Campbell Hamish; Lyndon Hūhana; Reti ShaneDr HAMISH CAMPBELL (National—Ilam): Thank you Mr Chair. During the hearing process we frequently heard about cancer. So the question to the Minister—and I appreciate the answer that we've already had about first specialist assessments and emergency department wait times. But do you think targets are needed for faster cancer treatment and what can be done to address these cancer times?HŪHANA LYNDON (Green): Kia ora Mr Chair and to the Minister: again I just wanted to drill a little bit deeper in terms of my questioning of Te Whatu Ora in particular considering they have obligations through the pae ora legislation to reduce Māori health inequalities.I'm going back to Whānau Voice and localities during the reporting period. Te Whatu Ora did not fund locality establishment despite Iwi-Māori Partnership Boards (IMPBs) and iwi putting their hands up saying We are ready to go". There was no funding released during this reporting period. I as a member of the Health Committee posed these questions to Te Whatu Ora officials and did not get a clear answer. So really keen to see whether you might know and have better insight as to why we couldn't really get the lift-off that we needed in the locality space to really give oomph to the Whānau Voice.I'm further wanting to examine governance in the Te Whatu Ora space and considering finance capacity on Te Whatu Ora board. It's understood that there has been a gap in terms of finance capability on the board and considering now the $105 million - odd in shortfall—thinking about that capacity gap—why did Te Whatu Ora board not appoint earlier a finance capacity; and have they gone through a process to get some of that finance expertise on the board?Māori representation or Māori voice on Te Whatu Ora. It is understood that there is one member who is of Māori descent who also provides a clinical lens on Te Whatu Ora board alongside the outgoing chair of Te Aka Whai Ora. So if Te Whatu Ora is to become the authority and the beacon of hope for Māori health what is the plan in terms of capacity—knowing that the Te Aka Whai Ora board was strong in relationships on the ground and rolling out IMPBs—what can we look forward to as te iwi Māori? Kia ora.Hon Dr SHANE RETI (Minister of Health): Thank you Mr Chair. Officials have informed me that localities were funded. I can have them determine exactly by how much. I can't give you that answer here now but I have been informed they were funded.With regard to board changes in the period of review I believe there were board changes. In fact I believe one of your whanaunga Mataroria actually came on to the board during this period in review. So why there wasn't specific financial management brought on to the board—if that is your question—during this period that was outside of my hands. I don't know the answer to that so I can't address that. But I know there were definitely—I believe it was two or three at least board changes over this period of review.I wanted to talk to the question my colleague raised around cancer management during the period. Cancer management required several things. It always requires a health workforce. As we've said already that was a challenge in the period of review and remains a challenge here now. But the Health Workforce Plan did have endeavours as to how to change that. As I've said as a template at the moment that is a plan that I'm continuing.There were two health indicators that were measured—at least two—that talked to cancer: the 31-day and the 62-day. So there was some direction as we've said before. It just didn't have the focus that for want of a better word I might want to bring to cancer. During that period there was some progress on some of the infrastructure required for cancer management. I think if I go back it was 2018 maybe Minister David Clark first announced linear accelerators (LINACs)—the cancer radiotherapy programme to develop them I think it was 2018. Over this period they continued to slowly make their way through the various define design deliver and deploy sort of stages that the health infrastructure goes through. So there was progress on that. I can't off the top of my head think—and I'm happy to have that corrected—of any LINACs that were actually delivered during that period. Some of them actually may well be in this next year or two but that was another piece of work that was progressing in the cancer space."