Roy Heather: General Debates 
Roy Heather: General Debates 
[Volume:615;Page:11099] 
HEATHER ROY (ACT) 
: 
 Last week I told the House of my concerns that there had been misappropriation of health moneys through Tihi Ora Mapo. Mapo are Maori co-purchasing organisations established through treaty-based relationships with the then North Health to increase Maori participation in health. They were established between 1995 and 1999 and it would be helpful if the National Party would say that those separate forms of funding were established under it. I like all other New Zealanders admire people who can stand up and say: “We didn’t get it right but we now know that this is the way things should be done.” 
We know now how our public health system works. In New Zealand we have two streams of funding and two standards of accountability. A very good example of this is Tihi Ora Mapo. This is what happens when there are two separate systems operating for different people in one nation. Tihi Ora Mapo receives around $1 million of funding each year directly from the Ministry of Health. 
There has been much debate in this House in the last 2 weeks about whether programmes are funded on race or on need. We know that this Government bases its funding formula for health on race not on need. So one section of the community is getting special treatment while other people—white people in particular Europeans—in a great deal of need are missing out in many areas. 
The primary health organisations are a prime example of the way funding is based on race. There are Maori people on over $100000 a year who can see their doctors for $10 while a solo mother living in a middle-class area goes to her primary health organisation and has to pay $45 for the same doctor’s appointment. The Prime Minister’s comments have been very interesting. I quote from the Christchurch  
Press 
 of 17 February: “Miss Clark said Labour did not fund on race but on need.”She went on to say in the same article that the Government could take a look through and assure itself that what it was doing was thoroughly based on need. That clearly is not the case. There are two streams of funding and two standards of accountability in health.  
Members might remember that concerns were raised about this mapo last August. The NgatiWhatua were so concerned that off their own bat they employed a private investigator Mr Michael Crawford to look into where approximately $250000 of the $1 million the mapo received last year had disappeared to. It had gone along with two laptops that were thought and are still thought to contain incriminating evidence.  
I raised these concerns in Parliament last week. They have been known since August last year. The Ministry of Health became aware of them at the end of October last year. The Minister of Health has known about them since January this year but it was not until I raised this concern in Parliament last week that anything was done about it. The chief executive officer Mr KereCookson-Ua who had been on sick leave for many months has now resigned. Unfortunately the two laptop computers have not been returned and it is not known where they are.  
This whole scenario raises many questions and I have questions for the Minister of Health who does have responsibility for this area. The first is what has happened to the two laptop computers. The second and most important is why the police have not been called and a search warrant executed. What has the Ministry of Health done to deal with this issue since it first received advice of these concerns on 31 October last year? What has the Minister done since January when she became aware of these concerns? I have written to her but she has not answered me.  
Why has the Auditor-General not been alerted and why does it take an Opposition MP to raise concerns in this House before this two streams of funding two systems of accountability issue is addressed?