Barry Maggie: General DebateText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeBarry Maggie: General Debate[Sitting date: 01 July 2015. Volume:706;Page:4991. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon MAGGIE BARRY (Minister for Senior Citizens): July 1: it is a great day to take the temperature on the health of New Zealand. A very impressive list of measures has come into being today. Free prescriptions and free general practitioner visits for all children under 13—that is going to impact positively on the lives of 750000 New Zealand children. That is outstanding. How you treat the most vulnerable at both ends of life’s continuum is I feel a measure of a successful society. So I am very pleased on a personal level to see that we have a number of measures coming in today to really impact well on the end-of-life care of many New Zealanders. This John Key - led Government believes in targeted timely funding of life’s fundamentals and in the difference that it can make not only to quality of life but also to the quality of life that is passing.From today an additional $13 million in funding will help hospices and rest homes to provide better-quality palliative care for those who are in those last stages of life. This is the first year of a $76 million commitment and over the next 4 years some $16 million of that funding will be going into the Auckland area—for example into my own electorate of North Shore I am very proud to say which is already an outstanding example of its kind with the North Shore hospice. It will definitely benefit from that additional funding not only for the people who want to pass in a hospice themselves but also for those who want to be at home for those important last times and last days. I know very personally how important quality palliative care is. I was the patron of Mary Potter Hospice where my father died and also I have been patron of Hospice New Zealand for many years. My mother passed away in a rest home and the variation in the ability of those different places to deliver end-of-life care is something that I think we need to be very mindful of but the hospice funding will certainly make a difference.When I became a member of Parliament back in 2011 I was a co-founder of the all party parliamentary group on palliative care. It is a complex area of medicine but we wanted to be able to share with palliative care specialists and our parliamentary colleagues some of the impacts that it can make on the psychological spiritual and social well-being of the patients and of their families. In 2013 more than 15000 people received care and support from hospice services and hospice staff made over 145000 home visits. Being able to have the choice to have your last breath at home is something that is very important to many people. An additional $3 million this year rising to $7 million next year and then on will support the recruitment of 60 new nurse specialists who are palliative care educators and who will also perform other roles at hospices. These are the nurses who are going to provide a crucial role in helping to train mentor and support staff across aged residential care services GP practices and also home-based support services. Generally speaking at a time when many countries are cutting back freezing or even cutting the amount of money that they put into health National will be investing more than $400 million each year in public health services and that is a tribute to the prudent economic management that is practised on this side of the House.As Minister for Senior Citizens I am very aware of the impact that our ageing population will have on this country and we need to plan ahead for it. We need to be able to support palliative care in rest homes and in the future we will need more specialist facilities for conditions like dementia. In 2001 there were some 48000 New Zealanders who suffered from some form or degree of dementia. In the next 30 years or so that is forecast to treble to around 150000 of the population.Rt Hon Winston Peters: I can see one.Hon MAGGIE BARRY: The member opposite from New Zealand First may well make fun of it as he is indeed closer to both of those target groups than anyone on this side of the House. However it is not a laughing matter. We have put $47 million extra into dementia care since we have taken office and it really does sit well with our annual investment in aged residential care. It is now over $985 million and that is going to ensure that we continue to provide older New Zealanders with the very best care possible into the future. Our Budget has a number of measures to protect the vulnerable and to add to the health of New Zealanders and to their quality of life. I think this is proof again—as if we need more proof—that this is a Government that cares. We do deliver on the things that matter to New Zealanders. We are very mindful of our responsibility to rise above the petty politics of the people on the opposing benches and instead to deliver what New Zealanders need and want. Thank you.