Hutchison Paul: General Debate 
Hutchison Paul: General Debate 
[Volume:626;Page:21154] 
Dr PAUL HUTCHISON (National—Port Waikato) 
: 
 I always marvel at the avian-like warble that emanates from the member for Whanganui. Thank goodness it cannot be replicated ever again any time or anywhere in New Zealand. 
Today I want to talk about the mess that this Labour Government has made of health. Dr Jonathan Simon one of New Zealand’s most eminent general practitioners said in the  
New Zealand Herald  
the other day: “When we look at the significant investment in the health sector over the past four years it is devastating to see how little effect it has had.” That is hugely serious given the $3.5 billion that this Labour Government has put into health much of which has been wasted. As Dr Simon said: “Pouring more money into the system without significant functional change is like pouring water into a coarse sieve.” That is exactly what this Labour Government has done over the last 5 years with health. 
There is no doubt that the system it has created has been absolutely characterised by massive bureaucracy by waste by poor productivity and by unfulfilled expectations. Labour went around in the 1990s raising everybody’s hopes saying that for a little bit more tax it would do all sorts of wonderful things and fix health and education. It certainly raised the tax—by $10 billion. But in terms of health what has it done? 
Let us have a look at the bureaucracy alone. The Government created 21 district health boards with three sets of extra committees then it created the 77 primary health organisations with these other committees 12 in each one of them so 77 times 12 is the number that this Labour Government has created. This is not to mention the Ministry of Health which the Minister said would be decreased by 25 percent when there was devolution of care to the 21 district health boards. What happened? The ministry increased by 25 percent. That is the very bureaucracy that this Labour Government has created and it is causing the huge problems of lack of productivity in the sector. 
The real agenda is to nationalise the New Zealand health scheme just like the British National Health Service which has 1.3 million employees. 
It is the third-largest employer in the world second only to the Chinese Red Army. The first-largest employer is the Indian Railways. 
That is the direction this Labour Government has set for health services in New Zealand—massive complicated bureaucracy that is wasting a huge amount of money. The tragedy is that it has added another $3.5 billion and there is no measurable improvement in health outcomes. I asked the Minister of Health today whether she could name one measurable improvement in health outcomes and she could not. She absolutely failed to do that. 
Let us look at the primary health organisation experiment. We have 77 primary health organisations with a budget of $1.7 billion and there has been no measurable improvement in health outcomes. Let us see what the research from Victoria University has shown and I quote: “Concerns were raised by some informants about the targeting of increased funding with claims that it had been imprecise and that money had been wasted on those who could afford to pay while affordable care was not as available for some groups who did not meet increased funding criteria.” That is what the Labour Government has created. It has created a situation whereby the Helen Clark’s or the Don Brash’s of this world get increased subsidies which they do not need to go to the doctor but the mother of three who has cancer does not receive the appropriate choice of drugs to help her breast cancer and that is particularly serious. 
Let us look at the 77 primary health organisations again. We know that two-thirds of them have fewer than 70000 people involved and the Labour Government is propping them up. It costs three times as much to perpetuate this monster per primary health organisation.