Coleman Jonathan: Budget DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeColeman Jonathan: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11696. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN (Minister of Health): On Sunday Metiria Turei the co-leader of the Green Party gave a speech entitled “I am the River and the River is me”. I think that would have been more appropriately entitled “I am the Labour Party and the Labour Party is me” because quite frankly those two are now completely inseparable. The Labour Party is completely stuck with the Greens. Of course it contrasted a bit with her statement from 2 days before when she was at Timaru Girls’ High School where she said: “I have a bad attitude towards the Labour Party.” I am not quite sure how they are going to square that circle.I do not know whether anyone told Damien O’Connor that this deal was going to be stitched together and I do not know what Stuart Nash thinks about it. But what I do know is that I think next year at election time you will not see those red Labour billboards in Napier and on the West Coast you are going to see the borrowing of old Clayton Cosgrove’s anonymous orange billboards—name only no party background. There is going to be more and more of this stuff.When we were hearing from old Kennedy Graham today he was talking about the great old days when East Germany was thumbing its nose at the West and I was just thinking what Labour members think of that sort of thing. But anyway that is a great problem for them to have as the Opposition. We are very happy with it over here because that leaves us free to talk about the Budget—and what a great Budget it has been.I would just like to set the wider context. There are not too many economies in the OECD that are in as great a position as New Zealand: forecasting surpluses as far as you can see falling unemployment options around future spending and around what we can do—it is a very good position and New Zealanders realise that. This $1.6 billion that we have allocated in this Budget will make a real difference to New Zealanders and you will have heard my colleague Nikki Kaye talking about the more than $2 billion that we are spending on school infrastructure; that is a real major feature of the Budget. Steven Joyce Minister of Science and Innovation has over $700 million going in to foster Kiwi innovation and science and to make sure we have got the right sorts of skills in the economy. Then of course there is social investment.Phil Twyford: Who chose that tie?Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Phil Twyford is asking “Who chose that tie?”. That is the level of debate and that pretty much sums up where Labour has got to on this Budget. That is about the most potent barb it has had right throughout this debate because Labour has given up opposing the Budget and opposing the Government. There was a time when a hard-working Labour Opposition spokesman on finance would have been sitting down there grinding out some alternative numbers and getting up to say what the Opposition would spend the money on. But no what has Grant been doing—well what has Grant being doing? I do not know what Mr Robertson has been doing but there has not been one single number that he has put up. That is of course apart from the $1 billion tertiary education promise that the Opposition chucked out a few weeks ago—that went well did it not—and apart from the extra $1.7 billion that Annette King is promising to stick straight into the health budget before there is any new money at all.I think poor old Mrs King is a bit politically concussed—she has taken one too many political blows to the head—because she no longer knows the difference between core Crown expenditure and Vote Health. Her questions have got so muddled and so all over the paddock and the problem for Labour on health is that it has fired all its shots. It had this one last shot it was going fire: those members were praying like anything that we had not been able to fully fund demographics and cost in our Budget. You know what—the figures are out. For the last 7 years we have fully funded demographics and cost pressures. What a disappointment for Mrs King because that throws her credibility right under the bus.Meanwhile what a fantastic health budget—$568 million this year and $2.2 billion over the next 4 years. That is going to fund the services that the people of New Zealand need in health. There is $1.6 billion in there for district health boards and I can tell you that that has been incredibly favourably received out there. That is going to provide the services that people across New Zealand require. No wonder we have been able to provide that extra 6100 doctors and nurses—6100 more now working in the system than there were 8 years ago. No wonder we are doing an extra 50000 operations per year and an extra 110000 appointments.The difference between us and the Opposition on health is that all those members are about is putting in more money; we are about results. They put in more money and the results were worse. As the Dominion Post said in September 2005 how could you put so much money into a health system and make it worse. I am afraid that is written there—go and Google it—it is there.But anyway we are getting on with this health budget. You know it is great. I am sure the Opposition members would join with us in celebrating that $96 million going into elective surgeries. That is just fantastic. That is going to continue—that uplift of 4000 extra surgeries per year—that target that we have set ourselves. I am just very disappointed that Labour members never set some health targets when they were in Government because frankly the system would have been even better now if they had spent those 9 years doing something or other but their only target was more money. We set that 4000 target. We are actually doing more than the 4000 per year; the uplift continues. I can tell you that the only answer to unmet need is to do more and we are doing more and more all the time.What about that $124 million for Pharmac? That was a great announcement funding the drugs that New Zealanders need. We know that there are thousands of New Zealanders who are going to benefit from the options that that money now provides for Pharmac. It now has an option to fund Opdivo a fantastic drug that is going to save lives for those who have stage 4 malignant melanoma. And there are hepatitis C drugs—those drugs are true social investment. Fifty thousand people in New Zealand suffer from hepatitis C and we now have the option of funding a drug that is going to prolong life and improve health for thousands of New Zealanders. That is true social investment because those people would never have got back to work—they would have died early. Now there is a nearly 100 percent cure rate offered to them funded by Pharmac. That is a great opportunity—and Grant Robertson just looks so disappointed there. He is not disappointed for the public but he has got no answer—Hon Simon Bridges: That’s hunger.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Sorry it is not disappointment; it is hunger. But look what I can say is that there is just more and more in this Budget. I mean the $36 million between Simon Bridges’ vote and the health votes—$18 million from health for the Healthy Homes Initiative—insulating more houses for New Zealanders and making sure that we keep young New Zealand children out of hospital. That is very important—and it just shows the way that this Government is thinking.One thing that I am very very proud of is the $39.3 million that is going in this year to fund the roll-out of the bowel-screening programme starting with the Hutt Valley District Health Board (DHB) and the Wairarapa DHB. In the next 3 years we will be rolling that out throughout New Zealand. That is going to screen 700000 New Zealanders aged 60 to 74 years every 2 years. It is going to save hundreds of lives quite possibly 700 lives a year. So that is a major strike against one of the biggest killers in New Zealand.Hon David Cunliffe: 10 years too late.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: David Cunliffe says that it is 10 years too late. Actually he is right because Labour talked about it in 2008 when he was the Minister of Health did nothing and put no money into it. It did nothing at all—it was a disgrace. But that is the story: Labour is big on rhetoric but actually it really did not get the health system going in the way that it could have.I am proud to be part of a Government that is focusing on New Zealanders’ priorities that is delivering in areas like the economy—you know more jobs and the average wage rising to $63000 a year by 2020. It is delivering in education.Grant Robertson: It’s dropping. Jonathan it’s dropping.Hon Dr JONATHAN COLEMAN: Grant says that it is dropping. I do not know where that guy gets his numbers from but I can tell you that one thing I know is that they are not based on hard work. We are delivering on what New Zealanders expect and deserve from their health system.This is a great Budget. It is the culmination of 8 years of very hard work by this Government. It is creating options for future investment as the public begin to reap the benefit of those increasing surpluses in years to come: more jobs greater economic growth and more money in the hand for New Zealand families. This is a great Budget for the people of New Zealand and I commend it to the House.