Woodhouse MichaelHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National): If there was ever a really clear example of the difference between the lofty rhetoric of this Government and the hardbitten reality of what's actually happening out there it's in the health sector. The previous speaker just finished by applauding and lauding the Minister for Disability Issues when the people and the clients of the Laura Fergusson Trust are scrambling to find new accommodation because they can't keep their doors open. That's the hardbitten reality of this heartless Government.Now there are always challenges in the health sector but for successive years through a global economic recession Vote Health received twice the rate of inflation every year and services were going up and up and up and waiting times were going down. It was the most benign industrial relations environment in generations. The Minister of Health when in Opposition was apoplectic about a proposed $90 million combined deficit in DHBs in 2017 and two years later—put aside the Holidays Act; put aside the IT write-offs—the deficits of DHBs are approaching $600 million. I ask the Minister when is he going to get off his horse and change the record of Nine years of neglect!" and look in the mirror to find the reason for the problem that had been created solely by this Government. Now the other speakers—and indeed the Prime Minister's speech—crow about things like cheaper GP visits: 540000 extra cheaper GP visits. What they don't say is that the Labour Party in the 2017 election campaign campaigned on cheaper GP visits for everyone. They said "This is what the National Government is promising. We're going to promise more." only they broke that promise.Māori and Pasifika health is mentioned in the Prime Minister's statement. This is an outrage that they should even mention Māori and Pasifika community health who cannot pay salaries to their nurses because DHBs are keeping money and funding increases of up to 15 to 16 percent and throwing crumbs at Māori and Pasifika health providers. Pharmac is mentioned. Extra cancer drugs are mentioned. What's not mentioned is the $114 million they took out of hospital-based medicines funding and the DHBs are still scrambling on it. The 12 linear accelerators are mentioned. What's not mentioned is that that's business as usual. The previous Government funded 10 of them over a three-year period because that's the normal capital replacement programme that is necessary to keep our DHBs and our public hospitals going.Now I will acknowledge there was a quite big dollop of money for mental health in Budget 2018 and that was necessary and appropriate. The problem with that is it's not getting spent. It's not getting spent and it's certainly not getting spent in the areas that the Government said it was going to be spent in or indeed in the areas of most need.But what's most ubiquitous and just terrible about Budget 2019—Hon Shane Jones: Oh "just terrible"? Oh!Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Stand by Mr Jones. He might be a grandfather at one point but I hope he can find a midwife for his tamariki because independent midwives have been treated scandalously by this Government. They were given a co-designed report that the previous Government had agreed to as a way of avoiding the litigation that was emerging and these guys have tucked it in the bottom drawer and pretended it doesn't exist.The Ministry of Health had to apologise to the College of Midwives for their failure to even prepare a Budget bid in 2018. In fact it should have been the Minister and the Government that apologised. The response? Nothing in Budget 2019. Apparently they've been told there will be a solution in 2020. We'll see because actually if there is anything that the Government has to deal with it's the deficits now before they even start with new money and I would hate to be in Grant Robertson's shoes when it comes to Vote Health 2020.They've said a lot about capital projects and I cannot believe they continue to perpetuate the myth of sewage down the walls of Middlemore Hospital. That did not happen. But the other fiction in that section of the Prime Minister's statement is this—Hon Grant Robertson: You put no money into capital at all.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: Oh no capital at all? That's exactly what this speech says. The Minister of Finance interjects. In the paragraph on page 3 for example in 2016 no new money was put aside for health capital expenditure only I've got Vote Health 2016 here. Capital expenditure: $2.7 billion—$300 million in another category of capital expenditure. In 2017: several hundred million dollars. It's a myth. It's a fiction and we can go through the hospitals that were upgraded on the previous Government's watch: Middlemore Hospital clinical services building; North Shore Hospital inpatient emergency department (ED) mental health; Waitakere Hospital ED radiology theatres. We could go on: Taranaki Hutt Valley Wairau Greymouth Christchurch Burwood and Dunedin Hospital and I'm not talking about the rebuild of Dunedin Hospital—Hon Grant Robertson: Which you never committed to.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —I'm talking about—we'll come to that Mr Robertson—the remedying of the neglect of the Clark Government who would not upgrade the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) whose staff were working in disgraceful conditions. The paediatric ward at Dunedin Hospital was a million years old. They needed extra funding. They didn't get it from the Clark Government. The NICU the children's ward the mental health acute block and the emergency department were all extended on this Government's watch.The Minister of Finance is wrong. He knows he's wrong because the Dunedin Hospital rebuild was committed to in 2017 by the English National Government—the end. They crow about $2.5 billion in the Prime Minister's speech but $1.6 billion of that was on projects that were already committed to by the previous Government.Now in my list I was careful not to attribute the sorts of capital projects that were approved by the Clark Government and yet completed here—Wellington Hospital is a very good example of it—but no such courtesy is extended by this Government to the previous Government. The fact is that capital projects occur all the time and all the arm waving and "Aren't we great?" when they actually approve something is completely unnecessary. In fact I wish they would—I wish they would—approve the funding through Treasury for the detailed business case for Dunedin Hospital because my sources are telling me that that is a huge hurdle that Treasury have not allowed—Hon Grant Robertson: Just you wait.Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: —to get over. Oh he says "Just wait and see." We are waiting to see whether we're going to get half a pyramid—that's what we're waiting to see half a pyramid; you may recall the old insurance ad—because it sounds to me like the lofty rhetoric and the hardbitten reality are going to be two different things.Now all of this financial stress could be accepted and tolerated if indeed we're seeing more coming out the other end but actually we're not. We're seeing lower levels of elective surgery longer cancer treatment waiting times emergency department waiting times—out—smoking cessation rates are lower than they certainly were and where they need to be to get to smoke-free 2025.Harete Hipango: Vaccinations—Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE: But the biggest scandal—exactly Ms Hipango—is vaccination rates. When we came to office in 2008 they were a scandalously low 63 percent and through hard work and clear expectations by the Government on the DHBs they got to 92 to 93 percent. They are backsliding because this Government doesn't believe health targets are important and what is the consequence of that? A meningococcal outbreak in Northland a measles epidemic across the country that we exported to Samoa and what are we seeing now? Well I think it's a lead-footed response to a global pandemic that may not have come to our shores yet but could well do in the coronavirus outbreak. I think it's incumbent on the Government to reassure the public that they have a plan they're executing a plan and they're communicating a plan. They have been slow out of the blocks.So that's the hardbitten reality. Forget the lofty rhetoric forget the criticisms of the previous Government and look at the data—the throughput data; the improvements in New Zealanders' health—because that's not what's being delivered to New Zealanders right now. It's absolutely consistent with the theme of non-delivery of this Government. All we see in this speech is "Job not yet done." and that would be fine if the job had even started. But the New Zealand First coalition agreement has about five things or six things in health—Mr Jones knows five of them haven't even been started—not delivered. It's not good enough. It's non-delivery. New Zealanders deserve better."