Prime Willow-JeanHon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME (Labour): Thank you Madam Chair and I thank the Minister for his brief answers that didn't give any detail to the questions that I asked. I'm going to ask some few questions for fear of repetition or him saying that he's already answered these things.I spoke to the amendments to section 6 in clause 6 which are the key amendments to disestablishing Te Aka Whai Ora. I spoke to how section 6 actually outlines how the Crown will meet its obligations under the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi by establishing Te Aka Whai Ora and its roles and functions and I asked the Minister if now the—what are you calling it? HMAC the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee—that's what I couldn't understand from your answer. HMAC is now going to be the answer to the way in which the Crown is going to fulfil its obligations to meet the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi. What I wanted to ask the Minister though is: when you look at the current legislation there are words in there that are very strong directives and obligations on the Government and on the various organisations and agencies in here. They use words like require": "requires the Minister to have regard to any advice of the Māori Health Authority when determining a … strategy; … requires the Hauora Māori Strategy to be jointly prepared … provides for iwi-Māori partnership boards to enable Māori to have a meaningful role in the planning and design of local services; and … requires the Government Policy Statement to contain priorities for hauora Māori; and … requires Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority to engage with iwi-Māori partnership boards; … requires Health New Zealand and the Māori Health Authority to jointly develop and implement a … Health Plan and to work together in the performance of specified functions" and so on.That is very strong language legislated for and a "require" is that you must do it; not that you can choose to do it. We've had decisions like the King Salmon case for example. When legislation has words like that in it the Government is required to follow that. What the Minister is proposing is new section 15 for example which will require the health authority to—what? To "take reasonable steps to support iwi-Māori partnership boards to achieve their purpose" and "engage with iwi-Māori partnership boards when determining priorities for kaupapa Māori investment." Māori need certainty. They went from having mana-enhancing provisions—a partnership approach to their healthcare to their strategy to the priorities and to what's going in the Government policy statement—to now having in the legislation words like the Minister will take "reasonable steps". What are "reasonable steps"? Can you define it? Can you tell us and can you tell those that are listening tonight—CHAIRPERSON (Barbara Kuriger): "Can 'the Minister' define" please.Hon WILLOW-JEAN PRIME: Can the Minister please tell those in the committee and those that are listening tonight what they can expect in terms of "reasonable steps to support iwi-Māori partnership boards to achieve their purpose"? Can you please tell us what "engage with iwi-Māori partnership boards when determining priorities for kaupapa Māori investment." actually looks like? Where are the details on how this is going to be given effect to?You said Minister—sorry Madam Speaker. The Minister said that having iwi-Māori partnership boards is mana motuhake. Can you please define "mana motuhake" for me and how your board set up under a piece of Crown legislation is actually mana motuhake? Please give me the tikanga definition of "mana motuhake" and how your iwi-Māori partnership boards are going to be giving mana motuhake to our hapū and our iwi. I also have questions around the functions of the iwi-Māori partnership boards and the amendments proposed to remove the functions of agreeing to locality plans and nominating members to the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee. Now the Minister has stood up in the committee tonight and said that the process is exactly the same for the appointment of HMAC. No it's not. It's very clear when you read your tabled amendments that the Minister is actually changing that process and that there was a role for the iwi-Māori partnership boards in that and there was a role from—and it flows on so into the Hauora Māori Advisory Committee and into Te Aka Whai Ora. So the Minister is not correct when he is saying that the process has not changed at all and that it's the same that was in there before. My question to the Minister is: what weight will he give those priorities that are developed through clause 15 because what is the point of engaging with Māori—you know you're saying you're going to do it through the iwi-Māori partnership boards and you're saying you're going to do it through Hauora Māori Advisory Committee. But what weight are you actually going to give to those priorities because what I would argue is that what was in the legislation that you are changing and disestablishing were far more requirements to work in partnership to develop the health strategies the plans the objectives the Government policy statement and so on. So I want to know what weight the Minister will give to the priorities that come out of this process or will it just be a box-ticking exercise and lip service? Also there's no dispute resolution process in here. But I do want to take the opportunity to turn to clauses 23 25 29 and 30 because what concerns me is that these are the consequential amendments. So for example clause 23 amends section 50 which relates to the development of a New Zealand Health Plan and what it says is: "The effect of the amendment is that the plan will be developed solely by Health New Zealand."—right. Clause 25 amends section 52 which relates to the preparation of the annual performance report: "The effect of the amendment is that Health New Zealand will be solely responsible for preparing the annual performance report." Clause 29 amends section 57 which relates to the making of the New Zealand Health Charter: "The effect of the amendment is that Health New Zealand will be solely responsible for facilitating the making of the charter." Clause 30 amends section 58 by removing the reference to the Māori Health Authority: "The effect of the amendment is that Health New Zealand will be solely responsible for reporting on the charter."How can Māori have confidence when such significant changes are being made to the way in which our health system is going to operate that their voice is going to be reduced to a Hauora Māori Advisory Committee whom it says here the Minister can request information from. It doesn't even embed their functions. It doesn't give it any level of priority in his decision making. What confidence can Māori have? In these changes that the Minister is making he hasn't given any real detail on them. He has not defined "reasonable steps" he has not defined what "actual engagement" looks like and he has not defined what the systems for engaging are going to be. He has not defined the functions of the iwi-Māori partnership boards. He's pushed out for five years the localities planning which is kind of an important part of how you're going to have a bottom-up approach to the delivery of health services and how our communities are able through that process to identify what their needs and aspirations are—which you say you want to deliver on but actually you have no mechanisms to do that.So those are my questions to the Minister. Can he please provide us with some detailed answers because everybody is desperately wanting to hear how he's going to deliver on his vision with his proposed changes here."