Wagner NickyHon NICKY WAGNER (National): Let me make this very clear: this bill is about protecting our most vulnerable New Zealanders—our newborns—and making sure that they don't fall through the cracks. It seems to me that the Government members are protesting too much. They should walk the talk. They should actually deliver and take action on the things that they say that they believe in. This bill is about making sure that families are connected into the New Zealand health system quickly so that babies and their families get the best-possible start in life. It's all about breaking down that inequality of health access for our communities.My colleague Dr Parmjeet Parmar developed this bill because she was concerned about the low numbers of newborns being enrolled with a general practitioner or a primary health organisation before their six-week immunisation was due. That was something every member of the Health Committee agreed with. Dr Parmar wanted to make sure that families were supported when they had a new baby and that the health and social support was available from day one and to make sure that babies didn't miss out on the protection of that first round of immunisation.Prevention is the name of the game here. The earlier that GPs can work with newborns and their families and the earlier we can detect any problems—health or social issues—the better the support we can give to our tamariki. I agree with her—actually this is just common sense. The birth of a baby is challenging for any family and by working with new parents early we can protect we can nurture and we can look after that baby and its family.In National we believe that you can't manage what you don't measure. That's why we wanted to see a target in legislation so that it was clear to everybody—clear to members of the medical profession clear to families—just how important this early enrolment is. Research tells us that the post-natal period is one of the most important opportunities for influencing health and well-being and actually the long-term health of babies and their families. Immunisations are the key important way to protect babies going forward. New Zealand is known for the high quality of our health services and targets that have been instrumental in driving these improvements in the last few years since they were established back in 2007 and that's why we're so concerned that this Government is dumping them.It's interesting what's happened to immunisation because of the immunisation targets. They've driven up the number of babies getting protected. Back in 2008 the target was only 85 percent of babies being immunised by eight months. That was a significant challenge because at that time we were only actually immunising about 70 percent. It's important that we continue to raise that. One of the key reasons why I bring this up is because it's immunisation and getting communities behind immunisation that has raised the quality of what's happening for our babies in the long term.All district health boards have been reporting against these stats so we've been able to identify where we are doing well in the country. One of the things that have been the most exciting about this is that communities have taken these targets to their hearts and some of the communities that had low levels of immunisation have actually become the stars—and the Pasifika community is one of those. So it's hugely disappointing that this Government doesn't support this bill although most submitters felt that it was important and the ministry itself was keen to increase the numbers of babies getting enrolled in those first six weeks. It seems that politics has got in the way of a good health practice.So finally I would like to thank Dr Parmar for her work. It's really unfortunate that the Government members of the committee weren't prepared to walk the talk. They weren't prepared to support this common-sense practical way of looking after our most vulnerable newborns—hugely disappointing.