Greens Betray Natural Health Industry

The Green Party is supporting a proposed new system of regulations that would limit innovation and choice, and make all health supplements more expensive, according to Peter Butler, director of leading online retailer HealthPost. (based in Collingwood)

The National Party and the Green Party are working together to develop a New Zealand-based regulatory system for natural health products that are sold in this country. Mr Butler says under the current proposal outlined in aConsultation Paper, a small group of bureaucrats at the Ministry of Health would maintain a ‘white list’ of permissible ingredients.

“Our company stocks over three thousand different products from New Zealand manufacturers alone,” said Mr Butler. “Just the cost of putting an innovative new product or ingredient up for consideration will limit its availability to the public.”

Mr Butler said the Consultation Paper acknowledged that the regulators will probably have to ration the number of new ingredients they examine for approval every year.

“If the Bill is passed some specialist low volume ingredients and products will simply never make it to the New Zealand market,” he said. “I could understand the imposition of new regulations if there had been a spate of poisonings or misadventures, but these belong almost exclusively in the realm of pharmaceutical medicine.”

Under the proposed Natural Health Products Bill all products will have to pay an annual fee or levy to fund the regulators. Mr Butler said this will be inevitably passed on to consumers and will make exports of New Zealand supplements more expensive, relative to exports from lightly regulated countries such as the USA.

Of particular concern to HealthPost is the suggested provision that any product exported must meet the standards of the importing country.

“This will make it impossible to stay current with the regulations of all the countries we export to, for each product,” he said. “Currently the HealthPost website clearly places the onus on the overseas customer to check if the supplement is allowed to be imported, before they order.

“Our industry has been lulled into a false sense of security by Sue Kedgley's endorsement of the proposed Bill,” said Mr Butler. “We thought the Green Party were our allies and that the National Party would not support legislation that restricted access, increased costs and deterred exports, to fix a non-existent problem.”

Submissions on the Consultation Paper for the new Bill close on Monday 17th May, and HealthPost is urging concerned consumers to let their feelings be known to sue.kedgley@parliament or the Minister of Health tony.ryall@parliament.govt.nz .

ENDS

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