6. Health Minister—Involvement in Nurses' Industrial ActionHon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of HealthHealth Minister—Involvement in Nurses' Industrial Action6. Hon MICHAEL WOODHOUSE (National) to the Minister of Health: Does he stand by all his answers to Oral Question No 9 yesterday?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER (Associate Minister of Health) on behalf of the Minister of Health: Absolutely.Hon Michael Woodhouse: When he challenged the first part of supplementary question No. 5 was he denying that he had intervened in the nurses' pay dispute or denying that his intervention was unsuccessful?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Mr Speaker. For clarity I did not intervene in the negotiations.Hon Michael Woodhouse: If giving the District Health Boards (DHBs) additional funding to increase the offer to nurses doesn't constitute intervening what in his view does?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. I'll take your advice on this but it seems to me that's a hypothetical question.SPEAKER: The members are allowed to ask hypothetical—Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: With an assertion in it.SPEAKER: I think it was a reasonable question. If the member thinks it's too hypothetical or rejects the assertion she can say so.Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: I reject the assertion implied in the first part of that question.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. It's very difficult for the Minister to reject an assertion that the Minister himself has made and that is an admission in question No. 9 yesterday that they had increased funding but that that didn't constitute an intervention in a pay dispute. My question was if that didn't constitute intervening what would. The assertion about not intervening is being challenged—I can't see how that could be the case. [Interruption]SPEAKER: Are you speaking to the point of order?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: No.SPEAKER: Does the member want to have a—I think there are two—no I want to be careful about coaching. There's a—Hon Grant Robertson: I think it's completely legitimate for two people to have different understandings of the word intervention". One can be quite a pejorative one; one can be a less pejorative one.SPEAKER: I couldn't have put it better myself.Hon Gerry Brownlee: Well it's very well put and for that reason I'd seek leave for this question to be held over until the Minister of Health is able to answer it.SPEAKER: Is there any objection to this question being held over—is the member asking for it to be an additional question?—Hon Gerry Brownlee: Yes of course.SPEAKER: —as an additional question next time the Minister's available? Is there any objection to that? There is objection.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Just to clarify before I ask a supplementary question are you saying that that question has been addressed?SPEAKER: It has been as much as a hypothetical question has to be addressed. They can be asked but Ministers don't have to respond. Speaker's ruling 165/1 I think is the appropriate Speaker's ruling.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Thank you. Is he planning to further not intervene by providing additional funding that he claims is needed in the sector in order to prevent the industrial action by nurses?SPEAKER: No. Irony—an absolutely ironic question. The member can rephrase it if he wants to.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Is he planning to increase funding to DHBs that he claims is needed in the sector in order to prevent industrial action by nurses?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister it's pretty clear after nine years of horrific underfunding of the health system that we need to increase funding to the health system and that's unrelated to negotiations around pay.Hon Michael Woodhouse: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The question was pretty clear: is he planning to increase funding to settle the dispute? I don't believe that was addressed.SPEAKER: Well I think it was addressed. I think it was a very—[Interruption] You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that if a Minister says there's been severe underfunding they'll be in severe trouble if it's not in some way remedied over the next couple of months.Hon Michael Woodhouse: Aren't his refusal to meet the Otago branch of the New Zealand College of Midwives about their funding concern his refusal to speak to Radio Live this morning about nurses' pay and bullying and a number of other examples of failure to engage the health sector better examples of his strategy of non-intervention?Hon JULIE ANNE GENTER: On behalf of the Minister I reject all the assertions in that question."