van Velden Brooke; Verrall AyeshaBROOKE VAN VELDEN (Deputy Leader—ACT): When I go out door-knocking and talking to Kiwis a comment I receive often is It feels like the Government is taking more of our money the Government is spending more of our money and yet we don't feel like we're getting any added benefit from it." I want to look at the core Crown expenses of health. In 2018 the Government was spending around $17 billion on the healthcare system; in 2022 it was $28 billion. We've seen health spending increase by around 60 percent in four years and yet it feels like our healthcare system has gone backwards. We have seen wait times increase for surgeries for the emergency departments for dental care. We have more and more people waiting longer for their CT scans and their MRI scans. How is it possible that this Government is spending more and more money and yet people feel like our healthcare system is moving to being Third World? What added value are we getting for all of this increased spending and is it good enough?Hon Dr AYESHA VERRALL (Minister of Health): I can reply to the question about home and care support workers that this is a negotiation that is currently ongoing so for obvious reasons we won't be stating the amount that has been put aside for any settlement there. In terms of the black mould discovered in Middlemore in the year under review the cladding has been replaced to the sewerage system joints to stop further leaking. There was a historical problem with leaky buildings and that work has been completed in 2021.With respect to Ms van Velden's questions I see the matter very differently. I reflect on the time I worked in the health system which was a time during the global financial crisis where essentially there was a policy of austerity for the health system; where we didn't get our regular uplifts in terms of wages in the health system; where we didn't get increase in spending for medicines so our purchasing power for lifesaving treatments decreased; where there wasn't investment in capital expenditure—some years zero; absolutely zero. You think about the size of the capital that we own and to put nothing aside for health system capital is absolute malpractice on the part of that Government that her party supported. So we have had to play catch-up in terms of raising wages which we have done—nursing wages are up 34 percent under this Government for graduate nurses; over 40 percent for senior nurses and we've made progress across a range of other vital clinicians in terms of addressing their very legitimate claims for pay. Medicines budgets have gone up and that is what is giving people Trikafta and Spinraza and treatment for HIV and preventing HIV for multiple forms of blood cancer. That Pharmac budget under our time has increased 43 percent and that is having a very real impact on the lives of New Zealanders that those medicines are saving.When we came into Government we had to reverse the effect of that austerity on our health system and it would take time at the best of times—and then there was a pandemic. So we've backed our health system through that pandemic we have backed our workers and kept them safe where around the world over a hundred thousand healthcare workers died in COVID—we didn't have that experience here in New Zealand. I accept there is much more to do but I heartily reject the austerity in our health system. That was the policy of the last Government."