Hutchison Paul: General Debates 
Hutchison Paul: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:13074] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I am delighted to hear that that hapless Minister is taking morning walks because in 12 months’ time he will be walking right out of this place. He will be walking right out of the Treasury benches. If ever there is a measure of this Government’s failure it is what is reflected by its promises—by its pledges in that now-infamous airbrushed pledge card of 1999. What did Helen Clark say? She said Labour would cut the waiting times for elective surgery. And what did she do? What duplicitous action did she take? She created the active waiting list. Tens of thousands of New Zealanders were not only taken off the surgical waiting list but were put right back out there to wallow in the community and not even given a chance of being on the waiting list. Then what did she say on that infamous airbrushed pledge card? She said Labour would cut back on the health bureaucracy. Well what has this hapless Labour Government done? It has created the most complex cumbersome inefficient health bureaucracy in the history of New Zealand—if not in the history of the universe. Then the Labour Party had the gall to say that it would deliver. That is what it had the gall to say back in 1999 before the election. 
When I first came into Parliament in 1999 I remember a somewhat arrogant Minister of Finance the Hon Michael Cullen saying: “We won. You lost. Eat that!”. What does the  
Dominion Post  
state this morning? A headline states: “More money less surgery—what’s wrong?” What is wrong is this appalling Labour Government. The article in the  
Dominion Post 
 goes on to state that public hospital operation numbers have dropped despite bulging waiting lists and massive funding injections into the health system—and those figures are compiled in the Government’s own Treasury report. To make matters even worse I saw the letter that the Minister of Finance Dr Cullen wrote to Annette King. What does it state? “Analysis of Ministry of Health data suggests that despite significant revenue increases volumes in the sector are static if not declining.” Dr Cullen cannot make up his mind whether those volumes are static or declining but I can tell members they are declining. 
Let us have a look at those volumes. In 1999 we see that 160000 operations were carried out and in 2002-2003 the number was 157000. Well it is only 3000 fewer—not quite static but certainly declining. But let us really look more closely at the analysis of major joint replacements—and there are thousands of New Zealanders around New Zealand who are suffering intense pain and who are in need of major joint replacements. In the time of the last National Government 1998-99 5252 of those operations were carried out but in the 2002-03 year there were 4481. That is 682 fewer operations. Despite more money less surgery is being carried out. We can go to cataract operations and look at what has happened there. We can see there were 5200 cataract operations in 1998-99 but the number has gone down to 4481 under Labour. 
“More money less surgery—what is wrong?” This Labour Government is simply not delivering. It has created one of the most complex and over-peopled health bureaucracies in New Zealand’s history—as I say not just in New Zealand’s history but probably in the world’s history—and what results from that is “More money less surgery …”. This beleaguered minority socialist Government has indeed failed the people of New Zealand. It has failed the people on the waiting lists. Not only are many of them waiting on those lists but they have given up hope. They fear every day that they may be moved off into the community and put on the active waiting list where there is no hope for them. There are thousands of people wallowing on our waiting lists who have given up hope because of this Labour Government.