Hutchison Paul: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHutchison Paul: New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2) — First Reading Second Reading In Committee Third Reading[Sitting date: 16 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10137. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Hunua): Again it is a privilege to be speaking on this bill the New Zealand Public Health and Disability Amendment Bill (No 2). I want to repeat what I said in the first reading—that it was only this morning that a prominent disability spokesman said that the sector will be relieved that a resolution has at last been agreed on. This undoubtedly is a fair pragmatic and compassionate resolution to a longstanding challenging and complex situation.It is indeed a little rich to hear the Hon Ruth Dyson go on about consultation. We heard both that member and Annette King saying this morning that they wanted—and they offered—cross-party consultation. But really they are indeed saying this far too late given the context of their own response to the human rights ruling in 2001. The fact is they did not respond. The fact is that in 2005 they—this was Annette King and her fellow Cabinet Ministers—explicitly stated there would be no consultation with other parties. This was supported by the Greens—this was supported by the Greens—and then again in 2008 the Labour Government expressly decided not to pay carers. Again it was a Government propped up by the Greens.Hon Ruth Dyson: You’re better than this Paul.Dr PAUL HUTCHISON: Well I thought the member would be better than this. Indeed there has been a veil of silence from the Labour-Green coalition regarding consultation which is what I am talking about until suddenly they find themselves in Opposition and then they start saying: “Hey look. That’s what we really wish.”I was interested to hear Annette King say: “Let’s look at the history because over these two decades we have deinstitutionalised the places where disabled people were left often left to wallow and not be cared for properly.” We have always agreed with that. Indeed some of those packages that have been replaced are very very reasonable ones although of course there will always be the requirement for reform. In that consultation process that the National Government went through last year—it was a wide consultation process; I think there were something like 264 submitters and something like 12 meetings around the country—there were examples of the sorts of packages that were available for people through the system in New Zealand. Often that is not realised.One of the classic examples was of an adult who had a rare progressive neurological disorder and used a powered wheelchair living out in the country with her parents. Her support package is $106000 per year together with total additional funding of $43000. That may not be as much as her parents would have liked but it is a realistic package given the amount of money and resourcing that we have in New Zealand.So I want to end by saying that the Government is indeed balancing the interests of those being cared for their families and the taxpayers.