IAHF Webmaster: Breaking News, Whats New, New Zealand and Australia, What to Do
IAHF List: See the transcript below from the December 4th New Zealand Parliament exchange between Health Minister Annette King and Sue Kedgely of the Green Party as Sue exposes the governments deceitful efforts to impose harmonization with Australia over the regulation of dietary supplements.
Seems the New Zealand government is trying to pull a fast one on the New Zealand people who need to spring into action per the information below to threaten to vote out of office any politicians who vote in favor of the treaty that threatens to "harm"onize New Zealand vitamin laws to Australia's.
Shades of what just happened a few short months ago in England where the ruling Labor government totally ignored over a million signatures opposing harmonization of England's vitamin laws to the EUs, and where the Labor Party stacked the vote in the Standing Committee on Health.
Surprise, Surprise, the Kiwi government has only been going through the MOTIONS of listening to the people there....
Sure is too bad the people of New Zealand have been disarmed, along with the people of Australia, Canada and England. Wherever people have been disarmed, genocide has always followed. See the information below and please forward it to more people.
I urge all New Zealand vitamin consumers to get on talk radio shows and raise HELL: LAY SIEGE to your MPs offices and threaten to ride them out on a RAIL if they continue to mess with you on this... I urge all of you in New Zealand to immediate get and use the latest special issue of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine http://www.orthomed.org/jom/jom.htm which thoroughly discusses the safety and efficacy of vitamins and minerals.
If your government continues to ignore you because they're on the nob to the Cartel, you might consider leaving the country or organizing an armed revolt.
Still more evidence that we can all use against CRN which would have us believe that a "victory" "for the people" has just occurred at Codex this year. What a joke, we're being railroaded everywhere in the world right now, and its only going to get worse unless more people fight back.
Please forward this widely and read the information below- urge everyone you know to sign onto the IAHF email list for updates via http://www.iahf.com :
From: JAN MABEY
To: jmabey@healthandherbs.co.nz
Sent: Thursday, December 04, 2003 11:44 PM
To All our Supporters
TRANS TASMAN THERAPEUTIC GOODS AGENCY
THIS ARROGANT GOVERNMENT HAS TAKEN UNBELIEVABLE ACTION
THEY HAVE NOT WAITED FOR THE SELECT COMMITTEE REPORT
Despite all the work Citizens for Health Choices, dietary supplement industry associations and consumers have done since 1992 and the overwhelming evidence against proceeding with the joint agency with Australia for dietary supplements. It has today been revealed in Parliament that Annette King, Minister of Health has deliberately betrayed all New Zealanders who believe in freedom of choice in healthcare.
The following question was to Annette King on her chat room 8th Oct 2003.
GARY: We have been informed that despite complete rejection by the dietary supplement industry and well over 35,000 dietary supplement consumers, constitutional lawyers and economists and before the Health select Committee has submitted its report; you have stated that the Trans Tasman Joint Agency to regulate dietary supplements will proceed as planned. Why are you ignoring the overwhelming opposition in New Zealand to the proposal for a Joint Agency?
ANNETTE: Gary you have been misinformed.
A transcript of the events in Parliament this afternoon is at the bottom of this communication.
Select Committees are part of the New Zealand constitutional process. I believe it is unheard of for a government to take action before a Select Committee before a Select Committee report has been tabled. This calls into question New Zealand's whole "constitutional process". It means that New Zealand Select Committees have no power at all and are a waste of time.
Annette King has now stated in Parliament that the decision was made in November 2002 to proceed. She allowed the Health Select Committee to proceed with their enquiry over the past 8 months, knowing full well that she would ignore totally any recommendations.
She allowed industry, consumers and tax payers to waste tens of thousands of dollars and many thousands of hours providing very valid arguments against the proposal.
The Minister advised Australia, that it was proceeding months ago.
The Minister has still not advised New Zealand interested parties.
The Minister has signed the death knell for hundreds of small New Zealand dietary supplement companies and committed the New Zealand public to having a reduced range of supplements at probably greatly increased prices. She has virtually shut the door to dietary supplements from countries other than Australia.
The Minister's reasoning about time delays to government is seriously flawed. It would appear that there was overwhelming pressure from Australia to proceed.
The Minister's comments that it was because of Pan are seriously flawed as not one dietary supplement has been analysed to show that there was anything wrong with it. The Pan situation arose over a pharmaceutical over the counter drug product, not a dietary supplement.
URGENT ACTION REQUIRED
1. Immediately contact your member of parliament by phone, fax, e-mail and ask him/her and their party to vote against the treaty and bill when it is presented in Parliament.
2. Ring radio talkback programmes Radio Pacific and NewsTalk ZB continually day and night over the
next few days to alert all New Zealanders to what has happened.
3. NOW IS THE TIME TO TELEPHONE, FAX, E-MAIL, WRITE TO HON. ANNETTE KING:
HON. ANNETTE KING, Minister of Health
Hon. Annette King, Minister of Health
e-mail:
aking@ministers.govt.nz
w.c.nairn@extra.co.nz
kilvirnieeo@xtra.co.nz
POSTAL ADDRESS
Freepost Parliament
Hon. Annette King
P O Box 18888
Wellington
PHONE: (04) 470 6554
FAX: (04) 495 8445
Some ideas on what to say in your communications:
1. We don't want to have a joint agency with Australia for the regulation of Dietary Supplements
2. We want to keep the power to regulate Dietary Supplement within New Zealand.
3. We want to be able to choose which Dietary Supplements we want to use, and don't want to pay extra for that privilege due to costs of unnecessary regulation.
4. We feel angry that we have been consistently told in letters from the Minister that the decision had not yet been made, when the decision was made November 2002 to have a joint agency with Australia for the regulation of Dietary Supplements and have been
5. We do not agree on signing a treaty with Australia on such a matter as this. It appears to be nothing more than a dangerous experiment. Nowhere else in the world has there been such a joint agency established.
6. That Complementary Health Products should be regulated as a separate category from medicines and food.
7. That the preferred approach should be for NZ to self-regulate and for a mutual-recognition arrangement be struck with Australia.
8. That products should be registered after being measured against a black-list of forbidden ingredients
9. We want the freedom of choice as to how we protect our health.
PLEASE ACT NOW!!!!!!!!!!
Kind regards
Jan Mabey
SECRETARY
CITIZENS FOR HEALTH CHOICES
TRANSCRIPT FROM NZ PARLIAMENT & 4 DECEMBER 2003
Trans-Tasman Therapeutic Products Agency-Bilateral Treaty
11. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) to the Minister of Health: Has the Government made a decision to include the regulation of complementary medicines and dietary supplements in the proposed trans-Tasman therapeutic products agency, and when does it expect to sign a bilateral treaty between the Australian and New Zealand Governments establishing the agency?
Hon ANNETTE KING (Minister of Health): Yes. The Government has decided to include the regulation of complementary medicines and therapeutic dietary supplements in the proposed trans-Tasman therapeutic products agency. The treaty will be signed on 10 December.
Sue Kedgley: Why has the Minister made this decision before the Health Committee, which is inquiring into this very issue, has even reported back, and what does she say to members of the Health Committee who have been toiling away on this issue for 8 months, only to find at the end of it that that we have completely wasted our time because the Minister had already made up her mind?
Hon ANNETTE KING: It is not reasonable to expect the Governments of New Zealand or Australia to wait any longer for a report from a select committee-a report that the Government did not call for-on something that was first decided in September 2002, 15 months ago. Governments cannot hold up agreements on that basis. What countries would deal with us if we did?
Mark Peck: What process will be followed once the treaty has been signed?
Hon ANNETTE KING: It is proposed that the national interest analysis and a text of the agreement be tabled in Parliament in accordance with the parliamentary treaty examination process.
Dr Lynda Scott: What are the cost implications for New ZealandR17;s large complementary health-care market of having a trans-Tasman therapeutics product agency rather than mutual recognition and a strengthened New Zealand regulatory system?
Hon ANNETTE KING: Work undertaken by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research suggests the costs of regulating complementary medicines within a joint agency would be significantly less than that of a New Zealand regulatory scheme.
Sue Kedgley: What was she saying to the hundreds of submitters who made submissions in good faith believing that we were conducting a genuine inquiry into this issue, and does she understand how they may consider her decision to be arrogant and extraordinary, and that they too may feel-like the members of the Health Committee-that they have completely wasted their time because she had already made a predetermined decision on the matter that the committee is inquiring into?
Hon ANNETTE KING: The Cabinet made a decision in principle in November 2002 that complementary medicines would be included in the joint regulator. We have waited patiently for the select committee to report back. It still has not reported back. We are working closely with the Australian Government. We have considered what we have heard along the way. I think the member may well even be pleased when she sees the extent of what has been considered in the joint regulator.
Sue Kedgley: In light of comments by the Minister for Small Business yesterday that Australian businesses face much higher compliance costs than New Zealand businesses do, why is she supporting a proposal to regulate dietary supplements by an expensive, Australian-based therapeutic goods agency, when overwhelming evidence was presented to the select committee that that will increase the compliance costs of small New Zealand dietary supplement industries, and that no further assurance will be given to consumers as a result of these increased compliance costs, as the Pan Pharmaceuticals debacle amply illustrated?
Mr SPEAKER: That question was far too long. The Minister may comment briefly on one or two aspects of it.
Hon ANNETTE KING: This Government has decided to move, in conjunction with Australia, to regulate complementary and therapeutic dietary supplements because of the Pan Pharmaceuticals situation. Many New Zealanders demanded that we put in place regulation, and the work that I have seen shows the impact on small business of what we intend to put in place will be minimal.
Sue Kedgley: Is she aware that the overwhelming majority of submitters, consumers, and dietary supplement industries are completely opposed to the course she is pursuing, and does she agree with Margaret Wilson's comment, in respect of the Supreme Court debate, that a remote and inaccessible final Court of Appeal is not a hallmark of modern democracy; if so, why is her Government supporting the establishment of a remote and inaccessible body, based in Australia and staffed principally by Australians, to regulate dietary supplements in New Zealand?
Hon ANNETTE KING: The member is wrong on just about every point she has made. She has assumed that the body is remote, she has assumed that it is in Australia, and she has assumed that it is under AustraliaR17;s control. She is wrong on all those points.
IAHF Comment: Annette King is one of the worst Cartel Stooges on the Planet. She's right up there with Grossklaus at Codex. Kiwis- lets see what you're made of! Don't take this insult laying down!!!! We're all with you!! Hang in there!! We're all pulling for you!
For Health Freedom,
John C. Hammell, President
International Advocates for Health Freedom
556 Boundary Bay Road
Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA
http://www.iahf.com
jham@iahf.com
800-333-2553 N.America
360-945-0352 World
