Submissions for the Natural Health Products Bill are due 24th February 2012. Need help writing your responses to the NHP Bill? Click Here For Templates and offending clauses.
After consulting with analysts, members of the natural health industry, our panel of experts and board of trustees, Health Freedom is now in a position to give you more information to help you draft your submissions for the Natural Health Products Bill.
A united front from consumers, wanting to preserve their full access to natural health products, is imperative to the success of getting a fair and reasonable regulating authority.
The Natural Health Products Bill is very light on detail. Analysts have described it as a ‘thin’ Bill, which gives very wide powers to whoever is charged with administering it. This is far from what is required to meet what Health Freedom supported in the agreed Joint Industry statement, which was very detailed.
We have been advised that the reason for the lack of detail in the tabled Bill was due to time pressure. The department responsible for drafting new regulations is called the Parliamentary Council Office (PCO). The PCO was under strict instructions to get this Bill tabled before the election. Both the Nats and the Greens insisted on this for good reason:
If Labour had won the last election they would have directed the regulation of NHP’s back to the TGA. The tabling of this Bill would have prevented them from doing that. As a result we have a rushed Bill with a lot of mistakes in it. It is somewhat better than the alternative.
Much of the legislation that is introduced in NZ can be found in similar guise in other countries. Our bureaucrats rely on other regulators in many instances.This is precisely what WE WANT TO AVOID.
The legislation proposed in the Joint Industry statement will be the first in the world to put NHP’s in their own category, instead of under foods or drugs. Neither of these categories have been appropriate as they are clearly not capable of allowing NHP’s to realise their potential.
We’ve said it before: Once again, we New Zealanders are MAKING HISTORY.
This is what led to the tabling of a ‘thin Bill’. The thinking was to add the detail in the regulations after the Bill had passed. While we understand the circumstances leading up to the tabling of a thin Bill, and we want to give our support to the new development of a stand alone regulator, the Bill in its current form is not acceptable to Health Freedom consumers and the industry, or other NGO’s in the Health Freedom community.
With such a Bill we would be completely dependent upon who was in charge. In the best case scenario it could be run exactly as intended in the Joint Industry statement, or in the worst case the administration of it could be delegated to the TGA.
The success of our joint efforts will be dependent on you doing your part and sending in your coherent, un-emotional, rational comments, with the details you want to be included in the Bill.
What Can You Do
- Stay informed by joining our updates newsletter here.
- Write a submission and send it to the Health Select Committee by 24th February. (Here is a copy of the Bill). You will be getting help with that through our updates newsletter, so be sure to sign up above. You can also visit our Facebook Page to ask questions and get information.
- Make a donation to help fund our campaigns to save your health freedom.
- Visit your local MP on the issue and ask that they do not support the Natural Health Products Bill in it's current form unless changes are made according the the list Health Freedom will be publishing here soon.