Toi Te Taiao: The Bioethics Council meeting minutes - 20-21 February 2007

Held at James Cook Hotel, Wellington

Present:

• Martin Wilkinson (Chair),
• Marie Bismark,
• Helen Bichan,
• Simon Wright,
• Cordelia Thomas,
• Jane Tier,
• Waiora Port,
• Rosemary du Plessis,
• Peggy Fairbairn-Dunlop,
• Eamon Daly (from 12 noon on 20 February)
• Mark Fisher (21 February only).

Day 1 - 20 February

The meeting commenced at 9.40 a.m.

Apologies: Chris Cunningham, Mark Fisher (20 February only), Eamon Daly (for lateness on 20 February), and John Pennington.

Karakia

Waiora Port gave a karakia.

Welcome

The Chair welcomed everyone to the meeting.

Introduction of new members

The Chair welcomed Rosemary du Plessis, new Council Member, and Jane Tier, new graduate member of the Secretariat.

Minutes of last council meeting

That the minutes of the meeting held on 4 December 2006 be accepted as a true and correct record and be placed on the website, subject to the usual modifications, and subject to the following amendments:

• Under the subheading “Visit to Otaki Women’s Health Group”, amend the fourth sentence to read: “They had presented the Maori context and given real examples, and then held a dialogue on the topic of human embryos.”
• Under the heading “Maori Working Group”, amend the second subheading to read “Wai262 hearing”.
• Under the heading “Secretariat Report”, delete the word “compliment” and substitute the word “complement”.
• Under the heading “Other Business”, amend the third subheading to read “Report from the Wilf Malcolm Centre”.

Waiora Port / Helen Bichan
CARRIED

Matters arising from the minutes

Action List

The Action List from the previous meeting was reviewed as follows:

Council Members’ Payments

A Council member’s working day is 6 hours for a full Council meeting. Members should claim for hour(s) spent on matters such as participation in teleconferences and preparation of submissions. The Chair receives an extra payment, as do the Chairs of working groups. The new Deputy Chair (Helen Bichan) has elected not to receive an extra payment for that position, but will take the extra payment when taking up the position of Acting Chair.

Action: Secretariat to include this information in policy documents.

Chair's report

Martin reported that he was now Council Chair, and Helen Bichan Deputy Chair.

Piri Sciascia has left the Council, and Chappie has left the Secretariat. Chris Cunningham’s term on Council expires in August.

Martin had been to Dunedin to meet the Chair of the National Ethics Advisory Committee, Andrew Moore. The meeting had been very helpful.

He had also met Prof Skegg, to discuss human tissue issues and Prof Mark Henaghan, Dean of Law at Otago University, who is a member of ACART.

Secretariat's report

On behalf of John Pennington, Simon said the report has been tabled, and he invited questions.

The Chair, on behalf of Council, congratulated John on completing his course.

Cordelia’s Travel Proposal

The proposal and accepted abstract for the conference presentation were annexed to the secretariat’s report. Cordelia said that, if the travel was approved, she would attempt to arrange contact with institutions in Vancouver which conduct public engagement processes.

That Council agree to Cordelia’s proposal.
Moved: Waiora / Martin
CARRIED

Council members said that, for general information purposes, they would like to know about other Council members’ proposals to attend conferences. They would also like to hear from secretariat and Council members about upcoming conferences that may be relevant to the work of the Council.

Budgets

Simon said that there was enough money to meet current commitments to the end of the year.

He and John are developing a parallel accounting system to track spending more closely.

Marie asked that, instead of having a phased forecast, Council receive more variant reporting. She would like to do some training on financial governance.

New Budget Working Group – Composition

It was agreed that members of the Budget Working Group would be: the Chair or Acting Chair, Marie Bismark, Rosemary du Plessis.

Action: Secretariat to organise Budget Working Group meeting.

Report of Human Tissue Working Group

The submission had been written, circulated for comment, and submitted. Council thanked Martin, Waiora, Marie, Cordelia and Chappie for being on the working group. Oral submissions will be held in the next two weeks.

Submission to Human Rights Commission

Cordelia had prepared a written submission to Human Rights Commission about genetic discrimination in insurance. She will meet with the Commission in March to talk about their work programme.

Māori issues

Replacement for Piri and Charlotte

Council expressed a wish that the new appointments process should take place as quickly as possible in light of the excessive demands on Waiora at present. Simon said that the Ministry had a “long list” of potential candidates.

Replacement for Chappie

Council said it was very important to have a Maori Secretariat member. Martin said he would stress that when he met with Hugh Logan.

Tikanga and Biotechnology Project

Waiora reported on the progress to date. Further progress will wait until new Maori members have been appointed.

Meeting with Maori MPs

The tentative plan was to meet with the Maori Labour caucus on 27 February. However, as that date did not suit the Chair, it was agreed to postpone the meeting until Martin’s return in July.

Strategic approach to dialogue with Maori and Pasifika communities by Huria Anders

(Discussed later.)

Sponsorship for Inaugural Research Awards Event from Nga Pae o te Maramatanga

The Council agreed in principle with the proposal, but wanted more information on the nature of the awards and their relevance to the work of the Council, who other sponsors were, how award recipients were selected, and whether money was already being received from the Government.

Action: Secretariat to find out more information and circulate an e-mail about the specific proposal.

Action: Secretariat to draft guidelines on funding sponsorship.

[Peggy left the meeting at 11.40 a.m.]

Report of Embryo Working Group

Council discussed the draft submission to ACART.

Helen thanked Cordelia for the enormous amount of work she had done on it.

Council worked through the submission and discussed the questions in the submission form.

[Cordelia left the meeting at 11.50 a.m. Debate interrupted.]

Chair’s meeting with Hugh Logan

The Chair reported that the following were among the topics he intended to discuss

• The need for a Senior Maori Adviser
• The need for BEC to get involved more in environmental matters

[Eamon arrived at 12 noon.]

• Relationship with Ministry of Health
• Invite Hugh Logan to a future BEC meeting.

E-Government strategy

The key goal in the strategy was transforming the relationship between the Government and consumers (citizens). Simon reported on a meeting he and John had with the E-Government Group.

Sponsorship for New Zealand School Debating

The Secretariat had recommended that Council approve sponsorship. Council decided that this is a commendable opportunity to involve young people in thinking about bioethics, so agreed that sponsorship would be available.

That Council give its approval in principle, subject to budget being available, for the Secretariat to enter into and conclude a sponsorship contract with the New Zealand Schools Debating Council to the value of the agreed amount, and to subsequently work with the New Zealand Debating Council on developing appropriate topics.

Martin / Marie
CARRIED

Māori issues (resumed)

Strategic Approach to Dialogue with Maori and Pasifika Communities by Huria Anders

Council discussed the proposal by Huria Anders.

The discussion included:

• Who is going to do it?
• What is the workload for the Secretariat?
• If it is a good idea, why just restrict it to Maori and Pasifika communities?
• Giving people a reason to turn up.
• Who would implement the strategy? Would it involve the Secretariat directly or indirectly?

The Council agreed that the proposal should be explored further.

Action: Secretariat

Annual planning for 2007-08

Review of Strategic Plan 2005-2008

Council reviewed current goals and strategies in the Strategic Plan 2005-2008. Helen referred to strategic goal 2 and Council’s requirement to provide to a range of New Zealanders accessible information to the spiritual aspects of biotechnology and suggested Council consider the work of the Interchurch Bioethics Council on defining a spiritual framework.

Council considered whether all strategic goals still relevant and the progress made with each.

Work Programme

Suggestions for new topics:

Action: Simon to send to Council members the criteria on how Council makes decisions on its work programme.

Report of Embryo Working Group (resumed)

Council continued to work through the draft submission

The Council thanked the working group for their work on this submission.

Action: Cordelia to incorporate changes and distribute for comment.

[Martin and Simon left the meeting at 3.45 p.m.]

Exercise in framing "Who gets born?" for public deliberation

Council viewed a video as a lead-in to the framing exercise.

The meeting concluded for the day at 4 10 p.m.

Day 2 – 21 January

The meeting re-commenced at 9.08 a.m. with a karakia given by Waiora.

Report back from meeting with Hugh Logan

The Chair reported on his meeting the previous day with Hugh Logan. Simon will prepare and distribute minutes of the conversation.

The Chair said that he had made the case for a senior Maori member of the Secretariat, and the CE agreed, subject to budget availability.

The Chair said he had asked that the process of making appointments to Council be accelerated.

The CE agreed that John Pennington should have access to budget information and added that the Ministry’s financial system was due for an overhaul.

Framing "Who gets born?"

Actions:

• Cordelia to send an electronic version of the document “Who Gets Born?” to Council members.
• Cordelia to send an electronic version of evaluation form to Council members.

 [Mark Fisher joined the meeting at 10.55 a.m.]

Working group - Who gets born?

The working group to comprise: Rosemary (Chair), Helen, Waiora, Eamon, and Peggy.

Action: Cordelia to arrange first meeting of working group.

Review of Council's website

Presentation from Frank and Shift

Frank and Shift presented on their review of website, with the aim of facilitating dialogue on-line. Council discussed the presentation

In discussion the following points were made:

• The project can be implemented as a phased approach.
• The full proposal would take 2 to 3 years to develop fully, with 3-4 people working on it. Frank and Shift will provide an estimate of what that would cost.
• BEC would manage the information.

Action: Secretariat to obtain details and bring information back to the next meeting.

Self-review of Council

Relationship with Secretariat

Discussion held in committee.

Challenges Facing the Council

• Succession planning
• Composition of Council
• Political traction
• Better relationships with politicians outside Government , the Minister of Research, Science and Technology , the main Opposition spokesperson on the Environment, the Royal Society Speakers’ Forum for MPs
• Relationships with Ministry for the Environment
• Relevance to New Zealanders – standing of BEC, the credibility of its processes and raising public profile
• Relationship with Ministry of Health

Secretariat Relationship with Council

• Chair’s leadership is outstanding.
• The relationship in general is working well.
• Desire to have a full MWG.
• Helpful to the Secretariat to get regular feedback about whether material circulated is useful and appropriate.

Other business

Eamon’s Budget for Bangkok conference

The budget was approved.

Possible Agenda Items for April

• Criteria for approval of conference attendance.
• Approval of Work Programme
• Methodologies for projects
• Important relationships for the coming year (including Council members’ communities of interest)

The meeting concluded at 4.05 p.m. with a karakia.

Action list

• Place minutes of last meeting the website following corrections subject to the usual modifications - Secretariat
• Ensure future policy documents contain additional information about payments to Council members - Secretariat
• Obtain more information about Nga Pae o te Maramatanga proposal - Secretariat
• Prepare plan and budget for Disability Symposium - Eamon
• Organise Budget Working Group meeting. - Secretariat
• Draft guidelines on funding sponsorship. - Secretariat
• Further investigate Strategic Approach to Dialogue with Maori and Pasifika Communities - Secretariat
• Send to Council members the criteria on how Council makes decisions on its work programme. - Secretariat
• Incorporate changes to ACART submission obtain and incorporate comments from EWG and distribute to whole Council. - Cordelia
• Send an electronic version of the document “Who Gets Born?” to Council members. - Cordelia
• Send out framing evaluation form electronically. - Cordelia
• Arrange first meeting of WGB? working group. - Cordelia
• Prepare further information on Frank and Shift proposal for the next meeting. - Secretariat