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Hello to all our supporters
AUSTRALIAN SENATE INQURY UPDATE
The Australian
Senate Inquiry into the TGA Amendment Bill 2005 has been extended
to 7th November 05, there are still a few days to make
your submission. This Bill will make the draconian TGA penalties
even worse and take them to a level that could destroy most natural
health businesses. It will give the TGA more power than ever
before.
To send your submission to the Community
Affairs Committee Inquiry Secretary click
here for our Australian mass emailer which has a
template submission letter of opposition. You can use as is or
make your own submission by changing the text. Simply fill
in the form details, click select all members and scroll down
and send. By clicking the select all members button you
will also send it to all the Australian Senators and MP's. Whether
or not the Trans Tasman agency goes ahead, this Bill aims to
make changes Australia would be stuck with. Here's a chance
to tell the Australian Parliament what you think.
To view Mike Browning's work on the " What's
wrong with the TGA Bill pdf" click here and the "Draconian
Fines pdf" click here.
NEW ZEALAND UPDATE
With the election behind us and the dust finally having settled,
it's a good time to review where we are in our fight to defeat the planned
TGA takeover of our natural health and medical devices industries.
The NZ Health Trust spent the months leading up to the election travelling
around many of the major centres speaking about difficulties with the
Trans Tasman Therapeutic Goods Agency and explaining how critical it
is that every New Zealander stands up for their future health rights
and makes sure the proposal doesn't succeed.
By way of recap, although Labour signed a Treaty with Australia
in December 2003 to give the TGA control over both countries (against
the unanimous recommendation of the health select committee), that will
not come into effect unless legislation passes through the NZ Parliament
adopting the provisions of that treaty.
As with the previous Government, the Labour party does not have a
simple majority in the house. What that means is that Labour needs the
support of at least Two other parties to pass the legislation.
Where we stand is that all the other parties have expressed varying
degrees of concern about the TGA proposal and several are clear that
they would not support it on any terms. In politics of course nothing
is ever guaranteed. Under MMP deals are the major currency of Government
and we know from our sources that Labour party and Medsafe officials
are working overtime behind the scenes to see if they can encourage any
other party to go with them on this. As we hear it all sorts of
promises are being made but as the NZ Health Trust keeps reminding people,
no matter what "concessions" Medsafe claim will be made, once the power
to control this industry has gone off shore, just watch how fast those
various concessions will disappear.
We must keep the pressure on all parties and let them know this
is not an issue that will "go quiet" that they can slip through without
too much grief. We have a new Minister of Health now in Pete Hodgson
and the new Associate Ministers of Health are Damien O'Connor and interestingly
Peter Dunne of United First.
With both New Zealand First and United Future taking Ministerial
positions in the new Government, we will be talking closely with both
parties as well as continuing our work with the Greens, ACT, the Maori
Party, National and Jim Anderton's Progressives. We encourage
all our supporters to keep reminding their MP's exactly how they feel
about letting Australia control health in New Zealand.
While the Beehive has been sorting itself out for the next three years,
the NZ Health Trust has been as busy as ever. From the nationwide
meetings we have made many valuable new contacts who are helping us to
make sure that this issue and its real impact (as distinct from the official
line coming from the Ministry of Health) are understood by as many New
Zealanders as possible. When this issue is explained almost without
exception people are outraged - what has proved harder is getting
mainstream media interest. While we're making good progress, we would
love to hear from anyone with media contacts that might be able to help.
Support for the New Zealand Health Trust is growing by the day and
thank you to all of you who have filled in or helped distribute our "Save
our Supplements support cards" click here to order. If you
are holding stocks of these please get them signed and back to us as
soon as you can. We are as confident as ever that together we will
stop this Government giving away New Zealand's rights to make its own
decisions.
Keep checking out our website for
new information and expect further updates from us soon.
Kind Regards
Dave Sloan
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