Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill

I move, That the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill be now read a third time.

The Government is delivering on its commitment to New Zealanders to repeal the Therapeutic Products Act—the TPA. Repealing the TPA is about more than delivering on an election commitment; it means the Government can continue its important work to prioritise timely and equitable access to quality health services. Repealing the TPA will allow for better replacement legislation to foster innovation within our healthcare system and for fit for purpose regulations around natural health products.

I would like to thank everyone who made a submission on the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill. The TPA was intended to modernise the current outdated regulatory framework for medicines, medical devices, and natural health products. However, industry, practitioners, and consumers told us and Parliament that it didn’t get the balance right. The Government agrees. We also believe, along with the vast majority of those who submitted on the TPA, that natural health products should not be regulated alongside medicine and medical devices.

We therefore have a chance to put sensible legislation in place for natural health products, including dietary supplements. This will take time as we consult with the sector on an appropriate way forward. However, we do have an opportunity to make improvements now to support our exporters.

During the committee debate, the Government amended the bill to move the Dietary Supplements Regulations 1985 from the long-repealed Food Act 1981 and reissue them under the more recent Food Act 2014. While a small change to the bill, this will bring meaningful change to New Zealand’s dietary supplement exporters. The change we have made will allow for manufacturers of exported products to apply for exemptions from New Zealand - labelling composition requirements so they can better compete in international markets. The Government has an ambition of doubling New Zealand’s exports within a decade, and this sensible change will help achieve that.

This is only the first of many improvements this Government is planning to support our exporters to succeed on the world stage. Officials in the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry of Health are already working on other changes to the regulation of dietary supplements to support this growing sector.

Our actions here in repealing the TPA show that we are a Government who listens. I have heard those in industry who have grave concerns about the TPA and how it was going to be implemented. At the same time, patient groups and practitioners had pointed to the shortcomings of our current Medicines Act, which dates back over 40 years. The Government has listened to those concerned and is moving forward with the work for a new medical products bill. This new bill will not only ensure timely access to medicines but also support our innovators, our health practitioners and, most importantly, our patients. It will include provisions ensuring New Zealand’s health system is resilient and able to respond to future public health emergencies.

Repealing the TPA was a key deliverable for the Government for 2024. The passage of the TPA repeal bill has shown the Government’s commitment in getting important work done. The TPA repeal bill delivers on our promise to New Zealanders to get rid of law that would have created unnecessary barriers to access and unnecessary barriers to innovation. Repealing the TPA also sets the stage for us to put in place a better law that gets the balance right. This Government is committed to making good and long-lasting changes to the regulations of medicines, medical devices, and natural health products. I commend the bill to the House. Thank you, Mr Speaker.

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. Here we are on—what is it?—Tuesday, 10 December, talking about a piece of legislation, a repeal bill, that didn’t need to happen under urgency, that didn’t need to happen now, that had plenty of time to happen at a stage where the Government could have been a little bit more open with their dialogue, a little bit more generous with their ability to answer some important questions about this bill—if they had made a different decision and that was a decision not to put it through urgency.

Never mind, we are here, and now we find ourselves in the position of being at the third reading. What is there left to say about the repeal of the Therapeutics Products Act (TPA)? Well, quite a bit, actually, as it happens, because it’s very clear that—well, I know I still had lots of questions that I would have liked to have had the opportunity to ask the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Casey Costello during the committee of the whole House stage, but I didn’t get that. Given that this is my last opportunity to ventilate and to ask those questions, I’ll probably rhetorically work my way through some of them as I muse about this third reading.

Underlying all of that is the fact that I still, having sat through this process, am no further ahead in being any more convinced about the fact that the TPA should not have just been amended. There was absolutely no need to repeal. It’s clear to me that whilst, on the surface, the Act is being repealed, below the surface, people are still working in the regulatory space. There’s some parallel aspects involved in progressing this piece of legislation, and it would have made absolute perfect sense to do that through an amendment process. The only reason it’s not being done through an amendment process is because that wouldn’t have satiated or satisfied the appetite of the people that the Government needed to appease, essentially. That is why we find ourselves in this position.

As I said, there were several things that have been left up in the air in terms of clarity, and I certainly am no clearer about whether there needs to be an abbreviated regulatory pathway from here on in, because the Minister has constantly said things or said in response to questions, as a means by which to bat off a question, that there is no impact because the bill hasn’t come into effect. Technically, that is correct, but the regulations were all—that is the runway that was in place, the regulatory work that was being done. That takes time.

This repeal Act and, essentially, starting again in two different formats—does that regulatory pathway now need an abbreviated pathway to still get us to a similar time, which is September 2026, so that the new Act that’s repealing this one, that we don’t know about yet, that we haven’t heard much about at all; we know it’s coming. I would have thought that if the Government had campaigned on a particular thing and a particular promise to a particular group of people, they would have at least done some homework and made sure that they were ready to do what was needed, rather than just simply repeal. Again, that feeds my suspicion that it was just the repeal that was going to satiate those people.

Nevertheless, it is only true of the Minister to say that there will be no impact in relation to questions that have been asked if she is able to ensure that the new piece of legislation will be in effect by, roughly, September 2026. That, to my mind, would have necessitated quite an abbreviated regulatory pathway. I think this House is now none the wiser of what that pathway’s going to look like. We are none the wiser when we talk to people in the community or stakeholders in the community about what that process might look like or what the outcome might look like, because we haven’t been able to get those answers.

As well as that, there were also several things left unsaid in relation to natural health products. It’s all very well to say that the Minister has an intentionality of parcelling natural health products out into its own separate piece of legislation, but I just really wanted to know more about why the Minister believed it would have been necessary to do that. What were the advantages? What were the potential disadvantages of having a separate legislative framework? And whether she was actually willing to take some responsibility if things went wrong in the meantime. We’ll never know what the outcome of that will be.

One of the other things that was frustrating not to be able to get some clarity on during this process—and therefore, again, this third reading is the only opportunity to make these comments and to ventilate the issue—was the Minister’s thoughts and the Minister’s intentionality towards direct-to-consumer advertising. I certainly remember, the first time round with the Therapeutic Products Act, that was a really important piece of the puzzle. It was something that exercised people. It might seem like it’s not that important, but New Zealand is one of the only countries that still has the ability to advertise medicines directly to consumers.

Of course, that raises all sorts of ethical concerns. We heard from GP associations and various clinical groups saying that they can tell when a new wonder drug or a new product has started an advertising campaign on TV because all of a sudden they are incredibly busy and valuable GP appointment time can get taken up from people who are now seeking a prescription for something because they’ve seen it on TV. It’s a thorny issue and it’s something that the Therapeutic Products Act had grappled with, and I would have loved to have heard what the new Minister was going to do in that respect.

The natural health product side of this equation—and I can see why the Minister has chosen to section that out and to handle it differently, but it’s still really, really unclear about the risk proportionality. A lot of the criticism of the TPA was based on a misnomer that natural health products shouldn’t be treated in the same way as medicines—and, of course, they never were intended to be, and that is the nature of risk-proportionate regulatory frameworks. It would have been good—again, the theme of this third reading speech is missed opportunities. During this process, we simply haven’t had the opportunity to properly look at this bill, and we haven’t properly had the opportunity to consider, as we should have, the current Act, which is still in place. A big part of that would have been looking at natural health products and what the Minister’s intentions were about that.

The real consequences of repealing this bill, and this Act going through under urgency on a Friday at this time of day—having no chance to have a little bit of time between the second stage, between the committee of the whole House stage, and between the third stage to mull things over, to think about what’s being said, and to do the bill a proper service in the way it should have been done. Nevertheless, this is the way we find ourselves.

I still think that the Government needs to explain why it’s not choosing simply to amend. In lieu of an explanation, in the void of an explanation, we can only assume that they simply don’t have a plan. I think that that has borne itself to be very true today. If they don’t have a plan, they don’t know what they’re doing, and that doesn’t leave us with much confidence. If they don’t have a plan and they don’t know what they’re doing and they’re waiting for this to be done and dusted so they can kick off the next stage, then we really are going to be left behind. We understand, on this side of the House, having gone through the previous process, how long this will take.

My concern for the New Zealand public is that by doing this, by this Minister fulfilling a promise—an election promise and a coalition deal—the people of New Zealand won’t get the modern Act in place by September 2026 that they would have done. Instead, they’ll be left with a void, and that is just another way that this Government has demonstrated that they are taking us backwards and leaving us in a mess.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. We just cannot support this repeal, particularly when there’s a huge void being left when it comes to a future legislative agenda.

Hon Member: There’s no void.

RICARDO MENÉNDEZ MARCH: I hear the words “no void”, and I think it’s disingenuous to get lost in the technicism. It was rightfully pointed out by the previous speaker, Dr Tracey McLellan, that we are repealing something that hasn’t fully come into effect, and I’m just literally going to paraphrase the previous speaker: the runway has been set, and I think that cannot be right—resources were put into place so that, actually, we could have a modernised regime to regulate medicines, medical devices, and natural health products.

I think, when it comes to legislation, it’s a lot easier to burn things down than to create new regulations and regimes. Sometimes when things are not working, like, for example, when we have a benefit sanctions regime that is not working, I do think there’s a good argument to burn it down. On the other hand, though, when it comes to issues like this, we have heard from several sector experts, patients themselves, who think that simply going back to the Medicines Act 1981 isn’t the solution, and that we do need an alternative.

To me, there are several concerns around the use of urgency around this, right? I know in a previous speech there was a lot of bickering from this side around how it was Friday in a normal working week—yes, completely right, people will be working—but, actually, it’s worthwhile taking into account that the public has not heard what genuine alternative plan this Government has in place to create a robust regulatory framework to, for example, centre patient safety when it comes to really serious issues that have been raised by patient safety advocates. To me, it’s concerning that when the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Casey Costello first spoke, the narrative was predominantly around issues around commercial gain, and there was very little substantive focus on patient safety issues. This is concerning, because while I can acknowledge there were robust exchanges last term around the commercial implications of this Act, a really important consideration should have also been the other elements of this Act that would have enhanced patient safety.

I also want to touch on something the previous speaker spoke on, and I feel really strongly about this; I actually had, during the passage of the Therapeutic Products Bill at the time, an amendment to it that, actually—I had a weird moment of shared purpose with Dr Shane Reti at the time around direct-to-consumer advertising, and this is relevant to this Act because we were told at the time that an outright ban of direct-to-consumer advertising wasn’t needed. In a weird way, Dr Shane Reti and I actually agreed that it was something that should have been done, that we should have had an outright ban.

We both had similar amendments at the time seeking to ban it outright, because the previous speaker was completely right; we’re one of the few countries who allows this to continue to happen. We have heard from GPs about the impact of direct-to-consumer advertising, how it takes up time for GPs, because the information that is filtered down through the advertisement isn’t always particularly helpful, and that actually clogs up time for GPs’ services. This ends up benefiting pharmaceutical companies and not necessarily public health.

This Act could have allowed for a regulatory framework around that. We were told that it could have been something that could have been looked into as part of it, but now we’re just going back to having no mechanisms to address this. This is an issue that I do think does need to be looked at by the Government, and if Dr Shane Reti at the time felt really strongly about it, I do look forward to hearing from the Government, now that somebody like himself is in charge, about what plans there are in place to address this issue.

I think it’s also important that we acknowledge that, actually, amongst genuine concerns and nuanced conversations about the Act in the last term, there was a genuine misinformation campaign that was coming from the ground in relationship to issues in the bill. This is why debates around issues like medicines and medical devices and natural health products do need to be grounded by evidence. These are areas that are fast-evolving and that therefore require constant attention; submitters, including those that may have held the view that this Act wasn’t fit for purpose, told us that we still needed alternatives beyond the Medicines Act 1981.

I do think it’s incumbent on the Government to be clear and transparent about what’s next, because while we may have had some comments about natural health products, that is actually one component of what this Act would have covered. Again, it is concerning to see us simply just repeal the Therapeutic Products Act. When it comes to the regulation of medical devices, for example, as I said earlier, we are in a situation right now where our health workforce is particularly stretched, where patient safety advocates have told us that, when we do have a health workforce that is particularly stretched, we risk having far more incidents where medical devices that are already deemed to be of concern are used, and where more injuries and more incidents that can cause harm may, basically, be put in place.

We’re now having a pretty concerning combination of issues—a repeal of an Act that could have addressed some of these issues in future, a Government that is under-resourcing our health sector, and, on top of that, that has an unwillingness to come forward with a transparent and robust plan to, I guess, bring forward a replacement of the Medicines Act 1981 and to have a modernised, robust regulatory framework to address issues, as I said earlier, on medicines, medical devices, and natural health products.

One of the things that we considered when we were debating this Act in the past—and I hope the Government considers going forward—is that whatever comes next, if we are to have another regulatory framework where a lot of the decision making ends up being left to regulations, as it was in the case of this Act, we need to make sure that those regulatory bodies are adequately resourced so that we don’t enter into a space like we did last term in the debate, where people rightfully felt that many of our health entities hadn’t actually carefully considered the voices of patients. That’s feedback that I do think we earnestly need to take on board.

To address that requires a Government that is willing to invest in the Public Service, to unlock the potential of the Public Service to be as much in touch to the ground as they can be, to enable the voices of patients to help weave whatever alternative comes next—if there is to be an alternative, which we actually don’t yet really know about. When we talk about some of the patients most affected by some of the issues that were raised in previous debates, we’re talking about people with rare health conditions, with really life-impacting disabilities or injuries that may be really hard to actually discuss in public. Therefore, that actually requires a really well-resourced public sector to go into our communities to have these really sensitive conversations.

Finally, as we close off this debate, I do want to mihi to all the patients who have actually helped drive change in this area over the course of the years, including, actually, helping to create the very same Act that the Government is about to repeal. It was the bravery and the voices of these patients—talking, for example, about the harm that medical devices such as surgical mesh have caused—that helped drive conversations at a national level, and actually helped support people internationally as well to drive those conversations. We are seeing how in other countries, medical devices, now at risk of being left unregulated here, are now being explored to be more tightly regulated in the future. I think that should serve as a lesson for us that, actually, when we do have patients giving us, very graciously, their experiences and their information to enable change for the better, we ought to listen.

I encourage the Government to come forward with an alternative to the Medicines Act 1981 to centre the wellbeing of patients in our communities and to resource the public sector so that our communities can be involved in creating that future.

I’m very pleased to rise on behalf of ACT to talk about the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill. ACT campaigned on repealing the Therapeutic Products Act, let’s be clear. We were very pleased to get that into our coalition agreement and we’re very pleased to deliver this today. Why did we campaign on that? Because, like in so many areas, the last Government got it wrong. They did not engage properly with stakeholders. They did not understand how to do public policy and they totally missed the mark. They didn’t involve patients and patient organisations properly. They didn’t involve healthcare professionals properly. They didn’t involve industry properly. And everyone agreed the Therapeutic Products Act was not fit for purpose; we know that from the submissions on the repeal.

What we are going to do in ACT and as part of the Government is actually get in place safe, effective, and efficient regulations that will actually get medical technologies to New Zealand faster and quicker. Just like our record investment in Pharmac—yes, that was this Government that delivered that; getting the latest medicines to New Zealanders—we’re going to do the same in the area of medical technologies. We’re actually going to talk to people, we’re actually going to find out how to do it, and we’re actually going to make sure that what we are getting is the best medical technologies. In addition, today, we’re doing something great by allowing our wonderful natural product exporters to actually get on, export the products, and make this country some money. This is a brilliant day. ACT is very happy to be supporting this bill; we are again delivering real change for New Zealand.

Thank you very much, Mr Speaker. Look, this is a very simple repeal bill. Most of the Health Committee submitters who came in were in favour of the repeal. The original bill, the Therapeutic Products Act (TPA), was not fit for purpose. That was clear in the feedback. We are going to repeal this bill. Noting that the TPA has not commenced yet—it doesn’t commence until 1 September 2026—it is a simple repeal. This Government will provide enduring legislation to make sure that we get this right. I commend this bill.

As my colleagues have previously said, we oppose vehemently the repeal of this Therapeutic Products Act 2023. People actually deserve medical products that are safe. They should be able to trust that when they are patients and when they are getting medical care, that the products that are used are regulated. I would say that, actually, patients probably assume that there’s good regulation in place if products are being used on them, especially here in Aotearoa where we have so much and we have the ability to actually have a world-class healthcare system.

If this Act is repealed, it leaves Kiwis without a safety net and it leaves people without adequate safeguards that the medical products used here are fit for purpose and won’t be harmful. It’s really concerning that when this repeal goes through, we’re going to be relying on an Act that is decades—decades—old. It really speaks to—if we’re to take the kōrero from the other side—this potentially well-meaning but flip-flop society, where we are actually just not on the fast track to anywhere except 1981. I think that that is super-concerning for us, because we just want to have laws that actually make sense out there outside of this Chamber.

The Therapeutic Products Act, which my colleagues across the House want to repeal, was worked on for over 15 years across successive Governments, and now that pathway has just been slashed. We are, like I said, on a fast track back to 1981. I think that it’s important that we think about the huge number of medical treatments and advancements and devices that are on the market now that will not have the protections in place that patients need and deserve. Regulation isn’t about banning medicines. It’s about having an up-to-date and modern healthcare system, which is completely achievable if we prioritise the people of New Zealand and patients who need our care.

Look, we have heard from patients who have raised serious concerns that out-of-date laws are leaving them with lifelong pain and injury, and it’s just not good enough. We can do better. Patients have told us of the heartbreaking harm caused by surgical mesh that has been dangerous and should not have been used. Every single surgical mesh case is heartbreaking and shocking. Now, former Green MP Jan Logie worked really hard to bring this to light and to be a strong voice and advocate for women who had been harmed in these medical procedures. She stood here in this House and said, “I will be the voice for you here.” She also said, “Harm caused by mesh can be life changing and include chronic pain, infections, and organ damage. People want to know that the health system is going to make them better, not add further to the pain and suffering they’ve already experienced.”

Now, we know that the Government is repealing this and are saying, “Hey, we don’t have anything to show you. We can’t show you the plan of where we’re going. But you know what? It’s OK. Let’s go back to 1981.” We oppose the repeal of this Act. Thank you.

I rise to support the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill. The Therapeutic Products Act 2023 has raised significant concerns amongst our community health sector and industry. Therefore, I commend this bill to the House.

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): The Hon Rachel Brooking.

Hon Member: It’s you.

Sorry. Thank you, Mr Speaker. The split call there was my issue. I’m delighted to now be speaking after what has been a long week—still on Tuesday, 10 December, despite the rest of the country being on Friday afternoon—speaking here on the Therapeutic Products Act Repeal Bill and—

Cameron Luxton: They finished the joinery this afternoon; they’re still going.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: I can hardly hear myself speak, for whatever is happening over there.

I’m happy now to be talking about the Therapeutic Products Act (TPA); sad, of course, that it’s being repealed. Why am I sad about that? Well, that would be because this is a very inefficient way to go about lawmaking. We know—we have heard from previous speakers—that there is law around medicines and it’s from 1981. For 15 years, there was work trying to modernise that law. Why was there work trying to modernise a law from 1981? Well, that is likely to be because there have been many advances in the medical world since 1981. There are many more medical devices. There is new medical equipment. There is stem cell and CAR T therapy.

These are all things that were not around or not very well advanced in 1981 when that legislation was done. And, of course, we all know that we’ve recently had a COVID emergency that also doesn’t—

Hon Member: Do they know that?

Hon Carmel Sepuloni: No idea.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh! My colleagues are asking if the other side of the House remembers the COVID emergency, and if we listen to them and hear, we would think not. No, no, it doesn’t seem to—not sure that they want any sort of regulation or have any memory of that, but it is handy to have some laws on hand before an emergency happens rather than after it. [Interruption]

ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Teanau Tuiono): If you could keep it down. It’s important; the nation is listening. Doc—the Hon Rachel Brooking.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Not doctor—there we go. The TPA, as we’ve heard, covered a wide range of issues, and we know that some of these issues were unpopular. It seems that what that side of the House has done is responded to a very noisy group of people who were concerned about some particular aspects of that Act, and so they’re repealing the whole thing. They’re not dealing with the specific concerns at all; they are just getting rid of the whole thing, when there could have been discreet amendments to deal with the issues that they campaigned on and were concerned about—but no.

We know that this TPA legislation relied heavily on secondary legislation—that is, specific regulations. I’ve heard the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Casey Costello say in one of her contributions that the work that was being done into developing those regulations will be continued, so I will take this opportunity to say to the Minister that I hope that she does use a robust process and doesn’t undo that 15 years of work that we have heard about. We’ve heard about it in a number of speeches and I’m sure that the Health Committee heard about it as well.

We also know that that regulation that was going to be made under the TPA would have been proportionate to risk. I often hear members from the other side of the House talking about how everything should be risk-based, particularly if it comes to undoing what they call red tape around environmental protections, but here there seems to be no interest in acknowledging that those regulations would have been proportionate to the risk of that medicine or device, which means if it was a low-risk natural health product, it would have had very different regulatory requirements.

We know that harm can occur without regulations and that there are gaps in the current law, hence the 15 years trying to fix that. We see in the select committee report that “Other submitters were concerned that the repeal of the TPA may leave gaps in the regulation of medical devices within New Zealand, as the TPA introduced regulations not already covered in the Medicines Act.” Then the select committee report goes on to a different issue, and this is around Medsafe, which I know some members opposite will be interested in; that was that many submitters “pointed out issues with the current regime for the regulation of medicines, medical devices, and NHPs.”

This included—and we’ve heard about that direct consumer advertising from my colleague—“Section 29 of the Medicines Act allows doctors to request the supply of a medicine that has not been approved by Medsafe. Submitters told us that, under the Medicines Act, nurse practitioners have all the prescribing powers of doctors, with the exception of being able to supply unapproved medicines. The TPA would have allowed the prescribing powers to be expanded, subject to the approval of the Nursing Council and the Minister of Health. Submitters suggested that this could be amended in future legislation.”

We know that there were many good things about the Therapeutic Products Act (TPA). The TPA was needed. This Government has just decided to do what they do best. What is that? That is taking this country backwards by simply being exceptionally lazy and just repealing things willy-nilly. Now, we’ve seen that in the resource management space. About this time last year, I was standing here with the repeal of both the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act. What happened is that the Government promised, “You, Labour”—sorry, not you, Mr Speaker, but the Labour Party—“when in Government, did a lot of work to reform the Resource Management Act, and had a long process and then two separate bills, and would have made it so much more efficient with the Spatial Planning Act and the Natural and Built Environment Act. It would have taken all the heat out of the consent process and put it into the plans and the national direction—but, no.”

The Government said, “We’re going to throw this out, and we’re going to replace it one day. But, first of all, we’re just going to do these little bits and pieces here and there. Oh, and do you know what else we’re going to do? We’re just going to totally override the existing regime that we’ve gone back to, which everybody agrees doesn’t work. We’ll just do a fast-track. We’ll just say, ‘Oh, hey, our friends over here who want to do a particular project that we’ve got on to a schedule of the bill, let’s just do that and ignore the legislation that we know we don’t like.’ We won’t fix it. We won’t fix that legislation. We’ll talk about some future point that we might fix it.”

We can all sit here and agree that the Medicines Act 1981 is out of date. The Resource Management Act 1991 is out of date. But what are we going to do about it? We’re going to complain about it! We’re going to say any—

Hon Members: We’re going to fix it.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I’m hearing from the other side that they’re going to fix it. We haven’t seen any fixes in any of these things. All that’s happening here is it’s a lazy repeal and these empty promises of fixing things. It’s hard to fix things. It takes a lot of intellectual heft to fix things. You have to talk to a wide range of people, not just your mates. You’ve got to talk to everybody about how to fix difficult regulatory issues.

Hon Nicole McKee: That’s something Labour never did.

Hon RACHEL BROOKING: Oh, I think I heard someone say that Labour never talked to people about reform. That is very interesting, given the very full select committee processes that happened, that had exposure drafts to bills, that had panels with reports that went around and were talked to everybody about. But that is not what we see with this Government—no. They just go, “Oh, we don’t like this issue. There’s some political heat in it. I know, we’ll repeal it.”

Before I take the next call, I know that everybody’s excited to be still here, but if I could ask people to contain the chatter so that we can hear the speeches more clearly.

Mr Speaker, thank you. Unlike that side of the House, the MPs on this side of the House listen to people. We work for people. That is why we are repealing this Therapeutic Products Act. I commend this bill to the House.

I just was getting really excited then and thought that we were about to get an actual contribution to share with us what they actually heard from those people that they say they have talked to. But, no, we just got another 10-second contribution. The members on the other side of the House say that they have done this, but they have given us no evidence of them actually doing that in any of their contributions this afternoon.

I spoke earlier, in the second reading of this bill, and I want to say that after the very short committee stage of this bill, none of the concerns that I had when I spoke just a short time ago have been allayed—not a single one of them. I go back and make my points that this repeal is taking us backwards. This Government just cuts and repeals and has no plan for us to discuss and debate. They are taking us back to 1981. They think the system that is there is fine, that they can leave it in place for an undetermined amount of time because we didn’t hear when the replacement is going to come. I didn’t hear a good argument for why the issues that they say are in this legislation couldn’t have been worked out in secondary legislation, with industry, in the regulations in the time that is still available—“Nope, we’ll just repeal it and we will say that we’re going to do something, but we will not commit to the time frame for that.” Let me guess, they’ll probably say, “before the next election”—we will all wait until then and probably not see it. We didn’t get any clearer information on that.

On a very serious note—those points were serious, but on a more serious note—what I think we’re seeing here is the addressing of industry concerns over that of stakeholders and patients. You are giving them certainty, but it is at the cost of the certainty that stakeholders and patients needed. This is a political gesture, and I’m going to guess that the ACT Party and the New Zealand First Party are going to race to claim that they have delivered for their voters, because it is both of them who are saying that it was their negotiation skills that got this particular bill over the line. It is all about political expediency and not truly that of the issues that needed to be addressed from outdated legislation.

In my earlier contribution, I was talking to the disappointment, frustration, and anger of patient advocates, particularly around surgical mesh. As I said, I was a former Associate Minister of Health who had that issue as part of my portfolio. An advocate in that space, Carmel Berry said, “I’m horrified. After so many years of developing and rewriting the act and getting it through … shame on them.” She is horrified that it is being repealed when it was only signed into law last July.

Now, the Ministry of Health last year paused the use of surgical mesh to fix incontinence until safeguards are in place, including a register and more training for surgeons, “But [Carmel] Berry said there was now nothing to stop another tragedy like mesh, which has so far cost ACC more than $32.5m in claims.” I did not hear the entire time I have been in the House for this bill anything from the other side that gives me any confidence that that solution is coming any time soon. This Government is rushing through this repeal under urgency with no plan to replace it. That leaves everybody, including industry friends, with uncertainty. I am so concerned about the patients, like the advocates that have spoken up, who are concerned about the repeal of this bill. I do not commend it to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This is not taking us anywhere; this is repealing the Therapeutic Products Act, which has not yet come into effect and has no impact on anyone. I commend this repeal bill to the House.

Kia orana, Mr Speaker. Well, it’s almost like déjà vu. For my last contribution at the second reading, I followed Dr Weenink. This time around, she’s added an extra couple of sentences. It’s really disappointing to hear that Government members on their benches are not taking calls, as part of this process, to actually explain to the public of Aotearoa New Zealand why this is a good idea. It’s almost like they’re handing around a little laminated card that says, “I commend this bill to the House.”, and then they sit down. They’ve got to that particular part in the week where it’s “Who can say it the quickest and sit down?”

I’ll tell you what, once my colleague the Hon Willow-Jean Prime resumed her seat, I knew I was ready to go, because there was no chance they were going to make a full call—no chance at all. At least they’ve been consistent. We oppose this particular bill on this side of the House, and it’s almost like we have been talking to vacant seats of individuals over there, because the contributions that have been made from other members on this side of the House have been very considered, very erudite, and are really raising some of the issues of concern, and there is absolutely nothing but crickets and a little bit of chipper over that side of the House.

This is a bill that, as colleagues have said, will be taking New Zealand backwards. Why? Because the very Act that is currently in place is one that was seeking to replace, I guess, what 1981 looked like in some respects—technology, innovation, medical approaches, medical devices, all of these sorts of things. Members on that side want to take us back to that, because they have not identified an alternative instead. What they have said is that we’re simply going to wipe the slate clean and we’re going to start again in 1981—we’re going to start again in 1981—instead of acknowledging that there has been huge innovative progress, there have been huge opportunities around technological advancement and development. They’re not interested in that.

This bill, which is a repeal bill, basically seeks to get rid of 15 years’ worth of work in this Parliament—as has been said, 15 years of work from Governments of different colours, not just a Government of a particular shade, shall we say. This is a Government now that wants to wipe all that away and say, “Do you know what? We’re not going to actually have any replacement opportunity in place.” The Associate Minister of Health the Hon Casey Costello, in her response, talked about international opportunities. International opportunities are important—absolutely they’re important—but so is protecting the health and the wellbeing of citizens and residents of this country. That is exactly what this bill is going to compromise. It is going to compromise the health and safety of anyone who wishes to engage with anything that relates to health.

Todd Stephenson: There’s no change—no change.

TANGI UTIKERE: Now, Mr Stephenson says, “No change.” Well, if you don’t need to change, why do you need this bill? If you don’t need to change, why do you need this bill? What we have in place is a suite of work that is under way to address some of the real concerns and issues that have been raised. We’ve heard a little bit about surgical mesh. There was a response, granted, from the Minister around that, acknowledging that that was an issue—nothing from Government members, even though it has been raised on more than one occasion.

This is simply winding back the clock, and some would say, if you kind of looked at a parallel universe, it would be much earlier than 1981. There is always the opportunity for certainty, and what this Government is doing is quite the opposite. It is actually providing uncertainty in the area of health and wellbeing and of community safety.

We’ve heard a wee bit this afternoon about the direct consumer approach—the need for consumer protections—and we’ve all heard “Call within the next 30 minutes and get two for free.” The thing is, when it’s about consumer engagement and protections, what is so wrong with that? Well, members on this side of the House would say, “Nothing.” What members opposite are saying is “Actually, we’re not interested in addressing some of the protections for consumers when it comes to natural health supplements and the like. We don’t want to have a regulatory system that’s centralised to allow one port of call, so to speak, instead of all the different types of ad hoc legislation, whether they be primary or regulation through secondary legislation.” Instead, this is a Government that wants to remove all of that.

I want to thank my colleague the Hon Rachel Brooking for picking up the point again about nurse practitioners. I touched on that in my second reading contribution. Not a single member of the Government since that point has identified the crucial role that nurse practitioners play. The Health Committee, granted, did contain that in its report, but the members opposite didn’t bother to talk about the impact that this would have—where this has been called for from communities of interest, where this particular bill will, basically, wipe away the opportunity that nurse practitioners have in the community to prescribe medicines that doctors would be able to but with two additional criteria: one, that there’s certification or some form of approval process through the Nursing Council, and the other is that the Minister of Health directly would need to approve it.

Members opposite, having had that information presented to them, are not interested in that. That’s not changing their minds. They don’t care about the role that nurse practitioners have. They don’t care about the communities in Aotearoa New Zealand that have called out for nurse practitioners to be able to do that as part of the work they do. Then, again, they don’t support the front-line workers in our health sector anyway, so it really comes as no surprise to me or to other members of this House on this side, because that’s their approach. Even though it’s pointed out to them, they’re not interested in that at all. This is what this bill does: it strips away opportunities for those hard-working members in our community in the health sector to do exactly that.

I proposed an Amendment Paper that the Minister didn’t like, so she voted it down, which is disappointing on a Friday afternoon, but that’s her prerogative.

James Meager: It’s a Tuesday.

TANGI UTIKERE: It is a Tuesday, yeah. For those that are actually tuning in, you might be wondering why the member from the Government’s saying that it’s Tuesday. It’s Friday 13th and we’re still here at Parliament, but the clock stops on the day that urgency starts, so it’s been a long, long four days here. I think it’s actually been longer than the National and Government members were actually anticipating, but that’s all right—they like to get an easy ride from time to time.

The proposal that I had in the tabled amendment was to, effectively, draw out to a 12-month period when this particular bill would come into effect. There was nothing to be afraid of around that. I mean, the Minister herself said that there was some work going on, but she didn’t really outline the details of that, and that just goes to the fact that this is a Government that is very happy to say, “You know what, we don’t like that. Why don’t we like it? Well, because as part of our election campaign, we promised to a smaller group of individuals that we need to deliver on this. We’ve delivered, tick the box, don’t really care—move on.” Well, that might be the particular purview of this particular Government, but it is not the purview of members on this side of the House.

Arena Williams: Not how it’s meant to work.

TANGI UTIKERE: It is not how it is meant to work. This is an unfortunate bill. It is an unfortunate bill that members opposite have not been able to elaborate on as to their reasons for supporting this. They’ve had ample opportunities. When New Zealanders reflect on the parliamentary record as to why this Government decided to repeal a piece of legislation and they have a look, there’s not going to be much actually there for them to go on, because the Government simply has not made out the case.

This is another example of the Government wanting to take this country backwards with its approach. All they needed to do was simply amend the existing legislation. Wasn’t that hard, wasn’t that bad. They simply needed—

Hon Members: We did.

TANGI UTIKERE: Well, members opposite, they mustn’t know. They said, “We did, we did.” That’s what a repeal bill is about: you’re actually not amending it; you’re getting rid of it. That’s what the word “repeal” actually means.

The reason why they’re not actually amending it is because they don’t have anything to put in and replace to amend it, so the easiest option for them is to simply wipe it all out and repeal it, and that’s exactly what they are going to do. They do not know what they are going to do. They cannot provide certainty for those in our community that want certainty when it comes to engaging supplements, but also when it comes to accessing medical devices of a whole range there.

This is a dumb decision, and instead of addressing these concerns that they might have through an easy option by way of regulation or secondary legislation, they are deciding to simply throw it all out with everything else. Unfortunately, we’re not surprised on this side of the House. It is a dumb piece of legislation, it is the wrong thing to do, and so we will continue to oppose it.

Arena Williams: To the last minute.

TANGI UTIKERE: To the very last second. On that basis, I do not commend this bill to the House.

Thank you, Mr Speaker. This bill provides certainty to the industry, to consumers, and to practitioners, much like the legislative agenda this week. This week, the Government’s delivered.

Hon Members: Mr Speaker?

Let’s see whose—Dr Lawrence Xu-Nan. [Interruption]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. After all, we are looking at a call that was for the Opposition. I thank all of the members who had a last jolt of energy on this final stretch. Again, thank you all for being a part of this very long—I would say over 80 hours—10 December.

Now, in terms of this bill, one of the things that we wanted to check on with the Associate Minister of Health the Hon Casey Costello during the committee stage is what plan is there going forward and what plan has been done up until this stage. I think one of the things—and the Minister did explain and sort of enlighten the committee on a few elements, but one of the things that we don’t know for certain and there is no certainty on at this stage is the fact that we don’t know what the time line is for this new bill. That has been the concern of some of the submitters. It is at least good to know from the Minister that work on this bill has, basically, stopped almost immediately. Again, if the Government really wanted to, this was something that they could have introduced as early as last year, but that wasn’t the case and there wasn’t sufficient time during the committee stage to tease out why that was.

I do find it concerning that countless hours and months of work to produce 441 clauses, four schedules—in total, 257 pages of legislation—was able to be struck down and repealed with a sweep of one sentence in clause 3 of this bill. It is so easy for anyone—not just for the Government—to undo months and years of work. We know the public talks about wasteful spending—and the Government talks about wasteful spending. I ask: isn’t this an example of wasteful spending, of undoing everything that others are doing?

There is something that was very interesting that the Minister mentioned during the committee stage, and that is in Amendment Paper 239, and particularly with regard to export potentials. Again, what we haven’t heard and what hasn’t been produced is that that might be the intent but, again, that was new. That wasn’t simply a repeal of what is in the Therapeutic Products Act. That is something that the Minister wanted to do, and we have not seen or got confirmed evidence or information or advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and New Zealand Trade and Enterprise, on the feasibility of any of this. I am concerned that when we do add in new amendments like this, when we do repeal legislation like this, that other countries have moved on and we are stuck in the 1980s and we have not moved on with the times.

As we’ve seen—and I mentioned before—with some of the latest concerns from New Zealand -owned or New Zealand - based or New Zealand - backed natural health products and the interactions with a US free-trade agreement, it does cause us concern whether we are potentially looking at tougher sanctions or higher non-tariff barriers from certain countries that this legislation would not have factored in.

Overall, like I said in the beginning, I am concerned. We have had a number of bills this week; every single one of them was to undo what the previous Government has done. Every single one of them is a case of tit for tat, and this is no different. Truly, if we want what is best for Aotearoa and for the people of Aotearoa, we should be looking at things that are going to be good for everyone and working in a direction that is going to be good for everyone. But I don’t get a sense of that from any of the bills that we have been debating on this year. So I will not commend this bill to the House.

Members, this Tuesday has come to an end—it has become a Friday. The House stands adjourned until Tuesday, 17 December 2024. Kia pai te mutunga wiki—have a great weekend.

The House adjourned at 4.48 p.m. (Friday)