Seymour DavidDAVID SEYMOUR (Leader—ACT): I was under the impression that the committee was only going to sit until 5.15 but I'm pleased to see there's always time for more democracy.Hon Andrew Little: We hadn't heard from that member yet—of course we had to hold on.DAVID SEYMOUR: Well thank you very much Andrew Little for your incomprehensible interjection there. One should try to open one's mouth fully to let the words get out completely.I wanted to address the very serious topic of the structure of the healthcare system because it seems to me—in fact it seemed for quite some time—that it is nonsensical for such a small population to have so many DHBs and for the DHBs to play the dual role of being a purchaser of services and a provider of services and the conflict of interest that that often leads to has led to much frustration on would-be contractors and also to I believe inefficiency in the delivery of healthcare for patients.What this recent COVID-19 crisis has done is that it has brought a lot of the inefficiency and the chaos that many people have known about for a long time to centre stage to the first item on the 6 o'clock news. I'll just give a simple example. That is the question of how much personal protective equipment (PPE) is available in New Zealand where is it and what are the criteria for people accessing it? For about 3½ weeks nobody anywhere could answer those basic questions. Now that's not a criticism of the Minister—I don't think it would've mattered who was in charge. The simple fact is that no matter who was elected to be in charge of this system no one had the information.I would counteract or compare that with for example The Warehouse Group. I guarantee you if you went and asked The Warehouse Group they could tell you where every single Tonka toy in their distribution system was right now and in 10 minutes' time and this time tomorrow. Yet the Ministry of Health wasn't able to track vital personal protective equipment in the midst of a crisis and it's difficult to avoid the suspicion that the structure of the healthcare system of having so many DHBs that are sort of almost feudal overlords of their particular patch each making their own rules each with their own protocols each with their own personalities—it's difficult to avoid the suspicion that that didn't have something to do with the fact that when it really mattered for a long period of time confusion reigned up and down the country about where the PPE was who could get it who was allowed to wear it.We had the Prime Minister and the Director-General of Health saying Hey look if you need to wear it you can and there's lot's available." Then I had constituents in the Epsom electorate who told me that they were threatened by their DHB employer because there wasn't enough to go around and even if they wore their own personally purchased PPE they would be setting a bad example that would put pressure on the DHB to have to give away what they had. That's a snapshot of our healthcare system through the lens of one you would think fairly simple and vital thing and that is PPE through a crisis.So the big question that I want to ask the Minister is: what is his vision for the structure of the healthcare system? But I also want to turn quickly to the provision—or production rather—of PPE because I've had people members of the public come and say to me that the Government contracts the factory in Whanganui to stockpile materials on the understanding that if there's a pandemic then the manufacturing will happen and the PPE will be produced fresh. I wonder if the Minister could confirm that that's roughly the arrangement.Second of all they said that the Government didn't put in the request for manufacturing to begin until well into March when it was obvious from February that this might just be the time that we needed that kind of contract and that the reason we've had such a shortage has been in part because the Government didn't properly utilise its contract for on-demand manufacturing. I wonder if the Minister could confirm if it's true that it has such an arrangement and when it actually invoked the clause that required the manufacturing to occur. Thank you Madam Chair."