Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20236] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to rise and take a call on the estimates for Vote Health. The estimates for Vote Health did not get off to a great start for the Minister of Health. The Minister’s press statement from 19 May after the Budget came out told us that Budget 2011 was delivering an extra $2.2 billion to public health services over the next 4 years including an additional $585 million in initiatives in 2011-12. Well that turned out to not be true. In this House—over a period of days admittedly—we were able to draw out from the Minister that in actual fact the $585 million additional in this Budget was not so; it was $420 million additional and $165 million worth of money that has been cut from elsewhere in the health sector. Sadly this is typical of this particular Minister’s approach—the smoke and mirrors and the manufactured targets. No the reality is that $165 million of the so-called $585 million additional is in fact money taken from other parts of the health sector. It was a bad start for the Minister when it came to these estimates. 
When the Minister arrived at the Health Committee to go through the estimates we had to ask him to give us a little bit more information on where some of these cuts were coming from. In fact in particular there was the question of the $61 million of unspecified cuts to the public health budget. The Minister was asked to provide some information on that and in the transcript from the hearing the Minister was peculiarly unable to tell us what those $61 million worth of cuts were. He could not actually define them. He had a bit of paper in front of him but he really did not know what it meant. Basically he had no idea of what he was cutting. There was $61 million going from public health and he had no idea what he was cutting. 
Hon Member 
: He thinks it’s funny. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: He thinks it is hilarious. Well that is good because the other thing that the Minister said in the exchange that we had with him was that he would provide us with the detail and the explanation behind each of those cuts. Well here is a question for the Minister in the chair the Minister of Health: why has he not provided that information? He told the select committee he would provide the information. He has not done that. The select committee was forced to write to the Minister last week to ask him to do what he said he would do at the select committee which was to tell the committee where $61 million worth of funding cuts have been taken from in public health. 
It is simply not on for a Minister of the Crown to not know where $61 million worth of funding cuts are coming from and then compound that by refusing to tell the select committee where the cuts are coming from and not providing the information. Now the select committee has written to the Minister and as of today we still do not have a reply. That is how little this Minister cares about the accountability in this portfolio to say where this money is coming from. 
To take that much money out of public health has an impact. The Minister gets up at conferences around New Zealand and tells people that he believes in prevention and he thinks we need to take a preventive approach and we must invest in making sure that people do not get sick. Yet his budget and these estimates take money out of public health. The Minister was at the same seminar I was at when Sir Michael Marmot came from the UK and we sat there all day—well some of us stayed for the whole day. We listened to and heard from all the experts within New Zealand in this area and from Sir Michael himself about the importance of investing in early intervention in prevention and in making sure people stay healthy. But that is not what this Government is doing. 
What this Government is doing is focusing on the Minister’s manufactured targets within things like elective services. This Minister is saying— 
Dr Paul Hutchison 
: Immunisation. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: The member on the other side of the Chamber says “Immunisation”. That is absolutely great. That is excellent. That is carrying on the good work that was started under the last Labour Government and we can all be pleased about that. But district health boards focusing more and more on trying to meet the Minister’s manufactured elective services targets means that funding disappears from other areas. The Minister might say “Oh well these are the nanny State health promotion ideas”. Well that is not true. Not only are they the preventive measures that keep people healthy but also the services that are being cut on this Minister’s watch are front-line services.