Bond Ria: Budget DebateText is subject to correctionBond Ria: Budget Debate[Sitting date: 07 June 2016. Volume:714;Page:11681. Text is subject to correction.]RIA BOND (NZ First): I am proud to rise on behalf of New Zealand First to take this split call in the debate on Budget 2016. It has been just over a year now since I found myself here in the House debating an area that I was slightly knowledgable on with having my family members and loved ones being taken care of in hospices in Invercargill and around the country. So it is kind of ironic that here again tonight I am addressing the same issue that we had last year—that is the underfunding of palliative health care here in New Zealand.I have spent the last year visiting hospices around New Zealand and I have met the most amazing giving thoughtful unselfish caring people who work within the 29 hospices around New Zealand and who truly care about the whole person not just their physical needs but also their emotional spiritual and social needs too. What I saw in front of me collectively throughout the hospices I visited was that this care extended out beyond the person who was unwell to include their family their whānau and the support available before and after their death. Regardless of where a person lives the philosophy of care does not change and these services are free of charge. Not one hospice staffer chief executive or management team I met with said that they could not do with more funding to remove the extra stress and pressure they are facing.In the 2015 Budget we saw palliative health care receive a $76.1 million injection of funds. The catch was that this was to be spent over a 4-year period up until 2019. This year we have seen palliative health care receive a measly $13 million—$13 million. That tells our hospices that they are going to get less but they need to do more. What this tells me is that the Government is giving up. It is giving up on our vulnerable terminally ill citizens. New Zealanders need to keep a close eye on what is really happening under this National-led Government and right under our noses. Forget the glory-seeking backslapping mighty “pat ourselves on the back” behaviour and take a really good hard look at the figures and the state of underfunding for palliative health care in this country.This 2016 Budget as my colleague Denis O’Rourke has pointed out is nothing more than a boring Budget that is all glued together with a piece of band-aid and quite conveniently I think that is just what this Government wants so that it can talk it up and talk it up to the members of the community.There are 29 hospices around New Zealand that provide free health care and support to members of our communities and those are 29 communities that this National-led Government relies on fundamentally. So these are the facts. In 2014 we saw that hospices were $43 million short of funding. In 2014 nationally hospice needs totalled $99 million. In 2015 hospices were $45 million short of funding. In 2015 nationally hospice needs totalled and tipped over $100 million. In 2016 nationally hospice needs will total well over $100 million and if we look at the trend it is glaringly obvious—the massive underfunding of our palliative health care services.But wait there is more. As an essential health provider hospices do receive the majority of their funding from the Government but alarmingly the financial support that the Government relies on is within our communities—that is the fund-raising that our communities are providing which is absolutely critical to keeping hospices open to look after our most loved and vulnerable family members. I congratulate the hundreds of volunteers who give every bit of time they can to local hospices. In 2014 that equated to 1 million hours and I congratulate the hidden volunteers who keep the drink trolleys topped up each week; the flowers gifted to volunteer hospices; community funding and partnerships such as the Tree of Remembrance which donated more than $675000 to hospices; and investment partners that raise funds for hospices that have exceeded $1 million. There are too many to name—there are simply too many to name.Ten years ago the annual operating costs for hospices nationally totalled $30 million. Fast-forward to 2015 and they topped over $100 million. The 2016 projections show that this will go even higher. The challenge that hospices now face is a double-edged sword with dramatic increases in palliative health care demand and the ever-increasing funding constraints that apply multiple stresses within these premises which include a serious shortfall of clinical expertise particularly of senior palliative care specialists. New Zealand First does not support this Budget. We do not support that still a year later our palliative health care is being underfunded.