Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Robertson Grant: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:674;Page:20238] 
GRANT ROBERTSON (Labour—Wellington Central) 
: 
 To carry on from where we were I say that front-line health services have in fact been attacked under this Government. The Minister of Health likes to stand up in this Chamber on a regular basis and tell members that it is all about moving services to the front line. Well I ask the Minister what could be more front-line than a mental health clinic—an addiction clinic for young people? What could be more front-line than that in addressing services? Yet that is exactly what has just closed in the Nelson-Marlborough region. That is exactly what has just closed in the Nelson-Marlborough region. It is right here for the information of the Minister if he would like to read it. That clinic has closed because of the pressure that this Minister has put on district health board budgets. 
Although the money that has gone into district health board budgets has increased slightly the increase is nowhere near enough to keep up with inflation. The chair of the Whanganui District Health Board told us in the  
Wanganui Chronicle 
 that there was no way the board could keep providing the services that it was expected to provide with the money that was coming from the Government. It has simply not been enough to keep up with inflation and the cuts are coming. They are coming in front-line health services they are coming in youth health services and they are coming in sexual health services. They are coming in all the areas where New Zealanders rightly expect that there would be front-line public health services. The pressure is now going on district health board budgets and non-governmental organisations that are providing the services are having to cut back their services. That is all happening on the watch of a Minister who likes to pretend that more money is going into health and that more money is going into front-line health services when the tragic reality is that it is not. 
When we go around regional New Zealand we see the impact of this. If we go to a place like Taihape we see that the hospital is gone—closed. The hospital in Hawera is under threat. But no the Minister comes in like a white knight there and says he will not cut a service if the community does not go along with that. I tell Mr Ryall to go to Rangiora. That community did not want its after-hours services to be cut but they are gone. But no the Minister did not ride in like a white knight there; the after-hours services have gone. [ 
Interruption 
] The Minister says that is the doctors’ fault. That is the problem with this Minister: he wants to wash his hands when the services are cut but it is his Government’s underfunding that means that things like that happen in Rangiora. 
In Hawera the Minister said he would ride in there. But he will not do so around the rest of the country because this Minister is underfunding the entire sector. 
Aaron Gilmore 
: If this member was the leader of the Labour Party it wouldn’t be at 27 percent in the polls. 
GRANT ROBERTSON 
: The member on the other side of the House could do with going to Rangiora talking to the people there and seeing what they feel about the cuts to after-hours services. He could do with going to the Kapiti coast talking to Linley Williams and seeing how she felt about paying $41 for her 2-year-old to go to an after-hours clinic. He could go and see the community services card holders in Ashburton who were charged $73 for an after-hours visit. 
New Zealanders deserve to have access to affordable primary health care. New Zealanders deserve to have preventive health services that will help to keep them healthy and they deserve some honesty from the Minister. They deserve the Minister not to get up and say he was delivering $585 million extra for health when the truth is that that is not what has happened. Money has been recycled around the pressure is going on key programmes and this Minister is not being upfront with the New Zealand public about the impact that this will have on health services. 
There is another thing in the estimates that the Minister may care to respond to. Why is it that when we look out to the capital budget for the next 2 or 3 years we see that it almost disappears? The Auditor-General’s office wanted to know why that money just about disappears. Is all the building over? There is an urgent need to build hospital buildings around New Zealand in the next few years and the money for that is simply not in these estimates. 
Once again the numbers are smoke and mirrors in these estimates. This Minister is trying to mislead the New Zealand public about the investment that is going into health. We need to have investment at the primary health care end. We need to ensure that there are quality secondary services available and we need to ensure that health gets the investment that it deserves; not what the Minister wants to pretend to us. For a Minister to come to a select committee to come to an estimates hearing and not be able to tell the committee even where the cuts are coming from is disgraceful. But what is more a Minister who then refuses to respond to the committee when it asks to get that detail is a Minister who is not giving the New Zealand public what they deserve in the area of Vote Health. In Vote Health New Zealanders know that there is not a bottomless pit.