KEY POINTS:
Former United Future MP Gordon Copeland will vote against the plans to set up a joint agency with Australia to regulate medicines and dietary supplements, further weakening the Government's chances of enacting the scheme.
It is already short of majority support following Taito Phillip Field's decision to oppose the enabling legislation.
The bill to set up the transtasman Therapeutics Products Authority is due back from Parliament's government administration select committee next month.
The authority would replace the drug and medical device regulators in both countries, but the intention for New Zealand to follow Australia by bringing dietary supplements and other complementary medicines into the same regime has dogged the proposal.
Only the Government's support parties, New Zealand First and United Future, voted with it to send the enabling legislation to the select committee last December, although the leaders of those two minor parties, Winston Peters and Peter Dunne, had previously expressed opposition to the inclusion of low-risk complementary medicines.
Mr Copeland, who resigned from United Future last week, said of the legislation, "I'm going to oppose it. I'm guided by the people in business - most of them are opposed - and lots of consumers seem to be opposed."
National, Act, the Greens and the Maori Party have opposed the legislation.
However, State Services Minister Annette King is putting on a brave face. "Wait till it comes back to the House," her spokesman said. "We're continuing to talk to parties."
