Thursday, 2 August 2007

Unseemly scrap on joint agency ignores facts, says Dunne

United Future leader Peter Dunne says the unseemly scrap between Annette King and John Key over the Australia New Zealand Joint Therapeutics Agency completely ignores the facts.

"The two-tier proposal was actually put forward by Mrs King after discussion with me last August," he says.

Mr Dunne has released an exchange of correspondence between Mrs King, Health Minister Pete Hodgson and him, which shows the genesis of the two-tier proposal and United Future's support for it, subject to the government agreeing not to ban Direct to Consumer Advertising of pharmaceutical products.

"The government subsequently agreed to our position on Direct to Consumer Advertising, and we expected the legislation to proceed on that basis.

"I was approached by the Prime Minister in November following her discussions with the Australian Prime Minister asking us to support the introduction of legislation that included everything under the joint agency, and I responded that we would do so, but that we would not support the legislation beyond its introduction unless it reverted to the form agreed above.

"It was sometime after that that other parties started talking about compromise amendments, but they have never discussed them with us, nor submitted any documentation to us," Mr Dunne says.

Mr Dunne says that as far as United Future is concerned the only compromise position on the table is that agreed between Mrs King and him last August, which the government has now decided not to progress.

ENDS

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