Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
Hodgson Pete: General Debate 
[Volume:632;Page:3779] 
Hon PETE HODGSON (Minister of Health) 
: 
 It is a pleasure to follow such a thoughtful contribution from Tariana Turia. I thank her for her contribution and say there will be no difficulty for the Government in working with the Maori Party—and I hope with other members—on an issue of this gravity. Her words were very well placed and I congratulate her on them. 
There was an election campaign 9 months ago in which the National Party said an $11 million bribe would probably be enough to get it into power. It said it would put the money on the table—it was money that it did not have—and see whether it got a big enough bite. But when that bribe was put to the sniff test the New Zealand population said it did not think the bribe was affordable and that it would rather have a future where there was investment in services investment in infrastructure and investment in economic development. 
So this Government was returned to office. Within 6 months the results of our promises had started to flow—we began to deliver. On 1 April this year we rolled out the next phase of the Working for Families package. We said that interest on student loans would be abolished on 1 April this year. Those were policies that National fought bitterly. National fought them in the public press and in the House and it certainly fought them throughout the campaign. National does not like the idea of addressing childhood poverty if it comes at the expense of tax cuts for the rich. It does not like the idea of lightening the load of the New Zealand student population if it comes at the cost of lightening the tax load on the rich. 
The problem for National is that more is coming. We are now just a week and a bit away from the next tranche—on 1 July this year more promises will be kept. Month after month and year after year this Government keeps its promises and rolls out solutions to the problems that it sees are facing this country. So it is with the next phase of the primary health organisation roll-out. From 1 July a further 700000 New Zealanders will have access to lower doctors’ fees and to prescription charges of $3. That is the second to last change in the low fees roll-out of the Primary Health Care Strategy. The last phase of the roll-out will happen on 1 July next year when 25 to 44-year-olds will get access to cheaper doctors’ visits and a $3 prescription charge. 
Did National like that policy? It did not. Does National oppose it? Yes it does—it is National’s policy to oppose it. National members say 25 to 65-year-olds should not have access to cheap doctors’ visits. They think that 25 to 65-year-olds should have access to expensive doctors’ visits and to a prescription charge that is well above $3 per script. National has a view that that is the best way to run a health system because if it makes those savings by making sure that people pay more to go to a doctor then it can afford tax cuts for its rich buddies. What would happen of course is that the health of New Zealanders would be poorer as a result. 
The evidence for the importance of the Primary Health Care Strategy is legion; it comes from all over the place—including from international sources I might say. If people can get in to see a doctor a practice nurse or anyone in the primary health care sector in the early stages of their episodic or chronic illness then a country will end up with a better health outcome. Lowering fees is a way to achieve that. That is not all that the Primary Health Care Strategy is by any means; in fact the strategy is far more comprehensive and multilateral than that. But low fees are where we are beginning and low fees are what the National Party opposes—that is its stated policy. 
Then the question arises of whether National if it were ever returned to office would simply put those fees back up. Why did National Party members want those negotiations to fail? Why did they say the Government should not be future-proofing the Primary Health Care Strategy by making sure that future increases in doctors’ fees were modest rather than excessive? Why did they try to make sure those negotiations went bad? Why are they unhappy that those negotiations succeeded? Why do they want New Zealanders to pay a whole lot more money to go to the doctor than is the case in many other countries? In Britain the fee for going to a general practitioner is zero. In Australia the fee for going to a general practitioner is about what it is under this Government and not what it would be had the National Party been re-elected. So it is around the world. Why is the National Party so out of date?