October 07, 2022
Rongoā caught in drug control bill
Rongoā Māori advocates say the Therapeutic Products Bill now before parliament breaches Treaty rights that guarantee Māori sovereignty over their traditional healing knowledge and practices.
David Kukutai Jones of the Aotearoa Rongoa Maori Collective says the Bill will bring all medicines whether Maori or non-Maori under direct government control.
He says the government insists it’s about patient safety, despite many deaths under pakeha health care.
“There have been no cases where people have died from rongoa in the history of New Zealand so to say this is being driven for quality assurance and efficacy and those sorts of things I think is entirely incorrect,” Mr Jones says.
He says the Bill has been before parliament since 2006, but it still has a long way to go before it is acceptable to Maori.