its third reading for the simple but very important reason it is intended to replace the Medicines Act 1981 and the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985—two pieces of legislation that are each over 35 years old; a lot has changed during those years.

It took a lot of work to get this bill to the stage. It’s going to be flexible to support innovation, it’s going to help control health technologies, it will align with international standards, and it will ensure safety of products and healthcare delivery in supporting both imports and exports.

I welcome the exemption scheme, a mechanism for small-scale natural health product manufacturers, removing obligations in relation to rongoā practitioners. Rongoā Māori is a taonga tuku iho, meaning that it is passed on to us by our tūpuna. For generations, whānau hapū have used rongoā—including my own—and I want to acknowledge all our rongoā practitioners across the motu and our obligation under Te Tiriti to actively protect taonga. Māori are kaitiaki of rongoā and continue to serve their people according to tikanga. I reflect a kōrero that I had back home with one of our practitioners. There is a mauri that comes with rongoā practitioners. No amount of legislation can, nor will, regulate rongoā Māori.

Advertising of medicines was another area of concern. We have put in place strong controls to help manage those issues that were raised by submitters. I joined the Health Committee towards the end of the bill’s development and its journey. It was insightful and a privilege to sit there amongst committee members listening and capturing the kōrero and thinking from all sides of the table, whether there was agreement or not. Work on this bill started in 2003; clearly, it’s not a bill we can say was rushed through.

Big thanks to honourable Ministers involved, officials, submitters, committee members. I commend this to the House. Kia ora.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. A lot has been said on this bill, so I’ll keep my contribution fairly short. The Minister of Health has said that this bill has been a long time in the making, and I do want to also acknowledge all of those who have worked very hard on this bill.

It was a real privilege to be on the Health Committee; I recently joined it. I want to commend the chair, Tracey McLellan, and also the deputy chair for their really good work on this bill.

The Minister talked about some lessons that were learnt from the COVID-19 experience. It was interesting to hear Mr Woodhouse trying to rewrite history on our world-leading response there. It was also interesting to hear Mr Woodhouse accidentally dropping the National Party’s slogan—I don’t know if anybody heard it, but it was: talk, but no action—because, of course, the National Party is the party of no action, and status quo. They would have done nothing in this regard. They would have left things the way they are, because they are the party of talk but no action. The new National Party slogan: talk, but no action. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

Madam Speaker, thank you very much for the opportunity to speak on the Therapeutics Products Bill third reading. Isn’t it interesting listening to the last speaker sort of saying, well, “rewriting history”? Well, if only we could rewrite history and, in particular, the history of the last six years. But, in less than 90 days, Kiwis will be able to readjust the future of this country, and I am sure they will make a sensible decision.

This bill is a bill that National will be opposing, that Dr Shane Reti has articulated very clearly, I think, in terms of the key elements of this bill and why we believe that it is not fit for purpose. It is not only that we have provided critique—we have attempted to be productive in terms of making suggestions around improvements to this bill, to the Government, as one loyal Opposition should do. However, I guess, in the consistency that we have become accustomed to with this Government, they have not listened and, as a result, the Supplementary Order Papers by Dr Shane Reti—very sensible and pragmatic suggestions to improve this bill—have been declined and, as such, our position remains the same: that we will be opposing it. Quite simply, if we are in Government—to keep it very simple—we will repeal this bill and replace it with a better option.

So, in that context, let’s walk through, probably, the key five points of this bill and the areas in which we believe it is not fit for purpose. The overall industry and the natural health products industry sector is around $1 billion. I appreciate that Kiwis hear billions and billions being spent by this Government regularly, so, for those at home, just reminding: a billion dollars is a large amount of money, and this industry is a significant scale industry. The fact that this legislation is going to increase the degree of regulation and make that more complex and more bureaucratic is a significant issue for the New Zealand economy, and is one of the key elements in regards to why we do not support this bill.

We’ve made suggestions in regards to the way in which we see that that sector should be regulated in a more improved manner because the points are noted around the fact that it has been a long time—1981. What was I doing in 1981? Well, I’ll tell you what, I wasn’t doing too much because I was quite a young fella at that point, but I was here. I don’t remember 1981 but—

Tama Potaka: Great year—great year.

SIMON WATTS: What was that?

Tama Potaka: It was a great year.

SIMON WATTS: Great year, Tama? I was only two years old, just for the record. I don’t often let the House know how long one’s age is, but I’m sure it was a great year. But anyway, it was the Medicines Act’s year of 1981. It’s probably not the reason why people remember 1981, but is a reason—of the year of the Medicines Act—and that was a long time ago, so we do accept that there needs to be some changes in that regard. But the way in which the Government is proposing to do it is not appropriate.

The second aspect is in regards to that this legislation—and this seems ironic; I don’t know who’s bought a tube of toothpaste from the supermarket. We don’t like to talk about supermarkets in this House too much lately, do we? The supermarkets are the villains; the supermarkets are the reason why inflation is still sitting at 6 percent today, or domestic inflation is sitting at 6.6. It’s the supermarkets that are to blame; it’s not this Government’s policies! Oh, no, no, no, it’s not this Government’s policies; it’s the big bad supermarkets!

Let’s go back to the point around have you bought a cheaper super toothpaste from the supermarket? That’s good to see that. So toothpaste and shampoo. Shampoo, obviously, a key ingredient that is part of everyone’s daily life.

Tama Potaka: There is no—

SIMON WATTS: Tama Potaka, I’m looking at that haircut of yours. For most of us, it is a daily routine, but for some less than others. That’s going to be regulated under this bill. Are you serious? Like, is this the biggest issue that faces the country today? Is it toothpaste and shampoo being regulated? No, I don’t think it is. No, but this is what’s going to happen. That’s going to be regulated. It’s going to require more authorisations and all that, you know—

Joseph Mooney: How much is it going to cost?

SIMON WATTS: —and that’s just not practical, is it? It’s not sensible. What does it cost? Good question, Joseph Mooney, good question. Don’t know the answer. I’m sure we might hear from the last call from the Labour speaker following me—might cover that point.

The other aspect—point three—is around sunscreen, right? So Kiwis, we all need to make sure we slip, slop, slap, right? You know, yes, that’s very important in terms of the UV, but this bill will require market authorisation around sunscreen. Todd Muller, the member who brought a private member’s bill to this Parliament—which was supported across the House—in regards to making sure that if you sell sunscreen in the supermarket, what it says on the tube should be what it does, right? That’s pretty reasonable from a consumer point of view. The problem is, at the moment, it doesn’t. It can say something on the tube and actually not necessarily do that, which is a major issue when it comes to sunscreen.

This legislation, basically, will repeal that piece of legislation and take us back to the bad old days around, when you go into the supermarket and you buy a tube of sunscreen, it potentially will not do what it says on the tin. How ridiculous is that? I mean, it doesn’t take too much common sense to think “Really?” I mean, are we going back to the fact that we don’t know what we’re buying? Short answer is—for anyone that’s a little bit worried about that—yes, that’s what’s being proposed by this Government in this bill. Again, we’ve tried to be constructive around feedback to fix that, but it fell on deaf ears. Again, that’s consistent with this Government. They are very good at not listening—I can give them points for that, but the reality is they should have listened to that advice.

The other aspect, in the interests of time, is in regards to the advertising. One of the other prior members from the Government said we’ve done a lot about making sure that we sort of strengthen the rules and regulations around advertising for products and making sure that prescription medicines will be advertised directly to consumers. New Zealand is only one of two countries in the world where pharmaceutical companies can actually advertise prescription medicines to New Zealand consumers. The reason why other countries don’t do that is because it drives unintended consequences if people go “Geez, I love that drug, it looks like it might help me fix what I need to do.”, and they go into the GP and they go, “Hey, wouldn’t mind that drug I saw on TV last night.”, and they go, “Why can’t I have it?” It’s sort of like—well, the GP goes, “Well, I sort of know a little bit more about medicine than what you do and, with respect, that’s not what you need. You need this.”

So it creates this whole sort of culture which isn’t in the best interests, clinically, around individuals’ health. In our view—I mean, isn’t this interesting, right? You know, one would say maybe the Government are looking after their rich mates in the pharma industry, right? They’re looking after their rich mates in the pharma industry, whereas we’re standing up for hard-working Kiwis going, “You know what, we should not be allowing pharmaceutical industries to do major million-dollar advertising campaigns against consumers to try and sell their drugs because that is not appropriate, right?” That’s where we stand on this side of the House. But on that side of House, it’s open slather: spend what you like, get in there and try and promote these drugs to consumers, and that is not appropriate. So we’ve again said, “That’s a ridiculous idea, it’s not appropriate.” Again, that fell on deaf ears. You sort of get the thematic around this; the consistency around that.

The last aspect is around the transition period around medical devices, and there’s sort of an explosion out there in terms of different medical devices that are coming on to the market. If you think in the diabetes space, for example, around insulin pumps, or you think about other devices—the continuous glucose monitoring sensors that type 1 diabetics are using now—and all this other stuff. A lot of these pumps have artificial intelligence in them now so they talk to the sensors and they adjust the medication to make a better quality of life for those people that have a number of these chronic diseases, including cancer as well. But this legislation is going to bring in more bureaucracy into this process.

Interestingly enough, right—this should be no surprise—is that most of these products aren’t necessarily built or designed and made in New Zealand. Actually, a lot of them come from overseas. There’s been a bit of a rigour through the Food and Drug Administration or other international European on these products. You know, do we need to add more bureaucracy to say, actually, we need to recheck, recheck, recheck these things and draw out the process? Of course, our view is we don’t; we just need to get these products to consumers so they can use them. The Government’s view is, “No, no, let’s throw in a bit more bureaucracy into the process.”

So, looking at the time, I’m nearly out of runway but, hopefully, that gives you a bit of an overview in terms of why we think this is an inappropriate bill, why we oppose it, and why the fact that the National-led Government on 15 October will repeal and replace this bill.

Thank you, Madam Speaker, and may I say that that contribution felt as long as the work it’s taken to get this bill done—over many generations, almost.

It’s a pleasure to take the final call on the Therapeutic Products Bill. It’s something that we’re really proud of. I want to start my contribution by acknowledging the Hon Dr Ayesha Verrall for all of the work that she’s done. And she herself, in her earlier contribution, also wanted to acknowledge the work of the former Minister of Health, the Hon Andrew Little. I also would like to acknowledge all the officials who we saw firsthand putting in such a power of work—this bill is a detailed and meaty piece of work—and I’d like to acknowledge all of the people on the Health Committee for their camaraderie and their help.

The Medicines Act has served us well over an extended period of time, not so well in more recent times as it certainly hasn’t kept pace with international developments in healthcare. Healthcare is exciting, it’s innovative. It’s always going to change, and it’s really, really important that our legislation is there to scaffold that and support it. Consumer safety is always going to be a number one priority and we make no apologies for that. So this is a modern, fit for purpose regulation of medical devices and of cell, gene, and tissue therapies. It’s, importantly, flexible enough to support that innovation that we know is important and ensure that there’s an effective control over those fast-developing technologies.

As the Minister herself said earlier on, the bill is therefore a once-in-a-generation chance for a health system to make this change. We talked about the fact that there were changes at the second reading, and we know the Minister introduced a Supplementary Order Paper that exempts small-scale natural health products and manufacturers, removes the obligations that the bill might apply to rongoā practitioners and services, and sensibly and proportionately addresses some of those concerns around advertising.

I just want to touch on one of the really important changes that the select committee itself made, and that was in regard to the personal importation of prescription medicines, which my colleague Sarah Pallett spoke to earlier. That was something that people came to us with really genuine, serious concerns about. We heard it early. We made the necessary adjustments and we can certainly allay those concerns. People will be able to order and import prescription medicines for their own use, provided they have a prescription from New Zealand health practitioner. So we’re very proud of this bill, and I commend it to the House.