Gary:
I have an important press release from the Natural Health Alliance, of which I'm an active member. The Alliance supported New Zealand First during the General Elections as our primary strategy to combat the major threat to the natural health industry and natural therapies, namely, the Therapeutic Products Act.
Press Release
Dear concerned health consumer,
Good news! The Therapeutic Products Act is one step closer to being thrown out!
Last Friday 3 November, the results of the general election special votes were released, and the final make-up of our Parliament was finalised. The National Party lost two seats it won on election night, meaning that Christopher Luxon requires the support of New Zealand First to form a government or pass legislation.
This was exactly the outcome that the Natural Health Alliance has worked for over the last six months. We concluded earlier this year that our best chance of restoring commonsense to our industry was to support a political party in the general election that promised to repeal the Therapeutic Products Act.
After Rt Hon Winston Peters threw his support behind our NHA campaign to fight the Therapeutic Products Act, we knew it was imperative that New Zealand First became a necessary component in the formation of the next government, and that has been achieved and confirmed by the final election results released last week.
The next New Zealand Government will be a coalition between National, New Zealand First and ACT.
The repeal of the Therapeutic Products Act is a key policy of New Zealand First. In a speech launching his party’s campaign in the Port Waikato by-election on Sunday, Winston Peters reaffirmed his commitment to that goal, publicly using the phrase “gone by lunchtime”.
While it is too early to pop the champagne corks we are heading in the right direction.
But our work doesn’t end there. Once the Therapeutic Products Act has gone, we must turn our minds towards what replaces it. As we stated in our recent message, it has always been the NHA’s goal to ensure that the regulations covering our industry are based on a common-sense approach under-pinning a benign trading environment. The current laws under the Food Act and regulations have served our industry well for many years and we firmly believe should continue as the regulatory regime.
We do not want to keep fighting the same fight every five to 10 years. We need to ensure that our industry has certainty. We can only make decisions that affect the long-term nature and viability of our individual businesses if we have a rules-based system that ensures durability. We must look to ring-fence natural health products to protect our members interests from bureaucrats who want to regulate our industry in the same way as Big Pharma.
As the representative organisation for manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers of natural health products, those who have direct skin in the game, we plan to represent our industry in these talks. The NHA intends to take a leading role on behalf of our members. And we will keep you informed every step of the way, either by these newsletters or public announcements.