Natural Health Products Bill

Natural Health speech by Sue Kedgley, during the first reading of the Natural Health Products bill in Parliament.

The Green party is delighted that the Natural Health Products bill, which will set up a stand-alone natural health products regulator within the Ministry of Health, is before this House.

Instead of lumping natural health products in with food and medicine, the bill sets up a system for the regulation of natural health products, as a separate and low risk, category of product.

This bill, which the Green party helped to negotiate, has been a long time in gestation.

I don't intend to dwell on the past, but for the record I would like to point out why I believe the regulatory system this legislation sets up is a vast improvement on the previous proposal, that was before this House, to regulate natural health products through a heavy handed Australian regulator.

The Natural Health unit will be located in Wellington, not in Canberra, and will be staffed by New Zealanders, not Australians, and we will retain our sovereignty over it.

It will set up a low risk regulatory scheme which is appropriate for the low risk nature of natural products; not a heavy handed regime.

There will be relatively straightforward system for the approval of natural health products. Before bringing a product to market, a business will have to enter product information onto an online, electronic data base. But virtually all ingredients and products that are already on the market will be automatically approved by the regulator, because any products that are used in other countries with recognised regulatory schemes will be automatically recognised, under our scheme.

So if a natural products company already has their products approved in Australia, they will be automatically approved in New Zealand, as Australia will be recognised under our scheme as an approved overseas regulator.

There will also be an open ended list of ingredients, not a so called permitted list, as exists in Canberra. The problem with having an Australian-style permitted list, is that if an ingredient is not on the list, it would be an illegal product, and we don't want to see a situation where natural herbs like comfrey which have been used for millennia, could be deemed to be illegal. That's why we are very clear that the list of ingredients will be an open ended list. And there will be a completely separate list of prohibited ingredients.

What this legislation effectively sets up is a disapproval system, such as is found in countries like the United States. There will be a presumption that new products coming into the market are acceptable, unless the regulator has reason to be concerned. New ingredients which have already been approved by a trusted overseas regulator will be automatically recognised by the Natural Health Regulator.

This is very different from the onerous approval process for new ingredients that exists in Australia, where an applicant has to undergo an extensive and expensive process to prove that any new ingredient is safe. Many companies claim the Australian system is so expensive that they cannot afford to bring in new and innovative products onto the Australian market. We certainly don't want that to happen here.

Under our scheme, manufacturers will be able to make traditional claims, claims that are recognised by trusted overseas regulators, or claims that are backed up by a suitable level of evidence.

The practice of Rongoa Maori will be exempt from the bill, as it is a taonga of Maori and should be governed for and by Maori according to tikanga.

Products made for a consumer and low risk products like homeopathy; and export only products.

The Green party wanted to have a clause in the legislation to recognise the Treaty, and we will be seeking to amend the legislation to include one. We also want to see dedicated Maori representation within the new regulatory body provided for in the legislation.

We are pleased that government will fund the costs of the regulatory policy, advice, as well as compliance, enforcement and monitoring. Set up costs will also be paid for by government. Otherwise the agency will operate on a cost recovery basis.

When we began work on this bill, our aim was to set up with a regulatory scheme which protects consumers and ensures that natural products are safe and true to label; but which was not so onerous that it put a whole lot of natural products businesses out of business.

And I am delighted that our proposed scheme is strongly supported by the natural health industry. We have a flourishing natural products industry in New Zealand, with around 450 companies supplying natural products in New Zealand, and we want to ensure that the industry continues to flourish.

Natural Products New Zealand say they are very pleased with the direction the regulation is taking. They believe it will bring benefits to both manufacturers and consumers, and will facilitate innovation and export growth, while at the same time providing protection to consumers.

I believe the Green party has made this legislation better -considerably better—by our involvement in negotiating this bill. We listened to submitters during the consultation process; we worked closely with officials on the legislation, and as a result, we have improved the regulatory system.

The bill demonstrates the value of smaller parties like the Green party having an input into the policy and legislative process. It implements our promise, made before the last election that we would work with whoever was in government to try to progress key issues that we think are important, such as natural healthcare.

It's satisfying too, that having led a campaign to defeat the previous Australian based regulatory scheme, we have been able to work constructively to come up with a much better alternative.

More and more New Zealanders are turning to natural health products to keep themselves well. The Green party strongly supports natural health products, and natural healthcare.

Indeed I believe we are the only party in this House which has a policy that actively supports natural healthcare and wants to see it integrated into the mainstream health system. We worked with the Labour party during the last term of government and secured funding for a small unit that was investigating how natural healthcare could be integrated into mainstream health system, but I believe work has virtually suspended over the last few years.

The Green party wants to see in New Zealand what already exists in many countries overseas -traditional healthcare like acupuncture and naturopathy recognised and accepted throughout our health system. We want to see natural health practitioners working alongside doctors, using whatever treatment is judged to be the most effective, and natural remedies and treatments offered in public health organisations and hospitals.

This may sound like a radical policy to some, but I would remind members that many policies that the Green party has embraced that seemed radical at the time, are widely accepted by the public and in this House today—climate change, peak oil, clean rivers, a capital gains tax, to name just a few.

Some have questioned why we need any regulatory scheme at all, given the low risk nature of natural health products.

The reality is that more and more natural health products are imported into New Zealand; some from countries with a poor safety record. So it's important that importers know that we have a regulatory regime which requires that every product sold in New Zealand is safe and true to label.

Another problem is that under the present law, most companies that are making advertising claims about their natural health products are technically illegal, as companies are not allowed to make health claims under existing law. Existing legislation also covers only a small range of products, not the much wider range that is available on the market.

So the law did need updating, and that is why we hope the bill will be widely supported, and will progress rapidly through the House in the next term of Parliament.

We anticipate that there will be many submissions on the bill, and look forward to listening to any further concerns that are raised by submitters.