Blue Jackie: Official Information (Openness of District  Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Blue Jackie: Official Information (Openness of District  Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:633;Page:5262] 
Dr JACKIE BLUE (National) 
: 
 I move  
That the Official Information (Openness of District Health Boards New Zealand) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. 
 At the appropriate time I intend to move that the bill be considered by the Health Committee. I acknowledge my colleague Jo Goodhew MP for Aoraki who was instrumental in getting this bill into the ballot. The bill is very simple and straightforward as members will have appreciated when reading through it. Its purpose is to amend the Official Information Act 1982 so that any entity representing one or more district health boards such as District Health Boards New Zealand will be subject to the Official Information Act. 
As a background to this bill District Health Boards New Zealand was formed in 2000 as an incorporated society and as such is not subject to the Official Information Act. When the 21 district health boards were established District Health Boards New Zealand was subsequently formed to provide a sector group through which district health boards could coordinate their activities at a national level on selected issues. The overall purpose of District Health Boards New Zealand is to assist district health boards in meeting their objectives and accountabilities to the Crown. 
It is clear that the Government and Parliament have accepted District Health Boards New Zealand as the official representative of district health boards. Its staff meet with the Minister and are asked to appear at select committees. From its website it is apparent that District Health Boards New Zealand is involved in high-level negotiations on behalf of the district health boards such as negotiations on the roll-out of primary care funding for 45 to 64-year-olds and on the resident medical officers’ multi-employer collective agreement. 
This organisation is making decisions that impact on all New Zealanders but the public are not able to find out what the group does or how it functions. Just what other activities District Health Boards New Zealand has been or is currently involved with is hard to know as it is not subject to the Official Information Act. District Health Boards New Zealand is funded by taxpayers’ money through contributions from the 21 district health boards and it is an anomaly that this organisation is exempt from the Official Information Act when other organisations that are funded by taxpayers’ money are subject to it. This bill will bring accountability and transparency to the organisation. District Health Boards New Zealand is functioning outside our constitutional situation and that needs to be rectified. 
There has been wide support from the medical sector for this bill. It is clear that many many people have been frustrated by District Health Boards New Zealand’s lack of accountability. The New Zealand Medical Association supports this bill. It goes further and suggests that the organisation should be disbanded. The New Zealand Medical Association has been concerned for some years about the role of District Health Boards New Zealand which it feels is increasingly taking on coordination and operational policy functions that should more appropriately be carried out by the Ministry of Health. The chairman of the New Zealand Medical Association has called District Health Boards New Zealand a “private club” for the district health boards and has said it is time that the organisation was absorbed back into the Ministry of Health. 
The bill also has the support of HealthCare Providers New Zealand. That organisation says that the existing situation is an anomaly that chips away our constitutional framework and asks whether it was intentional that District Health Boards New Zealand was made an incorporated society—not subject to the Official Information Act—or whether it was an oversight. The precursor to District Health Boards New Zealand was the Crown Health Association Inc. which was also not subject to the Official Information Act and when District Health Boards New Zealand took over from the Crown Health Association it may well have been an oversight that had unintended consequences. Either way it is high time to bring back consistency and maintain Official Information Act principles which are based around the belief that information should be made available unless there is a good reason to withhold it. 
Researchers have been frustrated by the results of Official Information Act requests for information from district health boards and have often drawn the response that the information is collected nationally by District Health Boards New Zealand. But because District Health Boards New Zealand is not subject to the Official Information Act in order for our researchers to get a complete picture of the health sector they often have to make 21 separate Official Information Act requests. Official Information Act requests can take up to a year particularly if the Ombudsman is involved. It is slow and frustrating for all concerned and even then there is no guarantee that the information is forthcoming. The district health boards often protest that by having to answer the requests themselves their staff are being taken away from their core business and roles. It would seem therefore quite logical that by bringing District Health Boards New Zealand under the Official Information Act information could be obtained directly and expediently and district health board staff would not need to be sidetracked from their own work. 
There is very little information about this organisation. It was therefore quite revealing when Sean Plunket recently interviewed on  
Morning Report 
 Dr Ross Boswell of the New Zealand Medical Association and Michael Ludbrook chair of District Health Boards New Zealand. In the interview Mr Ludbrook confirmed that District Health Boards New Zealand develops national strategies such as workforce development and that it currently employs 21 people and has a budget of $2.5 million. In the interview there were disturbing comments that District Health Boards New Zealand may have been involved in discussions regarding the current nationwide laboratory reviews that have unsettled the sector. Although the issue was not satisfactorily resolved in the radio interview by making District Health Boards New Zealand accountable and subject to the Official Information Act the truth will be revealed in due course. 
I was very interested to find out in the course of working on the bill that the service support agencies that support the district health boards regionally are also not subject to the Official Information Act. These agencies include the Northern DHB Support Agency which supports the northern part of the North Island; HealthShare Ltd in the midland region; the Technical Advisory Services in the central region; and the South Island Shared Service Agency in the South Island. These agencies are all owned by their respective district health boards and are accountable to their district health boards. Their common purpose is to support the activities of the owner district health boards. All are companies and they are not subject to the Official Information Act. This bill will also bring these agencies under the Official Information Act. 
I urge members to support this bill going to the select committee. That is an appropriate place to examine the rationale of whether the status quo should exist. That is the appropriate forum to hear from District Health Boards New Zealand and its stakeholders as to whether the organisation should remain outside the Official Information Act—or indeed whether it should be disbanded. 
Last month the Auckland District Health Board withdrew from District Health Boards New Zealand over concerns about how tertiary services are charged out to other district health boards. Clearly all is not well with District Health Boards New Zealand. It is very timely indeed that we have this bill in front of us. I urge all members to support the bill.