Logie Jan: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — Third ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeLogie Jan: New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill — Third Reading[Sitting date: 12 May 2016. Volume:713;Page:11089. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JAN LOGIE (Green): I rise to take a call on this bill the New Zealand Public Health and Disability (Southern DHB) Elections Bill on behalf of the Green Party. The Green Party is continuing to oppose this bill at its third reading on the basis that it denies southerners the right to vote for their district health board in the 2016 elections. This is another piece of legislation that the Government has put before the House removing or compromising peoplein the South Island’s right to vote.I am a born and bred Southlander. My roots and family link strongly into Southland Otago and Canterbury and so to me this is an issue that affects my family. I believe passionately in people’s right to their democratic rights. I understand the issues that led to the appointment of the commissioners and the removal of the district health board and I will speak to that a little bit more. Our core objection is that although we understand the value of the continuation of the commissioners we believe that those commissioners could be ministerially appointed alongside an elected board. We have not heard any reason given by the Government as to why that could not happen. It has said that it is not legal although it has the power to appoint people to the board. It does not seem to make sense to me that they could not be appointed.I do object to this Government’s inferencethat southerners do not know what is best for them—you know I sometimes have cause to doubt that belief when I see National Party members elected in some areas while removing their rights—but I keep on going back to the fact that actually people do know what is best for their communities. Sometimes particularly with district health boards that can get confusing. It is hard to know who people are and to know who you are voting for. But the answer to that is not to remove people’s right to vote; it is actually to put more resource into supporting those democratic conversations and the connection between the democratically elected representatives and the people. We need more resources put into that in the country. I do think that although the system may not be perfect it is the best system that we have and it is what gives all of our processes legitimacy.So I would like to speak a little bit to the reasons that have been given and the focus of the work of the commissioner which is around the financial stability of the Southern District Health Board. It was thrown into instability and deficit and the Greens did have concerns about the district health board’s lack of strength in advocating to the Government for more resources and challenging the decisions that were being made from Wellington particularly when the district health boards were merged.These are massive areas you know—I think it was said in the example given earlier that there are 290000 people over a land mass the size of Belgium. The board is working under a funding system set up by this Government of population-based funding. We know that population-based funding works quite well for medium-sized populations—relatively dense populations. There are two key areas where it does not work so well. One is rural populations where the population is well spread out and you do not have that density of population. It makes sense. It is kind of obvious that it is going to be difficult to provide those core services across those areas under a population-based model. The other area where it does not work so well is in the tertiary-level service like our training hospital in Otago in Dunedin.In terms of the two things that compromise population-based funding the Southern District Health Board experiences both of those. It is affected by both of those core factors. So although we can put in commissioners and say that it is going to solve the problem and that that justifies denying the people the right to vote unless the Government addresses the core reason behind the financial instability we are not solving the problem and we are not serving the people.Everyone in this House knows that when you do a survey of people about where they want their taxes to go health and education come up every time. I just think of my dad living in a rural community in Otago. He has been given a diagnosis of glaucoma which is something that needs early treatment. He is waiting for his appointment. We do not know when that is going to be and while he is waiting that damage is accruing and it is irreversible. Health care and health services matter to every single family in the southern region in the cities and in the rural areas and it does not just affect the people who are facing illness or disease; it affects their entire family. As a country we need to do better.The Green Party does not believe that appointing commissioners and denying people the right to vote or to engage in the process of decision making around the funding and the use of funding is the best way to solve those problems. We believe that the best way to solve those problems in the south is to make sure that their funding model is appropriate to the region to have the experts sitting alongside the elected representatives to put more effort into transparency and engagement to make sure that those decision makers are delivering a service that meets the needs of the community to open up more pathways for people to be able to express what their needs and concerns are and to listen to these people and respond to them. Removing a level of democracy and saying “Actually we think Wellington’s vision of what is important and of what the needs of this community are is more important than yours.” is not the way to shift that system and make it more responsive to the needs of the community. It just does not make sense. If you need the expertise and you are concerned about potential deficits in expertise you put the experts alongside those elected members to be able to help. You do not remove that democratic right or that democratic process.So it is very unfortunate considering the massive issues facing the region and the importance of health to those communities—and to all of us—that the Government is sticking with its approach of: “We know best. We’ll sort this out. Don’t you worry your pretty little heads southerners we’ll sort it.” It has not worked so far and we do not have confidence that it will. Thank you.